Today, I wish to inform the House that we are consulting on faith designation reforms for new and existing free schools and special academies.

These reforms will build on our success in raising standards in our schools, with 90% of schools now rated “Good” or “Outstanding” up from just 68% in 2010. A key driver of this progress has been our academies programme which has put schools in the hands of education experts. Today, over half of state-funded schools are now academies, totalling 10,839 compared to just 203 in 2010. High quality multi-academy trusts are key to driving up education standards for pupils, teachers and leaders. The best trusts enable the most effective leaders to support a greater number of schools and deliver school improvement, by directing resources to where they are needed the most. This underpins our focus on continuing to improve standards in schools, providing the best education for children, including for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The Church of England, the Catholic Church and other faith school providers are long-standing and valued partners of my department and are a key part of our diverse school system, representing a third of all schools in England. Faith schools are judged ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ at a higher rate than the national average and are, as a consequence, very popular with parents. Helping more faith schools to join academy trusts and removing barriers to the creation of more faith school places is a critical next step in the government’s plan to give every child a world-class education.

At the moment, the government requires admission authorities for a mainstream free school designated with a religious character to allocate at least 50% of its available places without reference to faith-based admission criteria, when oversubscribed. The original aim of that restriction was to promote a more inclusive intake in those schools. However, the evidence suggests that the 50% faith admissions cap has not achieved inclusivity. It has also worked against creating more good school places because some faith bodies, such as the Catholic Church and its dioceses, have felt unable to establish new free schools on this basis.

Our proposals will remove the cap and, by doing so, increase the number of good school places where there is demand from communities, ensuring parents have more choice over where they send their child to school. The application process for new free schools will continue to require applicants to consider how the school will promote cohesion, integration and tolerance in the school community. As already set in regulations, all schools – including free schools designated with a religious character – must promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance for those of different faiths and beliefs.

We are also consulting on changing our policy to allow special academies to be designated with a religious character. This will encourage high quality faith school providers with a track record of high performance to consider applying to establish new special academies and free schools within their multi-academy trusts. This builds on our delivery of over 60,000 new places for children or young people with SEND or who require alternative provision, with a £2.6 billion package to improve SEND services between 2022 and 2025. Faith schools have a long and positive history of providing education and support to these children. There are 241 faith schools in England providing specialist units, which provide high quality education and support for pupils with SEND. In addition, a number of faith providers have experience of delivering dedicated special schools in the independent sector, and through the provision of non-maintained special schools with a faith ethos and special academies with a faith ethos.

I think it is important to capitalise on all of the expertise in the special needs sector in order to meet the challenge of ensuring access to the right provision for every child. I want to ensure that all faith groups feel able to open special academies and provide high quality places for pupils with complex special educational needs and disabilities, who would be admitted on the basis of their need, not their faith.

These proposals apply to England only and the consultation will run for 7 weeks, closing on 20 June 2024. The consultation and the government response will be published on GOV.UK. We will also place a copy of the government response in the Library of both Houses.

A consultation will allow my department to capture and consider a wide range of views, about how our proposals to change policy are likely to impact schools, local authorities, parents, children, and young people. We will consider all responses to the consultation and use them to inform our proposals for better meeting the policy objectives of faith schools.

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