A change of name and status

In 2008, the Abbey Primary became a Church of England School and changed its name accordingly. The previous year, the governors had begun a six week consultation with parents and other stakeholders on a proposal to seek the change of status from a foundation primary school to one with a Church of England character and agreement was reached the following June when it was decided that from September, the school would be known as the Bourne Abbey Church of England Primary School.

The involvement of the Church of England in education dates back two centuries, the present school system in this country being largely a product of the lead taken in the early years of the 19th century. Until 1870, education was a voluntary initiative with the churches as main providers and when the Church of England’s National Society was formed in 1811, educational opportunity for the majority was limited to schools for the wealthy, i e public schools, or for the poor on a charitable and local basis. The society’s aim was to provide a school in every parish and the land to build them was given mainly by local benefactors with the vicar and churchwardens as trustees although the education they provided was for the poor of the parish.

The Education Act of 1870 was designed to make good the gaps in the church system by providing Board schools where church schools did not already exist and by the time of the 1902 Education Act, the dual system of educational provision was firmly established and the local education authorities they created became financially responsible for both voluntary and board schools.

The two main church providers of schools were the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church but in the 19th century, the Free Churches decided to support the development of board schools and apart from a small number of Methodist primary schools, this policy has continued. The 1944 Education Act enabled church schools to opt into the maintained system by choosing between aided and controlled status and some elected to become independent. In an aided school, church involvement was very significant with a majority representation on the governing body. Aided school governors, unlike those in county and controlled schools, were employers of their staff, responsible for building extensions and external repairs, for which they received a percentage reimbursement from the LEA, and for admissions to their schools with responsibility for any appeals. Controlled status was designed to enable many of the older church schools to undergo major renovations with state funding and LEAs became totally responsible for their finance although the school sites continued to be owned by the trustees and the church retained a minority representation on the governing body.

This was the situation when the statistics for a recent study of primary schools were collected. The Church of England’s contribution to education within the state sector is largely primary because at the time of the 1944 Act, many of the church elementary schools became primary and it did not have the resources, nor in many cases the will either, to build new secondary schools. Thus the Church of England’s provision of secondary schools is 6% (220) compared with 25% primary schools (4,470). Nevertheless, church schools today make up a third of all those in the maintained sector in England and continue to play a highly significant role in the country’s educational system.

The Abbey Primary School opened as a board school in 1877 and there has been a continuous programme of expansion ever since, notably in recent years and in June 1991 it was named as the first primary in Britain to obtain grant maintained status but has since become a foundation school. In a statement on the development, the chairman of the governors, John Kirkman, said that they had debated the matter for some considerable time and added: “We are unanimous and confident in our belief that this is an excellent proposal for the school, our pupils and parents and indeed for Bourne itself. It will give parents of Bourne greater choice and parents from other faiths may wish to send their children to a school where all faiths are respected, protected and encouraged.”

Mr Kirkman cited the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury [Robert Runcie] in 1988 when he stressed the importance of church schools: “It is about forming people who have the moral strength and spiritual depth to hold to a course and weather the ups and downs. It is about forming people who know that economic competition is not more important than family life and love of neighbour, and that technical innovation is not more important than the reverence for the beauty of creation. It is about forming people who, however academically and technically skilful, are not reduced to inarticulate embarrassment by the great questions of life and death, meaning and truth”.

“These words”, said Mr Kirkman, “probably convey our inspiration and cement the existing ethos of our school. We think it is the best thing not just for the school but also for the community. We put this bid together to enshrine the ethos of the school well into the future."

The new name came into effect on 1st September 2008 in readiness for the autumn term and head teacher, Cheryl Edwards, welcomed the change. "We are delighted at being granted church status", she said. "We are confident that it will lead our school on to even bigger and better things. The granting of church status is one of those history changing moments and through this action the governors have ensured that the finest, most noble and precious aspects of our ethos and culture are enshrined for perpetuity within the highest moral, spiritual and ethical values expected of a church school."

REVISED AUGUST 2008

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