Notes on Admissions to Church Schools

We receive many queries about criteria for admission to Church schools. These notes are offered as guidance for criteria relating to church membership. Each School Governing Body is by law able to set its own admissions criteria. These have to be fair, transparent, and administered equitably and efficiently.

Governors will have criteria other than church membership which will be considered as well, and maybe with higher priority. 

Church schools can have church commitment as a criterion. This always refers to the parent(s)/guardian(s) not the child – so Sunday School membership, for example, is not pertinent.

Governors often define this commitment in terms of:

A    Active membership of the Church of England

B    Active membership of a Church which is a member of Churches Together in England or Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

We have 24 Member Churches or Councils of Churches. They are listed on our website.
Some member Councils are themselves made up of a number of Churches. These are clearly covered by the criterion of membership of CTBI/CTE. Advice about these should be sought from the CTE Office.

The Free Churches Group is not a Member Church/Council of CTE but is in a joint working agreement with CTE. Some very long-established Churches are members of the Group, but not of CTE (for historical and theological reasons). Because of the close relationship between the Free Churches Group and CTE these might be considered by Governors as meeting admissions criteria.

C    Sometimes Governors’ criteria also refer to membership of the Evangelical Alliance or similar – we have no information on this. The Evangelical Alliance can be contacted at (020) 7207 2100 (www.eauk.org)

Confusion and pain arise often because a local independent church is in membership of a local group of Churches Together. As there is no formal relationship between local ’churches together’ groups and Churches Together in England membership of the local body cannot be automatically taken as fulfilling Governor’s criteria. However, they might use their discretion to accept a church that is recognised locally by others.

We would encourage Governors to adopt criteria referring to local groupings as well as national, and to Evangelical Alliance as well as to Churches Together in England.

For further advice please contact Sabina Williams at Churches Together in England on 020 7529 8130    sabina.williams@cte.org.uk