Questions raised over C of E report on church schools and community cohesion

By staff writers

27 Nov 2009

A report commissioned by the Church of England claims that faith schools are better at building relationships with their local communities than non-religious schools.

But critics say that the report does not demonstrate this, and instead gives church schools credit for the extra work they have to do as a result of their religiously restrictive admissions policies.

The study by Professor David Jesson at York University, analysed ratings given to 700 primary schools and 400 secondary schools by Ofsted inspectors for promoting community cohesion.

The researchers gave schools a score of one if they were rated "outstanding", through to four if they were given an "inadequate" judgment. The findings showed both faith primary schools and non-religious primaries scored an average of 2.2 overall. But at secondary level, the faith schools scored an average of 1.86, compared to 2.31 for non-religious secondaries.

Of the 74 secondary faith schools surveyed, almost a third (32 per cent) were rated "outstanding" at community relations, while around one in seven (14 per cent) of the 271 non-religious secondaries were given the same grade.

The report assesses the meeting of the legal duty that all maintained schools in England now have to promote community cohesion. This duty was introduced by the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and came into effect on 1 September 2007. Schools’ compliance with the duty is inspected by Ofsted.

Professor Jenson and the Church of England are claiming their survey as "clear evidence" that faith schools are awarded "substantially higher" grades for community cohesion than other schools.

However, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, chair of the Accord Coalition, which campaigns for inclusive education and community schooling, warned that the Ofted criteria for cohesion are not robust enough.

Church of England schools are only satisfying a benchmark that fails to consider admissions policies or the religious curriculum of faith schools, he pointed out this morning.

“Building community cohesion is vitally important and we congratulate all those schools that have been working hard to meet the duty', Dr Romain declared.

"But the most pressing issue is whether the criteria used by Ofsted are sufficient."

While school linking projects and classroom discussions of diversity are commendable, inspectors should also consider the impact of discriminatory admissions and the limited teaching of RE on cohesion, Romain added.

"Meetings with other groups have little merit if the children move in closeted circles most of the time and do not receive a broad education in class," he said.

Faith in cohesion

All "maintained" (government-funded) schools in England have a legal duty to promote community cohesion.

Professor David Jesson's Church of England commissioned report claims that faith schools (notably, one supposes, Church of England schools) do a better job of this than state schools.

However, the Accord Coalition and the British Humanist Association counter that faith schools whose admissions policies discriminate in favour of their own faith members actually have more to do to promote community cohesion than do state community schools, where children from diverse religions or non-religious belief groups are educated together.

Independent research shows that religious segregation in schools tends to reinforce the social isolation of different sections of the population and the living of "parallel lives" referred to by Ted Cantle referred in his 2001 report following inter-communal disturbances in cities in the north of England.

Faith schools open to all

What this doesn't address, though, is the question of faith-based schools that are open to children of any faith or none. How good would such schools (if they exist) be at promoting community cohesion?

Actually, can we set the term "community cohesion" aside for a moment? It's too bureaucratic for my taste. Instead I'm thinking in terms of human oneness and solidarity. I'm thinking about how people embrace and live by the knowledge that all human beings are part of a single family and that each of us is responsible for the welfare of all.

It isn't enough for this to be theoretical knowledge or a good thing "in principle". It has to be real lived experience.

Yes, we need the foundation of the principle of oneness (sometimes referred to as "unity in diversity"), but there is no substitute for the day-to-day experience of living with people of different faiths and cultures.

And that suggests that schools that include children from different backgrounds are likely to be better at promoting human solidarity - oh, all right, community cohesion, if you insist.

But only if they have a culture that strongly nurtures integration - aka fellowship - between children of different faiths and cultures.

It is rare that religion and science find agreement, but that is what happened when Britain’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks spoke at a meeting on saving the earth from climate change.

“The great Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson published a book in 2007 called “Creation”, subtitled An Appeal to Save Life on Earth,” Sacks told leaders of all the major faiths meeting at Lambeth Palace in London on Thursday.

(Photo: A partially dried reservoir in Yingtan, Jiangxi province, China, 29 Oct 2009/stringer)

“I thought that was a very good book. E.O. Wilson is known not to be religious, but what this book was was a call to religious people and scientists to call off the war between religion and science and work together for the sake of the future of life on earth.

“And I felt that was a very generous and appropriate call by a non-religious scientist.”

He said “that science and religion despite their apparent friction actually converge on a profoundly scientific and at the same time religious idea that there is a kinship of life and hence a covenant of life”.

Not only did such a high-profile religious figure agree with the scientific world, but faith leaders found harmony among themselves at the same meeting.

Sitting next to Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Church, was the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, who only days earlier had delivered the Pope’s offer to disaffected Anglicans the chance to convert to Rome.

Also attending were faith and community organisation leaders including Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Baha’i, Jain and Zoroastrian.

(Photo: Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, 23 July 2006/Paul Hackett)

Organised by Williams, the leaders issued a joint statement in which they “recognised unequivocally that there is a moral imperative” to tackle the causes of global warming.

They agreed to work together to raise awareness about the effects of “catastrophic climate change”, saying it was the poor and vulnerable who most suffered from the ensuing droughts, floods, water shortages and rising sea levels.

Quoting from the book of Genesis, Sacks said man was placed on earth to serve it and protect it. “Man was a guardian, not the owner using and abusing the good things on earth,” he said.

“We are taken from the earth and therefore owe it a sense of kinship and responsibility. We believe our very existence as human beings come wrapped up in environmental imperatives and ecological responsibility.”

Drawing on the story of Noah’s Ark where all animals, including the lion and the lamb, had to survive side by side, he said we would all drown if we failed to work together.

Of course, if everybody kept the Sabbath, when nobody drove cars, flew by plane, or switched on any electrical appliances, the environmental problem would be solved, he said.

But more realistically, a new set of rituals would have to be devised that recognise the importance of the environment.

“What religion allows us to do is take the big ideas and translate them into daily rituals,” he said.

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What difference does this make?

The role of faith communities in mitigating the effects of climate change is very much flavour of the moment. I have already attended part of one conference on the subject. Next week I shall be at the big event being mountd by the Alliance of Religion and Conservation and the UN Development Programme at Windsor.

There are questions: will any of this make any difference? And if so, to what, to whom and by when?

Grassroots transformation

Whatever is actually happening to the world's climate and whom or whatever is responsible for the changes that are clearly going on, the essential truth in all of this is that we all bear responsibility for the planet and its peoples. At the moment, "we all" tends to mean "nobody" or "what's in my best interest", but the Baha'i teachings propose a long-term, sustainable transformation in villages, towns, streets, neighbourhoods that motivates individuals, families, communities to embrace human oneness and to accept their moral responsibility to care for each other and for the planet.

Idealistic? I don't think so. It's a long haul and challenging. And it starts with what Baha'i literature refers to as "stirrings at the grassroots" - changes of consciousness by people in villages, streets, etc about what's needed and what's possible.