To gain admission to the local church school near my home, parents were always advised to attend church. Otherwise, they were told, they should try elsewhere. The result was local antagonism: cars and buses filled with local children were ferried to more distant schools. It was a bad system in every sense.
In 2010, in an attempt to stem the growth of sectarian free schools, the Cameron government imposed a 50% cap on “faith admissions” where schools were oversubscribed. Now Rishi Sunak is proposing to end that cap. To encourage their creation, new faith-based schools – Anglican, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, whatever – can be as exclusive as they want. Since most faith schools tend to become socially selective and thus enjoy parental preference, the move has been welcomed by church leaders. They have something to sell. Anything will do to counter plummeting church attendance.
