Faith Schools

The Government's decision not to press the issue of 25% pupils from outside the faith in faith schools is interesting for its impact on Sutton.

In Sutton, whilst our primary faith schools draw from within the borough, a large proportion of secondary faith schools come from outside the borough due to very large diocese boundaries.

If the 25% rule had come in I suspect it would not have contradicted the Greenwich judgment which is supported by both the government and the national Tory opposition. Thus we would have still seen a lot of outborough non-faith pupils replacing the faith ones.

Therefore it seems to me there would have been less of an impact on Sutton.

In the long-run, I see excellence clusters of schools and individual learning plans as more important for improving the lot of Sutton pupils, as they would do most to wither away the difference between the 16% of Sutton pupils in the super-selective local grammar schools (50% of whose pupils come from the Surrey County area) and the 84% of Sutton pupils in our local voluntary comprehensives.