Catholic schools 'more inclusive than average', new data shows
New data released today has confirmed the place of Catholic schools as more open to people from disadvantaged backgrounds than othe
r state schools.
The Catholic Education Service's annual Digest of Census Data for Schools and Colleges shows that in 2011 a higher proportion of pupils in Catholic schools come from the 10% most deprived areas compared to the proportion in schools nationally.
The data, which can be downloaded here, shows that 18.6% of pupils at Catholic primary schools live in the 10% most deprived areas, compared to 14.3% of pupils at primary schools across England. At secondary level, 17% of pupils at Catholic secondary schools live in the 10% most deprived areas compared to 12% of pupils nationally.
Faith schools are sometimes criticised (eg by ACCORD) by secularists as "exclusive" because they are allowed to select a proportion of their pupils from the faith communities which first established them (71% of pupils in Catholic schools are Catholic).
About one in three state-funded primary schools, and around one in five secondary schools, are schools of a religious character. Of these, almost two-thirds of the faith secondary schools are Catholic. They are of a high standard and are popular, with a strong ethos rooted in local church institutions (parishes, religious orders, dioceses) and Catholic communities.
The Digest shows there are are 2,186 Catholic schools in England, about 10 per cent of the total number.Some 762,282 pupils are educated in maintained Catholic schools. And 31.2% of pupils in Catholic primary schools are from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared to 26.5% nationally.
Department for Education data in 2011 showed that 57% of Catholic schools had above average Contextual Value Added scores compared to the national figure of 50%. Read together, this evidence shows that pupils at Catholic schools tend to make greater academic progress compared to pupils at other schools -- even though a higher-than-average proportion of pupils at Catholic schools come from less privileged backgrounds.