Church school selection practices
A couple of days ago I covered the plan to set up a stricter code of conduct for school selection. In light of that it’s was interesting to see an article in the The Independent on a study which revelealed that church schools are taking in fewer children from low income families than secular schools in the same areas. Of course it is possible that a lower percentage of religious families have low income which would skew the statistics. If it is found that church schools are attempting to select on academic ability in addition to their already debatable selection practices then the education authorities should certainly take action.
The same study also showed that the new academies (which I’m not fond of) established as part of recent controversial education reforms are taking in more than their share of pupils who are eligible for free school meals (the indicator used for low income) which will probably be used as an argument in favour of increasing the number of academies.