Catholic church backs academy schools

The Catholic church announced Friday that it had changed its mind over academy schools and would now back its schools that want to opt out of local authority control.

In June, the Catholic Education Service wrote to 2,000 Catholic schools urging "great caution" over whether to become academies – state-funded schools which can decide their own curiculum and set their teachers' pay. 

It followed a letter from Michael Gove, the education secretary, to all schools, encouraging them to apply for academy status.

At the time, Oona Stannard, chief executive of the Catholic Education Service, said Catholic schools might have to give up their land and buildings to turn into academies. 

"We would be very unwise to trade this for an uncertain future and a higher level of risk," she told the schools.

But the Right Reverend Malcolm McMahon, a Catholic bishop and the chairman of the Catholic Education Service, has now said it is the church's view that "we should make conversion to academies a ready possibility for Catholic schools".

"We have reflected at length on Catholic social teaching and our responsibilities to the wider community and the poor," he said in statement issued by the Catholic Education Service. 

"We are not in favour of a free-for-all in which some institutions flourish whilst others wither, for our schools are not just lone institutions, they are part of a family both of Catholic schools and the wider landscape of schools," he said, adding that "we do not seek to turn our schools into businesses."

He said there had been changes to government policy over the past few months over land ownership and a school's conversion to academy status. 

The bishop said he wanted Catholic academies to be called Catholic voluntary academies to reflect the "distinctive nature of our sector, its history and what it brings".

"The landscape is changing rapidly and we must be prepared to innovate and adapt with it, wherever appropriate to fulfil our mission in Catholic education," Bishop McMahon said. 

"We remember that the primary purpose of Catholic schools is the promotion of the common good through the education of children."

 

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