Long before the government became involved in providing education for everyone in our country, the Church of England had a vision that it wanted every parish to have a school for the education of poor children. From the earliest days, the purpose of Church schools was to enable children to flourish by providing a basic education and by developing their moral character.
The majority of church schools were built in the 19th Century. Much later, when the state became involved with providing mass education, church schools became integrated into the education provided by the state.
Today, about a quarter of all primary schools have a Church of England foundation. Some remain as community schools, like St James’ CE Primary, closely linked to the local authority. Some have converted to academies, setting the schools apart from the local authority but making no difference to their Church of England foundation.
The Church of England always intended that its schools should be open to all of the children of the parish. This principle remains: Church of England schools are not ‘faith schools’ in the sense of presuming children and their families are practicing Christians and they do not attempt to convert to Christianity.
Our pupils and their families, and our staff, may have different beliefs. Families might attend a church in the area, or belong to a different faith, or choose to have no faith at all:
warm fires and open doors
(David Thomson, Bishop of Huntingdon, 2014)
This metaphor comes from a speech made by the Bishop of Huntingdon to Church school leaders: ‘By warm fires, I mean a vibrant and attractive sense of our Christian identity, and by open doors, I mean a real welcome to anyone and everyone to gather round the fire’.
The origins of Church of England schools means that many are linked with a local church. We are linked with St James Church here in Wetherby.
The ethos of the schools is based on Christian values. They offer children an experience of faith (for example, through collective worship and links with the parish church), with no expectation or judgement about an individual’s choices around religion and faith. For example, Religious Education in Church of England schools includes teaching about other faiths, usually follow the same syllabus for RE as non-Church of England schools (we follow the agreed syllabus for Leeds).