Landmark report revealed near-universal non-compliance with School Admissions Code among religiously selective schools

Following a report published by the Fair Admissions Campaign (FAC) last year revealing that almost every religiously-selective school in England is breaking the law, the Education Secretary has announced she now plans to ban groups and organisations from officially raising concerns about the admission arrangements of schools. In a thinly veiled attack on FAC and the British Humanist Association (BHA), which produced the report on behalf of FAC, the ban, which was first suggested by a variety of religious organisations in a meeting with Department for Education (DfE) officials last year, is specifically targeted at ‘secular campaign groups’, according to Nicky Morgan. FAC has described the proposal as an ‘affront to both democracy and the rule of law’, stating that it will allow religiously selective schools to continue abusing the system and unfairly discriminate against a huge number of children in the process.

Under current rules, any citizen or civil society organisation is allowed to lodge an objection with the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) if they believe a school has failed to comply with the School Admissions Code. In the absence of a body actively enforcing compliance with the Code, these objections from parents, local authorities, charities, and other organisations, represent the only impartial means of ensuring that schools adhere to the law and do not attempt to manipulate their intakes.

Despite this, the Government is now proposing to prohibit organisations from lodging objections with the OSA, largely in response to a joint FAC/BHA report published last year. The report, entitled An Unholy Mess: How virtually all religiously selective schools are breaking the law, detailed the rulings of the OSA on the admission arrangements of a small sample of religiously selective schools, finding widespread violations of the Code in every case. These violations acted to prevent parents from gaining fair access to state schools and the consequent rulings added credence to long-standing concerns about the cynical way in which religious selection is carried out in ‘faith’ schools. These concerns were widely shared by parents and clearly indicated that more needs to be done to enforce the Code, not less.

The Education Secretary’s comments represent the first time Nicky Morgan has confirmed her plan to push ahead with the ban, stating: ‘we are ensuring only local parents and councils can object to admissions arrangements, which will also put a stop to vexatious complaints against faith schools by secularist campaign groups’. The Government have stated that they plan to launch a consultation on the proposals in the next few months.

BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson commented: ‘We all need to be clear about what is happening here. A near-universal failure to adhere to the law in a particular area has been identified. Instead of moving to enforce the law, the Government has responded by planning to make it harder to identify future violations of it. This is an affront to both democracy and the rule of law. It will reduce parents’ fair choice of state schools in the interests of the religious organisations that run them at taxpayers’ expense and demonstrates the Government is more interested in concealing the appalling record of religious schools manipulating their intakes than it is in addressing the serious problems this causes.

‘The report we published last year was provoked by the high volume of requests for help we receive every year from parents who are victims of the unfair system, and it revealed that a huge number of children are being unfairly denied places at their local schools due to the abuse of the admissions system by religiously-selective schools. Any restrictions on who can object will not only allow this to continue, it will encourage it by drastically reducing the accountability of the admissions process. The Government is due to consult on this draconian intervention in the next few months, and we will certainly be encouraging everyone who believes in a fairer, more transparent, and less discriminatory education system to respond and oppose the proposals.

‘In the past, civil servants from the Department for Education have often welcomed, indeed encouraged, ours and others’ exposing of schools that are frustrating Government policy by unfairly and unlawfully restricting parental access to and choice of state schools. This sudden change of attitude will be to the detriment not just of transparency in a vital public service, but also to the whole of society, and in particular to parents and children, in whose interest the publicly funded education system should surely be run.’

Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, Chair of the Accord Coalition, commented, ‘The proposed change is an attempt to deter challenges by those concerned with educational probity. Parents will have concerns about the fate of a particular child, but there is evidence of systemic problems in schools – for instance, when faith schools use criteria about the religious involvement of parents – and it is vital that groups such as the Fair Admissions Campaign are able to expose them. Far from being unwarranted, such challenges are very much in the public interest, not to mention the children who are being discriminated against.’

Notes

For further comment or information please contact Jay Harman on info@fairadmissions.org.uk or 020 7324 3078.

Read the report An Unholy Mess: How virtually all religiously selective schools are breaking the law: https://humanism.org.uk/2015/10/01/an-unholy-mess-new-report-reveals-near-universal-noncompliance-with-school-admissions-code-among-state-faith-schools-in-england/

Read the FAC’s briefing on the report: https://fairadmissions.org.uk/anunholymess-briefing/

Particularly notable findings of the report include:

• Almost one in five schools were found to require practical or financial support to associated organisations – through voluntary activities such as flower arranging and choir-singing in churches or in the case of two Jewish schools, in requiring membership of synagogues (which costs money).
• Over a quarter of schools were found to be religiously selecting in ways not deemed acceptable even by their relevant religious authorities – something which the London Oratory School was also found guilty of earlier this year.
• A number of schools were found to have broken the Equality Act 2010 in directly discriminating on the basis of race or gender, with concerns also raised around discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and socio-economic status.
• A majority of schools were found not to be sufficiently prioritising looked after and previously looked after children (LAC and PLAC) – in most cases discriminating in unlawful ways against LAC and PLAC who were not of the faith of the school, and in a few rare cases not prioritising LAC and PLAC at all. A quarter of schools were also found to not be making clear how children with statements of special educational needs were admitted.
• Almost 90% of schools were found to be asking for information from parents that they do not need. This included asking parents to declare their support for the ethos of the school and even asking for applicants’ countries of origin, whether or not they speak English as an additional language, and if they have any medical issues.
• Nearly every school was found to have problems related to the clarity, fairness, and objectivity of their admissions arrangements. This included a lack of clarity about the required frequency of religious worship and asking a religious leader to sign a form confirming religious observance, but not specifying what kind of observance is required.

The Fair Admissions Campaign wants all state-funded schools in England and Wales to be open equally to all children, without regard to religion or belief. The Campaign is supported by a wide coalition of individuals and national and local organisations. We hold diverse views on whether or not the state should fund faith schools. But we all believe that faith-based discrimination in access to schools that are funded by the taxpayer is wrong in principle and a cause of religious, ethnic, and socio-economic segregation, all of which are harmful to community cohesion. It is time it stopped.

Supporters of the campaign include the Accord Coalition, the British Humanist Association, Professor Ted Cantle and the iCoCo Foundation, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, British Muslims for Secular Democracy, the Campaign for State Education, the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education, the Christian think tank Ekklesia, the Hindu Academy, the Green Party, the Liberal Democrat Education Association, Liberal Youth, the Local Schools Network, Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign, the Runnymede Trust, the Socialist Educational Association, and the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches.

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• many of those who are being disadvantaged are of South Asian heritage and from a Muslim background, and that the school system is becoming systemically discriminatory on these grounds
• families losing out are those that would wish to send their child to the same school as other local families, but are being prevented from doing so
• the disadvantage is being entrenched, as successive generations from the same families lose out
• the discrimination is undermining the Government’s current Counter-Extremism Strategy of building ‘cohesive communities, tackling the segregation and feelings of alienation that can help provide fertile ground for extremist messages’
• the disadvantage goes against the values of faith groups and their common desire to support those in society who are marginalised
• the problems are set to only worsen due to demographic change, unless reforms are made

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said ‘At a time when the Government is seeking to prioritise policies to combat extremism and boost opportunity for social integration, it seems deeply irresponsible that many faith schools should be undermining these goals by entrenching segregation and privilege on racial grounds.

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Following an objection submitted by the Fair Admissions Campaign, a Jewish state school in north London has been told by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator that it must remove from its admission policy the requirement that parents adhere to a strict set of rules relating to their sex life. Hasmonean High School in Barnet had been asking prospective parents whether or not they followed the ‘laws of family purity’, which forbid a husband and wife from engaging in sexual relations during the period of her menstruation, and for seven days afterwards. The Fair Admissions Campaign, which calls for an end to religious selection in all schools, has condemned the practice and welcomes the adjudicator’s decision.

Assessing whether or not the requirement, which appears as part of the Questionnaire for Rabbis, represented a fair, clear and objective criterion, as is required by the School Admissions Code, the adjudicator stated that ‘some parents applying for places at the school may find it embarrassing or intrusive’. He went on to conclude that it would not be possible for a Rabbi to objectively assess observance of the law, and therefore ordered the school to remove the requirement from its admission arrangements.

Speaking to the FAC, a member of the local Jewish community commented, ‘As a prospective parent applying to the school, I was shocked to see that they thought it either appropriate or relevant to ask about adherence to these rules, not simply due to their extremely intimate nature, but also because they don’t affect anyone apart from husband and wife. That of course is not to mention the fact that it would be impossible for the Rabbi to verify it, even if he was minded to. I’m pleased the form will now have to change for future years.’

This is the second year in a row that Hasmonean has been referred to the Adjudicator, and last year it was found to be directly discriminating on the basis of race, and possibly gender, under the Equality Act 2010.

This most recent case is the latest in a long line of examples of religiously selective schools making unreasonable demands as part of their admission arrangements, including prioritising children on the basis of activities such as bell ringing and flower arranging and seeking a commitment from parents that there would be no TV or internet in the home. It also comes just a few weeks after the FAC, together with the British Humanist Association (BHA), published a report revealing that almost every religiously selective secondary school in England was breaching the School Admissions Code in a variety of ways. This included failing to give the correct priority to children in care, asking for parents’ countries of origin or if English was their second language and even discriminating on the basis of race and gender.

Commenting on the ruling, Chair of the Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education, Rabbi Jonathan Romain, said ‘School should be about children and developing their education, not about parents and checking up on their religious observances. This case, along with numerous ones affecting church schools, highlights the pressing need to take faith criteria out of admissions procedures altogether. State school intakes should be open to all local children, irrespective of any religious practices that do or do not occur at home’.

Notes

For further comment or information, please contact Jay Harman on 020 7324 3078 or info@fairadmissions.org.uk.

Read the OSA’s full determination: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/466378/ADA2990_Hasmonean_High_School_Barnet_-_7_October_2015.pdf

Read the school’s admission documents: http://www.hasmonean.co.uk/information/admissions/

Read the FAC and BHA’s full report ‘An Unholy Mess: how virtually all religiously selective state schools in England are breaking the law’: https://fairadmissions.org.uk/anunholymess/

The Fair Admissions Campaign wants all state-funded schools in England and Wales to be open equally to all children, without regard to religion or belief. The Campaign is supported by a wide coalition of individuals and national and local organisations. We hold diverse views on whether or not the state should fund faith schools. But we all believe that faith-based discrimination in access to schools that are funded by the taxpayer is wrong in principle and a cause of religious, ethnic, and socio-economic segregation, all of which are harmful to community cohesion. It is time it stopped.

Supporters of the campaign include the Accord Coalition, the British Humanist Association, Professor Ted Cantle and the iCoCo Foundation, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, British Muslims for Secular Democracy, the Campaign for State Education, the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education, the Christian think tank Ekklesia, the Hindu Academy, the Green Party, the Liberal Democrat Education Association, Liberal Youth, the Local Schools Network, Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign, the Runnymede Trust, the Socialist Educational Association, and the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches.

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As many as hundreds of thousands of children have been unlawfully denied access to religiously selective state schools in England, almost all of which are failing to comply with the School Admissions Code, a major new report has revealed today.

‘An Unholy Mess: how virtually all religiously selective state schools in England are breaking the law’ has been produced by the British Humanist Association (BHA) on behalf of the Fair Admissions Campaign (FAC). It reveals ‘near-universal noncompliance’ with the School Admissions Code by religiously selective state secondary schools, which together with religiously selective primary schools account for well over a million state school places in England. The report details the rulings of the Schools Adjudicator on the admission arrangements of a sample of such schools, which found widespread violations of the Code in almost every case, confirming public concerns about the way in which religious selection is carried out in ‘faith’ schools.

The School Admissions Code sets out the rules that all state-funded schools in England must legally follow in setting their admission arrangements, and individuals are able to lodge objections with the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) if they believe a school has failed to comply.

In 2014 FAC did just that, lodging objections to the arrangements of a representative sample of nearly 50 religiously selective secondary schools. With rulings on all bar one of those objections now completed, the OSA identified well over a thousand Code breaches, with near-universal non-compliance amongst schools. The findings suggest that religiously selective secondary schools across England may be breaking the Admissions Code some 12,000 times between them. Given that 1.2 million school places in England are subject to religious selection criteria, the number of children who are unfairly losing out on places is significant.

The findings reinforce concerns previously raised by FAC, among others, regarding abuse of the admissions system by religiously selective schools, and point to the pressing need for reform. The report makes a series of recommendations to this effect, including calling for the Code to be revised in a number of areas, and for the establishment of an independent monitoring service to enforce better compliance. Ultimately, however, the report concludes that the system of religious selection must be abandoned altogether.

Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association, said, ‘Over a million state school places in England are subject to religious selection and it’s well known that religious schools have been abusing the admissions system for some time. Even so, no one can have imagined the problem was as widespread as this report shows. Of course, it’s a scandal to begin with that these schools are able by law to discriminate against children on the grounds of their parents’ religious beliefs, but the fact that they’re seeking to find further ways to turn children away is disgraceful. Religious selection by state schools is the archaic practice that allows these abuses and must be brought to an end.’

Professor Ted Cantle, Chair of the Institute of Community Cohesion (iCoCo) Foundation and author of the Cantle Report into the 2001 race riots, added, ‘The system by which religious schools are able to set their own admissions criteria is clearly not fit for purpose. Not only does it require each school to be incredibly well-versed in the regulations in this area, it also gives cover, as this report illustrates, to those schools that wish to manipulate their intake and discriminate against individual or certain groups of children. This is clearly unacceptable and the system urgently needs to change in order to address it.’

Overview of findings

Particularly notable findings of the report include:

• Almost one in five schools were found to require practical or financial support to associated organisations – through voluntary activities such as flower arranging and choir-singing in churches or in the case of two Jewish schools, in requiring membership of synagogues (which costs money).
• Over a quarter of schools were found to be religiously selecting in ways not deemed acceptable even by their relevant religious authorities – something which the London Oratory School was also found guilty of earlier this year.
• A number of schools were found to have broken the Equality Act 2010 in directly discriminating on the basis of race or gender, with concerns also raised around discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and socio-economic status.
• A majority of schools were found not to be sufficiently prioritising looked after and previously looked after children (LAC and PLAC) – in most cases discriminating in unlawful ways against LAC and PLAC who were not of the faith of the school, and in a few rare cases not prioritising LAC and PLAC at all. A quarter of schools were also found to not be making clear how children with statements of special educational needs were admitted.
• Almost 90% of schools were found to be asking for information from parents that they do not need. This included asking parents to declare their support for the ethos of the school and even asking for applicants’ countries of origin, whether or not they speak English as an additional language, and if they have any medical issues.
• Nearly every school was found to have problems related to the clarity, fairness, and objectivity of their admissions arrangements. This included a lack of clarity about the required frequency of religious worship and asking a religious leader to sign a form confirming religious observance, but not specifying what kind of observance is required.

Notes

For further information, please contact Richy Thompson on 07815589636 or email info@fairadmissions.org.uk.

Read the full report: https://fairadmissions.org.uk/anunholymess/

Read the FAC’s briefing on the report: https://fairadmissions.org.uk/anunholymess-briefing/

The Fair Admissions Campaign wants all state-funded schools in England and Wales to be open equally to all children, without regard to religion or belief. The Campaign is supported by a wide coalition of individuals and national and local organisations. We hold diverse views on whether or not the state should fund faith schools. But we all believe that faith-based discrimination in access to schools that are funded by the taxpayer is wrong in principle and a cause of religious, ethnic, and socio-economic segregation, all of which are harmful to community cohesion. It is time it stopped.

Supporters of the campaign include the Accord Coalition, the British Humanist Association, Professor Ted Cantle and the iCoCo Foundation, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, British Muslims for Secular Democracy, the Campaign for State Education, the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education, the Christian think tank Ekklesia, the Hindu Academy, the Green Party, the Liberal Democrat Education Association, Liberal Youth, the Local Schools Network, Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign, the Runnymede Trust, the Socialist Educational Association, and the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches.

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