Last week it was reported that 11-year-old Aston Padley, a committed Christian, has been turned down for a place at Wrexham's faith school, St Joseph's Catholic and Anglican School, because she is not an Anglican or Catholic, though the school's admissions policy clearly states that places are allocated to believers from these backgrounds†. The Jubilee Centre invited Beth Green, who recently completed a PhD studying the impact of a Bible-based ethos on a city technology college, to comment on why she thinks Christian engagement with these kinds of issues is vital for our society's future.

The Government has made a commitment to young people, their parents and to society. They have promised to create a school system in which young people can ‘enjoy childhood’ and ‘achieve success’[1]. They promise that all pupils will be able to go to a school where there is ‘good behaviour, strong discipline, order and safety’ and which is committed to the ‘promotion of health and well being’. If this is really such a radical new commitment from government then we have to ask what is happening in our schools and our society at present. If these are goals for education that most of us can agree on why then, is there so much contention regarding who may contribute to building the system of the future: the state, business & industry, faith groups, secular groups, community organisations and the list goes on. Education is the vehicle by which culture is reproduced, it reflects the religious and ideological beliefs of a society and establishes what it is that we value[2]. That is why there is argument and debate, we are struggling to sense what we as a society will value in these uncertain times and what we will be in the future.

My own research[3] into Christian ethos schools demonstrates that the Christian worldview offers a distinctive narrative to explain our struggles with meaning in our lives, our desire to protect childhood and to preserve morality. It offers a framework in which to make sense of the desire to create and to grow and to build for a future that is located deep in all of us. It also demonstrates that unless Christians model the whole of this worldview in an integrated school curriculum, good behaviour, strong discipline, order and safety are insufficient to equip young people to think critically about society and its values. Research commissioned by Theos and the Stapleford Centre demonstrates that pupils attending schools with a Christian ethos report better spiritual health, achieve more highly and make better progress than pupils at other schools[4]. Sadly the report also found that there was a great deal of confusion amongst researchers, practitioners and church leaders around concepts such as spirituality; they disagree over what Christian schools should be like and how Christians can best be involved in education. The Apostle Paul calls on Christians to exhibit mature thinking[5]. One of the ways that we can exercise our responsibility in this area is to apply our faith via committed involvement in education practice and research.

I am really pleased, therefore, that the Jubilee Centre is prepared to be part of this conversation and has opened up a forum in which the church, the educational community and wider society can talk and think together. The fruits of this may well help our society to answer some deeper questions about who we want to be and what we want our values to be rooted in for the future.

Also see A Point of View.

† Parents hit out after daughter rejected for Wrexham faith school place

[1] DSCF (2009) Your child, your schools, our future: building a 21^st century school system. London: HMSO.

[2] Peters, R.S. (1966) Ethics and education. London: Unwin University Books.

[3] Green, E.H. (2009) An ethnographic study of a city technology college with a Bible-based ethos. DPhil Thesis. University of Oxford.

[4] Theos and The Stapleford Centre (in press) Mapping the Field: A review of the current research evidence on the spiritual impact of schools with a Christian ethos. London: Theos.

[5] 1 Corinthians 13

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