In Pod Delusion 92 I covered the story of a school in Malton, North Yorkshire which may soon be taken over by the Church of England. I spoke with Richy Thompson who manages the British Humanist Association's Education campaign. I began by asking Richy why it is that schools can now be taken over by a church.
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As it stands, the acadamies act allows any sufficiently organized group to irreversably take-over a school. Simply obtain a majority on the school's board of governors and then use that to permanently change the school's appointment policy to exclude any non-members of your organization from any further influence.
There's very little that concerned parents and the broader community can do to obstruct the will of a determined board. I think we can expect religious groups of all kinds to take full advantage of this opportunity.
SF for the PD
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1. Why is it that all of a sudden schools which have been secular have suddenly descovered a need to become affiliated with a religion?
- Acadmies Act
2. When we spoke with Phillappa Hare, one of her biggest complaints was the lack of transparancey of the process. Schools liason staff and spokes-people from the Church of England seem to have materilized in Malton without any spesific invitation from the community. This seems to have been driven by the head-teacher and a minority of the governors. How is this possible?
3. So far thinks have been rather easy for the CofE - they seem to be getting their way mainly due to apathy. What (if anything) exists to prevent a sufficiently well-funded cult or religion taking over a school?
4. The proposals are somewhat vaguely worded - one thing nobody seems to have worked out is precisely what the Church of England expects to gain from this project. What sort of influence will the church get within the school and how has the church typically used this kind of power?
5. Are there sufficient checks & balances on religious schools to prevent excesses of religiosity, hate-speech and discimination against minorities? Is there any reason to suspect that faith based acadamies will be able to keep to the standard of non-descrimination that we might expect from a modern secular school?
6. The actual status of the school seems vague, do they simply require an anglican head-teacher or are they planning to reform the entire staff, governors and curriculum in the name of Christianity?
7. And what about admissions - the governors do not seem to have any plans to discriminate based on relgion right now. Could that change without causing problems with Ofstead?
8. If Malton School manages to change status - how significant is this? Given that this is the first status-change of it's kind it's likely to form the template of any future activity. An "easy-ride" will send a strong signal to other religious organizations that it's time for a land-grab.. who else might be next in line to take over our schools?
9. A lot of people seem to have an image of the CofE as being composed of cardigan Vicar of Dibley types who do nothing more than sip-tea and attend village fetes, but this well-funded organization has at it's heart evangelical and reactionary elements bordering on fundamentalist. Is the official chuch policy and practice compatible with the needs of a modern school?
- “Church schools should nourish those of faith; encourage those of other faiths; and challenge those of no faith.” This is still very much church policy, and was quoted in the CofE’s new school admissions guidelines that were
