Who am I?   

I am a university lecturer fighting against discrimination on the basis of faith affecting primary children applying for secondary school.   

I am doing this so that my children - and all the children in our primary school - have the same chances as all other primary school children in the area.  

Summary 

All little children in our area have the choice to attend one of three local Secondary School Academies.

Except our children. 

And the only reason why our school is not listed as a feeder to these secondary schools is because it is Catholic.

The Catholic Diocese objects to our primary Catholic school being listed as a feeder at these secondary schools.

This means that our children are effectively being discriminated against on the basis of faith (or the faith of the school they attend).

Our children are at disadvantage in relation to other children in the area. 

Parental choice has simply been removed.

This is profoundly against core British values such as tolerance, fairness and choice.

Some parents were not aware of this - and the information to make an informed decision was not provided and not available - at the time they applied to secure a reception place at our school. 

Even if this information was available at the time of application, this would not address the issue of choice. The point remains that our Catholic primary school only offers (one) choice of a feeder school: a not-so-local Catholic secondary school as a feeder.

This one Catholic secondary school just does not work for 100% of the families for all sorts of reasons, from safeguarding issues to logistics. 

We need choice. One choice is simply no choice.

It is also impossible to see how a decision made when a child is 3 or 4 should dictate that the child only has one path in life to adulthood. 

A parental decision about primary education should not determine or restrict secondary education in such a way that children only have one education pathway in life (a Catholic pathway).

What action am I taking? 

With legal assistance from Doyle Clayton, I am lodging an Objection/Referral at the Office of School Adjudicator against the Admission Arrangements of all 3 local Secondary Schools. After that, I might have to issue a claim for a Judicial Review based on illegality, according to the 2010 Equality Act.

But this costs money.

LOTS of money. 

After spending several hundred pounds and several dozen hours over the last three years on fighting against such religious discrimination, I can no longer foot the bill alone and so I come to ask for your support on what seems to be the last lap of the marathon. 

How much money do I need?

I am setting the target at 2000, but the case will probably cost over 7000.

Please donate as much or as little as you can. Every little helps. 

Funds raised go straight into our lawyer's account.

Please do forward to anyone and everyone. 

We will need all the support we can get. 

What am I trying to achieve? 

I am doing this so that my children - and all the children in our primary school - have the same chances as all other primary school children in the area.  

I am doing this so that children up and down the country benefit from this decision, which could be used as a precedent.

I am doing this so that British principles of tolerance, fairness and choice are upheld.

I am doing this because many parents were unaware they were being implicitly tied into a rigid contract with the Catholic System of Education, whereby they were entering some sort of “contract of Catholic faith education” that, effectively, means that Catholic primary school parents “forgo” their choice of non-Catholic secondary schools. This was not an informed decision for a substantial number of parents and there is no exit strategy from this "implicit" contract.

What does the Doyle Clayton lawyer say?

“This could be a leading case, prompting admissions authorities to be alert to their duties to act in accordance with the Equality Act 2010, and removing unwanted religious interference in the admissions process for secondary schools.

 Academies administer their own admissions arrangements outside of the remit of the local authority. The role of the Office of the Schools Adjudicator includes overseeing these arrangements as well as ruling on objections and referrals to these arrangements. The OSA must perform its functions lawfully and in accordance with Equality Act 2010.

 Children attending this Catholic primary school in the Midlands will benefit from OSA stepping in to ensure fair admission arrangements are in place. Moreover, this case will have a wider reach, highlighting with the OSA the issue of an unfair school admission system which has been allowed to develop. This system has introduced indirect religious discrimination into admission arrangements.

 If successful, the case will help to ensure that children's secondary school choices are not restricted by the faith of their primary school and by a ‘feeder school’ system that funnels children into faith schools. By operating in this manner, the current system is limiting parents’ choices of non-faith ‘good’ schools in their area, ultimately forcing a Catholic education onto children due to a lack of choice for their parents. If we are required to challenge the OSA at judicial review, we could set a precedent that would ensure that children across the country are treated equally regarding secondary school choices.”