The Distribution of Church of England Secondary Schools
The DfEE school statistics for January 1999 stated that there were 198 Church of England secondary schools. However, plotting them on a map was not a simple matter. The Department for Education confirmed the number of schools but was not able to produce a list of names and addresses as responsibility for this had been sub-contracted out. When the list was obtained from the agency concerned, it was immediately obvious that there was some confusion over denominations.
Since that list was compiled there has been a further development. The Department for Education has produced a Statutory Instrument listing all those schools designated as having a religious character. In this list 15 schools have been removed from the Church of England category, mainly old foundations such as the Bluecoat School Liverpool and the Skinners’ School Tunbridge Wells. However, others which were not in the original list have been added. These include the Tiffin School and the two Watford Grammar Schools. More differences may emerge when the list of 7,000 has been fully checked.
Furthermore, not even Statutory Instruments are infallible. The first Church of England secondary school which should have been listed, Blackheath Bluecoat, is described as a primary school. Interestingly, a new category has been added of ‘Christian’ school, which includes some of the old foundations such as the King Edward VI Schools in Birmingham. One school is even listed as a joint Church of England/Christian school, which suggests some theological confusion of the part of the compilers.
Another development in late 1999 was the establishment, by the Archbishops’ Council, of the Church Schools Review Group, led by Lord Dearing. Its aim is to review the achievements of Church of England schools and to make proposals for their future development, with particular regard to increasing the number of secondary schools. This aspect of its brief is almost certain to fail unless the starting point is accurately defined. As things stand, in five years time, despite expansion efforts, there could be fewer church secondary schools than there are at the moment.
The reason for this prognosis lies in the detail of the current lists. Included in the Department for Education’s list of Church of England secondary schools are 51 middle schools which have been ‘deemed’ secondary. These schools take children up to the age of 13, who thereafter have to transfer to upper schools. The schools are a product of the 1960s when a number of local education authorities went over to a three-tier system, a trend which is now in reverse. When authorities revert to a two-tier system, middle schools almost always become primary. (The alternative course involves building up staffing and a reputation for GCSE and A level courses, and is generally too difficult.) For example, Oxfordshire is currently reviewing the three-tier system in Oxford City. If it transfers to a two-tier system, then one Church of England middle school will close and the other two will become primary schools. Thus three apparent ‘secondary schools’ will fall out of the list.
The solution is to remove the middle schools from the base total on the grounds that they are not really secondary schools at all. They have merely been added into the secondary total for statistical convenience by the Department for Education. This would give a new figure, using the January 1999 statistics, of 147. But even this is probably too high. As shown above, it is likely that the removal of some 15 old foundation schools from the Church of England lists may well not be counterbalanced by additions. It would seem that the baseline total could well be as low as 135 to 140. If this figure can be accepted, it will highlight even more the urgency of the Board of Education’s campaign. It will also have the psychological value that any new Church of England secondary schools will then be seen as real additions to the total, and not simply end up counterbalancing disappearing middle schools.