Faith Schools Top New Primary School League Table
Faith schools have come out top in a new league table of primary schools published this week by the government.
by Maria Mackay
Posted: Thursday, December 7, 2006, 6:26 (GMT)
Faith schools have come out top in a new league table of primary schools published this week by the government.
Of the 209 primaries achieving "perfect" results, Church of England, Roman Catholic and Jewish schools account for a considerable 127.
All pupils at the "perfect primaries" reached the expected standard for 11-year-olds in English, maths and science.
The new league table of nearly 16,000 primaries shows a massive rise in the number of faith schools making the top category.
Faith schools currently make up just a third of all schools in England. While in 2005 faith schools made up 44 per cent of the top primaries, this proportion has risen to more than 60 per cent this year, The Telegraph reports.
Oona Stannard, chief executive of the Catholic Education Service, said in the newspaper that the results reflected the quality of education in church schools. "I think these results justify what we have been saying. I get fed up with this hoary chestnut that our schools do not have a typical intake," she said.
"Catholic schools have just as many children who have free school meals, they are ethnically diverse and around 30 per cent, on average, are non-Catholic."
The league tables also revealed, however, that real progress across the board had stalled. The government fell short of its goal of 85 per cent pass marks at the Key Stage 2 test, reaching 79 per cent. The maths and science test results both showed an improvement of one per cent.
Lord Adonis, the schools minister, said: "Despite this progress, more needs to be done. We are determined to redouble our efforts to help the one in five 11-year-olds who are still not reaching the standard required of their age in literacy and mathematics."
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Added: Monday, December 11, 2006, 12:10 (GMT)
The study by Gibbons and Silva of LSE is just the latest one to show that selection of various sorts for parents and children is the principal factor in any league table success. At the moment any advantage is small, but if through government partiality and propaganda and natural tendency of parents to go for the perceived better, the advantage were to increase, then the divisions in our school system and society would be dangerously exacerbated.
As for Catholic schools being diverse and representative, I would like to see the full figures. For Leicester's six Catholic Primary and two Catholic Secondary schools the comparative pupil percentages, Catholic (All), for the main groups in 2005 were:
Religion:
Primaries: Christian 92 (26); Hindu 2 (14); Muslim 1 (25); Other Religion 1 (6); No Religion 2 (20)
Secondaries: Christian 93 (32); Hindu 2 (18); Muslim 0 (19); Other Religion 1 (6); No Religion 0 (17)
Race:
Primaries: Asian 10 (37); Black 8 (8); Mixed 11(6); White 69 (46);
Secondaries: Asian 8 (39); Black 6 (6); Mixed 7(5); White 74 (48);
Admission policies for state that the first responsibility is to the children of Catholic families, and oversubscription criteria clearly give first preference to baptise Caholic Children.
Allan Hayes, Leicester UK
