A Black Christian child missed out on a place at his local Church of England school because his family worshipped in a different Christian denomination. The Court of Appeal has upheld the admissions policy, accepting that preserving the school’s Anglican character justified the racial disadvantage arising from its religious preference.
The judgment, handed down on 22 October, raises a fundamental question about publicly funded education: how much inequality should the state accept in order to preserve a school’s religious identity?
One point, one denomination, one lost school place
The case concerned Twyford Church of England High School in Ealing, west London. Its admissions system awarded an additional point to qualifying applicants whose family’s main place of worship was a Church of England church or a church in communion with it. The child’s family attended an Eritrean Orthodox church and could not obtain that point.
His mother challenged the policy, arguing that the denominational preference disproportionately disadvantaged minority ethnic Christians. The dispute concerned access to a heavily oversubscribed school, where a single additional point could determine whether a child secured a place.
What the court actually decided
The legal distinction matters. The court did not find that the school explicitly selected pupils by race, nor did it give religious schools unlimited permission to discriminate. The challenge concerned indirect racial discrimination: a rule expressed in religious terms that disadvantages particular racial or ethnic groups.
The court also rejected the government’s argument that the statutory exception allowing faith-based admissions insulated those arrangements from indirect race-discrimination claims. The exception for religious discrimination did not remove protection against racial discrimination.
Nevertheless, the family’s appeals failed. The court upheld the conclusion that the additional point was a proportionate means of preserving Twyford’s Anglican character and ethos. It also upheld the finding that the trust had complied with its public sector equality duty.
That combination is the troubling heart of the case. A family can establish that a policy disadvantages them because of its racial effects and still receive no remedy, because the institution’s religious objective is accepted as sufficient justification.
A lawful policy can still be unfair
There is a coherent argument behind the school’s position. Parliament permits schools with a designated religious character to operate faith-based admissions, and supporters regard those arrangements as a way of sustaining a distinctive educational community. Within that framework, an Anglican school’s preference for Anglican worshippers has a purpose that the courts can recognize.
But the existence of a lawful framework does not settle whether that framework is fair. The judgment leaves a political question for Parliament and the public: should preserving denominational identity carry this much weight when allocating places in a school supported by public money?
For a child seeking an education, the distinction between Christian denominations is outside their control. Making access depend on the church their family attends transfers the consequences of adult religious affiliation to the next generation. Where denominational membership also reflects ethnicity and cultural background, religious selection can reinforce inequalities that extend beyond belief.
Equal access for children of every belief
The same principle concerns families without religion. Their children have an equal claim to consideration as members of the local community, yet religious admissions priorities can place them behind applicants whose parents demonstrate the preferred faith.
A secular admissions system would assess children under common criteria, without rewarding a particular religious affiliation. Schools could teach about religion, accommodate pupils’ beliefs and respect freedom of worship while admitting families on equal terms.
Twyford’s policy survived this legal challenge. The wider system still deserves scrutiny. Publicly funded education should bring children into a shared civic community, with access determined by fair educational criteria rather than the religious credentials of their families.
