The 50% Rule

The 50% Rule in English Faith School admissions stipulates that where newly established Academies with a religious character are oversubscribed, at least 50% of their places must be open places, i.e. allocated without reference to faith.

The rule applies only to new academies, established under the Free School programme, not to maintained schools that have converted to academy status.

The 50% Rule is sometimes referred to as a 50% Cap on faith-based admissions. However, as the open places are just as accessible to faith applicants as non-faith applicants, in practice the rule does not explicitly prevent such schools from having more than 50% of students with a faith affiliation.

David Laws, Schools Minister at the time the 50% Rule was introduced, described the motivation behind it in a Parliamentary debate. He said: "Where the Government fund new Church or faith school provision, it is right that such new schools cater for local demand in the faith, but the needs of children in the broader local community must not be overlooked. We want all local children to have the same opportunity to access high-quality state-funded education. The fact that it is state funded is the point."

He went on to talk about the principle of parental choice, saying there are "two competing rights in a state-funded school system: people’s right to choose to have their children educated in the way that they wish, and the right of [other] taxpayers who live near state-funded schools to have some ability to access them despite the over-representation of people from the faith that the system allows."

The 50% Rule was introduced by the 2010 Coalition Government formed from the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats. In the run up to the 2010 General Election, the Liberal Democrat manifesto had stated that "We will ensure that all faith schools develop an inclusive admissions policy." This aim was reflected in the Coalition Agreement as follows: "We will ensure that all new Academies follow an inclusive admissions policy. We will work with faith groups to enable more faith schools and facilitate inclusive admissions policies in as many of these schools as possible."

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Wikipedia