DfE criticised after releasing voluntary aided faith school applicants

The Department for Education has been heavily criticised after it has released details of 14 proposed new voluntary-aided schools that would be able to select all their pupils on the basis of their faith.

Unions and charities have warned that increasing the number of voluntary aided faith schools could be a disaster for community cohesion and make social selection much worse.

The proposals include five Catholic, three Church of England, two Muslim, two Hindu, one Jewish and one other Christian school.

The majority of the 14 funding applications are located in the south – with five in London, three in Cambridgeshire and two in Hertfordshire.

A report from social mobility charity Sutton Trust calls on faith schools that are socially selective to admit more poorer pupils from local areas.

Sutton Trust chief executive James Turner said: “Lifting the restrictions on the proportion of pupils that new faith schools can select on the basis of faith is unlikely to address this social selectivity and could make matters worse.”

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:

“The priority for the use of scarce capital funding should be to meet demographic need by providing local school places for local children and we have to question whether the decision to fund new faith schools is the best way to achieve this objective.

“It is hugely beneficial for children to be able to mix with people from a variety of backgrounds and this helps to promote community cohesion.”

Kevin Courtney, joint Gnereal Secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said the union was opposed to fully selective schools “whether they are secular or faith schools”.

He said: “The NEU supports an inclusive and comprehensive education system that provides high-quality education to all pupils whatever their faith, ethnic origin, economic or social background.”