Education and Inspections Bill — Faith schools must accept pupils from outside the faith — rejected — 30 Oct 2006 at 22:24

The majority Not Contents defeated an amendment^[1] which would have allowed Local Authorities (or the Secretary of State) to choose to require that new faith schools had to admit a portion of their intake (up to 25%) from outside the faith. The amendment introduces a new clause into the Education and Inspections Bill after clause 45. However, the amendment was rejected.

The main aims of the Education and Inspections Bill were to^[2]:

• Allow schools to achieve 'foundation' or 'trust' status - this gives governing bodies greater freedom to manage the school.
• Reaffirm the existing ban on selection by ability and proposes a ban on interviewing.
• Give local authorities greater scope to intervene more quickly in failing schools.
• Ensure local authorities provide free school transport for the poorest families.
• Enable nutritional standards to be applied to all food and drink on school premises.
• Allow staff to discipline children for bad behaviour even outside of school.
• Ensure parents are held responsible for excluded pupils.

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• [1] Lord Baker of Dorking, House of Lords, 30 October 2006
• [2] BBC Summary of the Education and Inspections Bill, 8 March 2006

Debate in Parliament | Source |