Secretary of State for Education (): Today, I wish to inform
the House that we are consulting on faith designation reforms for
new and existing free schools and special academies.
These reforms will build on our success in raising standards in
our schools, with 90% of schools now rated “Good” or
“Outstanding” up from just 68% in 2010. A key driver of this
progress has been our academies programme which has put schools
in the hands of education experts. Today, over half of
state-funded schools are now academies, totalling 10,839 compared
to just 203 in 2010. High quality multi-academy trusts are key to
driving up education standards for pupils, teachers and leaders.
The best trusts enable the most effective leaders to support a
greater number of schools and deliver school improvement, by
directing resources to where they are needed the most. This
underpins our focus on continuing to improve standards in
schools, providing the best education for children, including for
those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with special
educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The Church of England, the Catholic Church and other faith school
providers are long-standing and valued partners of my department
and are a key part of our diverse school system, representing a
third of all schools in England. Faith schools are judged ‘Good'
or ‘Outstanding' at a higher rate than the national average and
are, as a consequence, very popular with parents. Helping more
faith schools to join academy trusts and removing barriers to the
creation of more faith school places is a critical next step in
the government's plan to give every child a world-class
education.
At the moment, the government requires admission authorities for
a mainstream free school designated with a religious character to
allocate at least 50% of its available places without reference
to faith-based admission criteria, when oversubscribed. The
original aim of that restriction was to promote a more inclusive
intake in those schools. However, the evidence suggests that the
50% faith admissions cap has not achieved inclusivity. It has
also worked against creating more good school places because some
faith bodies, such as the Catholic Church and its dioceses, have
felt unable to establish new free schools on this basis.
Our proposals will remove the cap and, by doing so, increase the
number of good school places where there is demand from
communities, ensuring parents have more choice over where they
send their child to school. The application process for new free
schools will continue to require applicants to consider how the
school will promote cohesion, integration and tolerance in the
school community. As already set in regulations, all schools –
including free schools designated with a religious character –
must promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the
rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance
for those of different faiths and beliefs.
We are also consulting on changing our policy to allow special
academies to be designated with a religious character. This will
encourage high quality faith school providers with a track record
of high performance to consider applying to establish new special
academies and free schools within their multi-academy trusts.
This builds on our delivery of over 60,000 new places for
children or young people with SEND or who require alternative
provision, with a £2.6 billion package to improve SEND services
between 2022 and 2025. Faith schools have a long and positive
history of providing education and support to these children.
There are 241 faith schools in England providing specialist
units, which provide high quality education and support for
pupils with SEND. In addition, a number of faith providers have
experience of delivering dedicated special schools in the
independent sector, and through the provision of non-maintained
special schools with a faith ethos and special academies with a
faith ethos.
I think it is important to capitalise on all of the expertise in
the special needs sector in order to meet the challenge of
ensuring access to the right provision for every child. I want to
ensure that all faith groups feel able to open special academies
and provide high quality places for pupils with complex special
educational needs and disabilities, who would be admitted on the
basis of their need, not their faith.
These proposals apply to England only and the consultation will
run for 7 weeks, closing on 20 June 2024. The consultation and
the government response will be published on GOV.UK. We will also
place a copy of the government response in the Library of both
Houses.
A consultation will allow my department to capture and consider a
wide range of views, about how our proposals to change policy are
likely to impact schools, local authorities, parents, children,
and young people. We will consider all responses to the
consultation and use them to inform our proposals for better
meeting the policy objectives of faith schools.
