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Catholic Schools (Admissions)

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. As we gather today to discuss matters of education and those who dedicate their lives to it, all our thoughts and prayers are naturally with the family of Ann Maguire and all the children and staff at Corpus Christi Catholic college in Leeds.

This debate was originally in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier). He secured the debate, but he sends his apologies for being unable to attend owing to a long-standing engagement at the Ministry of Defence in Glasgow for his work on reserves. I am grateful to him for the opportunity to speak in his place and to Mr Speaker for allowing the transfer.

The Catholic Church is this country’s largest provider of secondary education, and it is the second biggest name in primary education. Altogether, the Catholic Church educates more than 800,000 children in more than 2,000 schools. The Catholic Church has always seen education as vital to the formation and development of the whole person, and historically it has prioritised the building of schools in England, even over building churches.

At their heart, Catholic schools always have a mission to provide for underprivileged children and serve a Catholic population that has primarily been made up of many waves of immigrants from France, Ireland, south Asia, the Philippines, Africa, eastern Europe and elsewhere. Under the Education Act 1944 —the Butler Act—Catholic schools became voluntary-aided schools, part of the state system but with a distinct Catholic ethos guaranteed through various legal protections. Unlike the Church of England, which is the established Church in this country, the Catholic Church has always established its schools primarily to educate Catholic children and puts substantial resources into that effort. These days, the figure is some £20 million a year.

Catholic schools today are high performers in the state sector. On average, they get higher Ofsted ratings for overall effectiveness, pastoral care and various other criteria. Their results are above average at the ages of seven, 11 and 16, and they perform strongly on value-added measures. Such schools are also plugged into their local communities. At secondary level, two in five Catholic schools are judged by Ofsted to be making an outstanding contribution to their local community, which compares with one in four schools overall. A key question is whether all that is just a coincidence and, if not, what the driving factors are behind that performance.