Faith schools are dominating new league tables, according to official rankings published by the Department for Education.
The last government figures list all 289 institutions whose results were published and where 100% of their children achieved the government benchmark of Level 4 for both English and maths in the national curriculum tests known as Sats. The schools have then been ranked by their average point scores.
The figures show that almost two-thirds of primary schools with top Sats results were Church of England, Roman Catholic or Jewish schools. Nearly every 11-year-old pupil in a faith school was a whole academic year ahead of the Government’s target level.
The results appeared as head teachers rejected claims of selection “by the backdoor”. Barbara Jarrett, head teacher of St Wilfrid’s Catholic primary, Sheffield, which ranked third overall in the tables, attributed its success to “Christian values at the heart of everything we do”.
“It’s all about shared values. We expect our children to be respectful, care for each other, be committed and hard working. Our values reflect the values of our church,” she said.
“And we encourage children to have a love of learning and a belief in their own ability to do well. Too many people in this country are not prepared to put in the effort to achieve. We don’t want our children to be among them.
“There is a real crisis in our education system today, and we call on the Government to learn lessons from faith schools,” she added.
In November 2009, another report revealed that secondary schools run by faith groups are better at building community cohesion than secular schools are. The study, led by Professor David Jesson of the University of York, analysed the Ofsted reports of 400 schools and concluded that secondary schools run by faith groups scored eleven per cent higher for their promotion of community cohesion compared with secular schools.
In May 2009, Revd Janina Ainsworth, the Church of England’s Chief Education Officer, wrote a letter to The Times saying that opponents of faith schools want to strip them of the ethos which helps “to make these schools distinctive, popular and successful”.
“Their proposals to strip faith schools of the right to use any faith-based admissions criteria would dilute a key ingredient that can help to make these schools distinctive, popular and successful.
“The thousands of staff, governors and parents involved in creating inclusive, distinctively Christian learning environments in voluntary-aided church schools will say with one voice that their motivation is to provide the best possible place for children to learn and develop, spiritually, socially and academically,” she wrote.
Sources
Newbury Today
Daily Mail
Daily Telegraph
BBC News
Daily Telegraph (Commentary)
Financial Times
Church of England
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