By Canon John Hall, Chief Education Officer, the Church of England

and Oona Stannard, Chief Executive and Director, Catholic Education Service

Both the Church of England and the Catholic Church have pressed Government over the past few years to outlaw interviews for the selection of pupils for Church schools.

In recent years it has only been lawful to interview pupils on matters of practice of faith or commitment, to ensure that they fulfil any faith requirements in the governing body’s selection criteria. Such interviews in our view were unnecessary and inappropriate. Faith criteria in the selection process should be as transparent, fair and straight-forward as possible and can be confirmed simply by a priest’s or minister’s reference.

When the current code of practice on admissions was proposed we strongly supported the removal of interviews. In fact only a small number of Church schools were using interviews. Whilst the code of practice was guidance and not statutory we were pleased to see the use of interviews decline further. In reality, they have formed only a very small proportion of schools’ admissions procedures. We have, however, continued to encourage Government to outlaw interviews and we welcome this step in the forthcoming legislation.