In yesterday's paper in an article 'No more faith schools, prisons of the mind,' Ms Turner turns from private Islamic schools in Tower Hamlets to faith school in general and says 'faith schools are closed communities. Within cities, in particular, church schools are middle class ghettos with far lower rates of free school meals than nearby non-faith schools.'
She gives as her example St Mary Abbott's School in Kensington.
She also suggests you get a place in a church school by coming to church 'to suck up to the vicar' and that 'a lavish Christmas fete prize' won't go amiss either.
My tweet to Janice said 'I don't recognise your picture of church schools in London. Why not come to visit ours, St James Bermondsey?'
Bermondsey is not Kensington. The idea that St James's school is a middle class ghetto is laughable. We have a huge ethnic mix and rates of free school meals are way above the national average.
Only a third of places are reserved for those who attend church and there is no need to suck up to the vicar at all. You just need to come to church (any church in the area) to worship God.
For the majority of places, two-thirds in fact, there is no church attendance requirement at all for the simply reason that as a Church School (not 'a faith school') our vocation is to serve the whole community in Bermondsey.
Perhaps its Janice that needs to get out of the prison of her mind - and what better way of doing that than by coming on a fact-finding mission to Bermondsey?
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