Below are responses to some of the questions that have been received. We will update this page with further responses to questions throughout the consultation period.
We have made a firm commitment that we will not amend our admissions policy to include faith.
To be transparent; there have been two conversations about slightly amending admissions arrangements for non-faith reasons.
The first is to amend the Trust's sixth form admissions criteria to give Ealing Fields' students even better access to Trust sixth forms.
The second, which is across all four Trust schools, is to include the children of staff in the admissions criteria.
Not it is not. In fact, our Trust already has two CofE schools who have open admissions - so faith is not part of the application process for their communities.
This works well and we will simply mirror this approach at Ealing Fields.
There are many, many CofE schools across the country who also don't have faith as part of their admissions arrangements.
A change of this sort would first need to be proposed by the Local Governing Body. Parent Governors are engaged and active on the LGB and have a strong voice. It is clear that there is no desire or interest to do this.
Even if they did, it would then need to go to Trust Directors who have resolved not to have faith based places at Ealing Fields. They have also made this commitment to the Local Authority and to the Department for Education.
It would then need Local Authority and DfE approval - which would not be given.
So far, other key questions we have received are:
When Ealing Fields first joined our Trust seven years ago, it was agreed that the school would mirror nearly every element of what happens in our other secondary schools.
This included things like branding, which incorporates a cross and a mitre, our ethos and our values - which are already rooted in our Christian approach.
There is absolutely no desire to break the partnership between the school and the Trust. A huge amount has been achieved in the last seven years, and the school is in a much stronger place for us working together, but we do want to be honest and open out where our values come from and how they are framed in the day to day.
We want that relationship to flourish moving forward, which is why it is important that we are clear about the values and ethos on which our success is built.
However, if actually the majority of parents are strongly and actively against the religious identity which it already manifests (on the badge, in assemblies & tutor time & in staff training) – there is a more profound underlying conflict which does need to be addressed.
If parents wish to separate Ealing Fields from the group of schools in order to only have a secular expression this would have to be considered carefully. One of the options would be for the LGB to vote to join a secular Trust. This would not be processed suddenly but would be taken forward over a couple of years.
There will be no change to the curriculum.
If we proceed, an opportunity to receive communion will be offered annually within the celebration service. It is also important to note that there is no pressure on students to take communion, and we will continue to celebrate all that is good across the school in many other ways.
Schools within the Trust already share the same ethos which we call the 10:10 Ethic - based on the Gospel of John chapter 10 verse 10 - 'I have come that you might have life and have it to the full'.
This has been in operation at Ealing Fields for 7 years.
Each school also has a distinctive character of its own and we will work to ensure that this ethic embraces all of our students, whatever their faith or background.
Many of the staff at Ealing Fields are of other faiths or no faith and this models the inclusivity we seek to ensure in our community. This will not change.
We want to attract the best staff who will flourish in our community. We feel it is right that people who work in our school understand our values, and that we ensure that their values align with us. Alongside supporting our brilliant students, we have a responsibility to our colleagues and their careers.
We will still be funded in the same way, and we will still welcome Ofsted to our school.
By changing our designation, we will face more scrutiny. We will have a separate SIAMS inspection to look at our values, our commitment to social justice and how we prepare children for the modern world. We believe this is a good thing.
Yes. We will do it In the same way that we do currently – there is not reason for this to change. Ealing Fields is proud of being a diverse and inclusive community. We actively engage parents with suggesting examples for use in assemblies so that these represent the diversity of our own communities and we invite external community representatives to be part of our celebration services. We have placed a high premium on RE because we believe a respectful understanding of a range of faiths (including their differences in perspectives) promotes harmony within society.
Yes. With the faith designation Ealing Fields would be subject to additional scrutiny through a formal inspection of its religious practices . This inspection framework places a strong emphasis on inclusive practice, valuing diversity and advocacy on social justice.
Ealing Fields would continue to be regulated by the Department for Education and education law, and would continue to have Ofsted inspections. Directors / Governors would continue to monitor the school's outcomes and practices.
The Local Governing Body would continue to have parental and staff representation and the annual feedback surveys would continue to take place.
No, it is still subject to this legislation - but there are some exemptions.
The school practice is of course to appoint the best candidate for any job as defined in the job description and person specification. This latter document requires staff to be in sympathy with the school values rather than to hold them personally.
The religious ethos, the overt use of Christian narrative and the Church of England framework are all actively presented as part of the pre-interview process so that staff can withdraw if they do not feel able to support these in the day to day. Since the Trust was formed, this has only happened once in over a decade.
Staff have been asked to share their views - and the results are overwhelmingly supportive.
Staff see the advantage of the religious ethos including how the values underpin the approaches taken to teaching, learning and pastoral care. They are particularly proud of the impact this has on the outcomes of disadvantaged students.
We are not - just how we are consulting has changed.
There are three tiers used by the Department for Education to categorise significant changes in schools. The lowest level (Tier 1) can be used when:
Given that the schools is functioning as a Church of England school and has made a formal commitment not to change the admissions arrangements, we were advised that this would be a Tier 1 change.
Given the range of initial responses, it was felt that a Tier 3 route would provide the right structure for the consultation as it gave additional time.
Under the Tier 3 process the range of the consultation is much wider (eg a wider constituance of schools, parents and community groups are consulted with). The Local authority will help Ealing Fields undertake this fairly and openly.
No, this is a co-incidence. This was first raised with current governors in 2023.
The celebration service is something that already happens to recognise and applaud all the good things that happen in our school. The communion will sit alongside this - it is not a celebration of communion and all students will take part as equals in the celebration service.
Our admissions arrangements will not change and will not include faith. The sibling criteria in the current admissions arrangements will remain as is.
The key consideration regarding this is the process that schools need to go through to change their admissions policies. They can not simply do this in isolation.
The Local Authority has the legal responsibility to provide sufficient school places for children who live in the area and we have made a formal commitment to provide places in our new schools (including Ealing Fields) as part of their overall number without faith requirements. Given the level of popularity and oversubscription at Ealing Fields the Local Authority would not support such a change nor would we ask for it A full consultation would need to be undertaken, and the Local Authority and Department for Education would have to agree to the change.
What this process has shown is that there is no the desire from our parents, our school leadership or the Local Authority/DfE for us to change our admissions criteria. It would never go through.
A formal Church of England designation is something that has been discussed internally by the senior leadership team for well over a year, as they have felt strongly that the lack of transparency is unhelpful to their ability to run the school well.
We have now just naturally reached a point where we are ready to consult. The timing with the General Election is co-incidence.
Approval needs to come from the London Regional Director's Office and Department for Education rather than simply the Governors and Directors.
They will look at a range of evidence including feedback from all the elements of our community in order to make a decision on how to proceed. If there is an overwhelming majority who do not support the move, then it would be very difficult to justify moving forward with the plan.
Ealing Fields is already functioning as a CofE school and real progress is being made.
We are undertaking this consultation to be transparent about our ethos and to gain legal protections around the specific way we use a broad Christian framework. This will help us to continue to operate as is.
There are a number of factors impacting on parental choice of schools. In Ealing Fields’ the data shows that most parents are actively choosing it as one of their two highest choices.
We believe it is right that we are more transparent about the existing religious ethos of our school.
We anticipate it would take a number of months at least.
It will take all of next term for the consultation and other documentation to reviewed and discussed at the relevant meetings.
If there is then a case for moving the proposal forward, it will then be presented to the London Regional Director's Office for evaluation. We do not currently know whether it will also need to be reviewed at a higher level in the DfE.
No, the uniform and logo will stay the same either way.
Twyford Church of England Academies Trust is a small, local MAT.
Its strength lies in the schools being tightly aligned and highly collaborative professionally. If we can sustain this close alignment, the risk of Ealing Fields being taken over by another Trust is very low.
From the Regional Director's point of view, there is a high level of accountability, consistent systems and effective school-to-school support. This does exist currently – but it does rely on the efficiency of having common approaches.
The risk for Ealing Fields is that if it wanted to run different systems (pastoral / curriculum / ethos ) the Trust simply do not have the resource which a big MAT would have to facilitate this change nor to support it moving forward.Clarifying the school’s status gives greater robustness to our cost-efficient approach - which means we can invest more in the children.
The evidence that this works is that all four schools are very high achieving, are successful and oversubscribed.
Overall, of the 11 places on the board, two are for parent governors, two for staff governors and four spaces on the LGB are for church representation. In order to achieve a wider representation we also have three co-opted places.
Currently four of the 11 governors are practicing Christians, and two are from other world faith backgrounds. The remaining five describe themselves as non-religious.
The Headteacher is also a Governor.
Details of any business interests can be found by looking at their declarations of business interest by clicking here: https://ealingfields.org.uk/about-us/governance
There are three:
Not as yet. This will be undertaken at a later stage in the process (after the consultation and before presenting the case to LGB & Directors).
Ealing Fields students are already given a priority to Twyford, William Perkin & Ada Lovelace 6th forms. There is no intention to change this.
There would be a small amount of legal fees, but, given the structure and ethos of the school is already aligned to the CofE, there will be very few other costs.
There are no plans to change how we deliver our GCSE provision.
That is not the case in London. The last set of figures that we have show that 26% of children in Church of England schools in London are from disadvantaged backgrounds. The London average is 24%.
Again, if you compare like for like, for like this is not the case for Church of England schools in London. Currently, however, faith schools are not able to operate special schools - so it is easy to misread the data.