Faith groups pledge commitment to school admissions code

Representatives of Britain's major faith groups have issued a joint statement pledging to meet government guidelines on school admissions.

The statement was issued in response to the findings of a survey by Chief Schools Adjudicator Sir Philip Hunter into all 150 local authorities in England and more than 3,000 voluntary aided and foundation schools.

The study found more than 3,600 breaches of the Government's school admissions code, although it concluded that most had not been intentional.

The breaches, the study noted, were caused mainly by schools failing to properly define terms such as "place of residence" or "distance from school to home".

In their joint statement, Christian, Muslim and other faith representatives said the publication of Sir Philip's study was a "golden opportunity to stress our continuing commitment to ensuring that the admissions procedures of schools with a religious character are genuinely fair, simple and transparent".

They would, the statement added, "tackle head-on any examples of technical or interpretive errors, which, unfortunately, might have contributed to negative commentary about 'faith schools' in general".

"Growing numbers of maintained schools with a religious character are facing increasing demand for school places from parents of all faiths and none," the statement continued.

"We very much appreciate the need for parents to easily be able to access and understand the criteria used locally for determining how priority will be assessed if a school is oversubscribed.

"With this in mind we will continue to encourage and support governing bodies of schools with a religious character across the country to comply with both the letter and the spirit of the School Admissions Code."

Faith schools have been forced in recent years to deny accusations of 'cherry-picking' the best students and causing division in society. In October, the Church of England published a survey which revealed strong support for faith-based schools whilst bringing to light widespread misgivings among the public about the fairness of their admissions policies. The Church of England said at the time that it would work on better communicating its admissions policies.

Signatories of Monday's statement included the Chief Education Officer of the Church of England Board of Education, the Rev Janina Ainsworth, the Chief Executive of the Catholic Education Service, Oona Stannard, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, Henry Grunwald, the Chair of the Education Committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, Shahid Akmal, and the Director of the Hindu I-Foundation, Nitesh Gor.