Mary Brown Posted: 28 April 2011
Keywords: Christianity & Religion, Education,
The Bishop of Oxford solicited widespread and varied reactions when on Good Friday the TES published an article in which he expressed his desire to see the number of places reserved for children from church-going families in Church of England Schools limited to 10%. Some, especially secularists, saw this as a positive move away from discrimination on religious grounds. At the other end of the spectrum, he was criticised by those who see Church of England schools as a safe place for children of Christian families to be educated, who see the main purpose of these schools as to serve the church community.
The strategy and sentiment behind the Bishops’ comments are not radical or new. In 2001 the Church of England report The Way Ahead said that C of E Schools should be at the heart of the Church’s mission and should serve the wider community by providing non-church-going children with the opportunity to experience a faith community and learn under a Christian ethos. The more places given to non-church-going families, the greater number of people would encounter the Church. However, critics of this policy fear that reduced numbers of children from church-going families will mean that church schools will be unable to retain their distinctive Christian ethos. They also fear that the excellent results of these schools will be affected by a change in selection criteria, something that the Bishop himself expressed, but brushed off as less important than the inclusive mission of these schools.
Although this debate is specific to Church of England schools, the same question about selection criteria can be applied to all voluntary aided, or even independent, Christian schools. What should they be, and whom should they serve? Independent schools are the easiest to analyse, being free of government restraints on admission procedures. Schools such as the Christian Schools’ Trust schools tend to operate a policy of giving priority to children from Christian families. Their goal is to provide a school where children from Christian families can grow up and be taught under Christian leaders, with a focus on God’s word and the development of godliness. Other schools operate an open selection policy in terms of faith, yet end up being largely self selecting due to word of mouth within the Christian community and lack of demand from outside that community. State funded schools are more complicated. If a school is performing well in terms of grades then parents would often seek to send their children there regardless of its ethos and religion, as long as its ethos was seen as benign. Church of England schools tend to fit into this bracket: they are seen as harmless, on top of which, many parents who are not believers would count themselves as Church of England due to family heritage.
What makes a school Christian? And what should the role of a Christian school be? If a school is Christian because its staff and governors are Christian and it places an emphasis on Christian teaching, ethics, and morality then the faith demographic of the pupil population should not matter. If, however, for a school to be Christian it needs to operate within the community of the church, and if a school needs its pupils to come from Christian families in order to maintain an ethos, then the pupil demographic is of great importance. Can having a Christian head teacher maintain a school in its Christian distinctiveness regardless of the faith of the other staff and the pupils? The Way Ahead suggests that ensuring that head teachers are Christians is the first step to restoring the Christian distinctiveness of Church of England school. It then emphasises the importance of inclusivity and outreach to the wider community. For Church of England schools to fulfil the mission and role outlined in Church of England policy they need to have a large intake of those from outside the Church. However, for schools such as the Christian Schools’ Trust schools to fulfil their mission, they need to restrict admission in order to support the Christian community they seek to serve. The difference comes down to whether a Christian school should mirror the church, or whether it should be a venue through which the church is able to serve the wider community and ‘seek the welfare of the city’. It seems that there are benefits to each strategy, and perhaps the answer is that there should be some of each. However, it is unquestionable that a school can only be Christian if the leadership are committed Christians seeking to honour God and glorify Christ in their every decision.
I was really pleased to hear the Bishop of Oxford's comments. To my mind, the only social and theological argument that you can make for Christian faith schools is that they witness or provide a service in some way to the larger community. At the moment it is a sad and unfortunate fact that church schools are socially exclusive. For example, in London and for pupils starting secondary schools in 2008, the median average percentage of FSM eligible pupils per secondary school was 25%. However, the corresponding figure for CoE voluntary-aided schools is 19%, and for VA RC schools it is 18%. Of course, not all schools are the same, some recruit more FSM eligible pupils and that especially is true of voluntary controlled schools where the median is 34%. But, there's the problem: when faith schools have control over their admission codes (voluntary schools don't) then they tend to become socially selective. I'd suggest that's a very hard position to defend.
Richard Harris 29 April 2011
The failure of school leaders to employ 100% Christian teachers is the first step towards making Christian education a 'toothless tiger' with no relevance in the sense of their original aim or objective. We have seen it here in Australia with our Church of England Schools where they attempt to be everything to everyone. All this results in is a 'religious' framework with no real substance and Christendom pushed to the one period of chapel or religious studies. Speaking as a teacher, if you are not committed to Christian education at the grass roots level (i.e. in the classroom) then it does not matter what the heads of schools think or want you to think, it just won't happen on the frontline. The primary aim of Christian education is to nuture children and assist parents in the upbringing of their children. (i.e. the parents retain the control). Can this happen if we are trying to be everything to everyone? No...you will not have the resources and the manpower to cater for all the opposing stakeholders. In the end, if the true Christian school (not the hollow framework I referred to earlier) is set up and run in line with its original purpose and biblical vision then you have to give Christian families the priority. Otherwise it just falls apart and the focus shifts to other areas like academia and prestige. By all means you can try and shift the focus of faith based schools but if you do manage to achieve that, then don't step on the graves of the original founders of Christian education by still claiming it to be Christian...it's not...it's simply another school.
David Gray 3 May 2011
"To my mind, the only social and theological argument that you can make for Christian faith schools is that they witness or provide a service in some way to the larger community."
How about Ephesians 6:4: "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord"? The Christian Education movement is basically driven by people who have a much richer set of reasons for doing it than you give them credit for. Witnessing to others is certainly not the only theological argument which can be made for Christian schools.
Gerv
Gervase Markham 4 May 2011
I think what is missing in the Bishop's discussion,perhaps becuase of the brevity of the post is the nature of the purpose of schooling. If modern approaches to schooling is, and I believe it to be so, a prodcut of enlightenment thinking, then Christians need to look at the issue of how being Christians reshapes our approach to it. One of the great problems I think is that many of the goals that are espoused by enlightnement thinking are not bad in themsleves, but that they take on an idolatrous status, and therefore our (non-Christian) attempts at schooling are shaped by these idolatrous forces. As with all idols, they are bound to fail for all people,not just for our Christian families. The school community of which I am part in Australia is one that is open to others, but the reality is that most others do not wish to have their children taught in this "overtly" Christian way. COnsequently we have very few children from non-Christian families attend our school of over 800 students. This is a situation that we are not surprised about (a bit like church I would suppose). I think if Christian schools were really on the ball, they would be both strangely attractive and repulsive at the same time to the non-CHristian community. I would be bothered if this was not the case. I think if the goal of Christian schooling is to enable students to glorify and serve God and to enjoy Him, rather than to serve the good but idolatrous economic rationalism and consumership (ala Neil Postman) this will be the case.
Bill Rusin 5 May 2011
Gerv, that's fine but there is no reason why that education should be funded by the state. Besides there is a lot in the Bible about social justice so it worries me how selective some faith.schools have become.
Rich Harris 5 May 2011
As a former teacher in a Church of England primary school that sought to be a real Christian school, and with 20 years' experience there, I would make the following points about effectiveness of mission at such schools:
1. All the staff must be Christian, ideally prayerful and committed to seeking first the Kingdom of God.
2. There must be sufficient numbers of Christian parents actively involved in the life of the school.
3. The small numbers of children of unbelievers at our school had a marvellous opportunity to experience Christian community, and to hear of the truth and love of God, because of points 1 and 2.
4. The majority of our children (our main mission field) were the children in nominally Christian families.
Christopher Elston 7 May 2011