Catholic schools will be asked to remove the terms “mother” and “father” from admissions forms, after a government ruling that the terms could be too restrictive.
The Catholic Education Service has said that it will be asking schools to comply with a “unified approach” under which admissions forms omit the words. However, bishops will have the final decision over whether to accept the request for schools in the diocese.
The Office of the Schools Adjudicator, which settles admissions disputes on behalf of the government, made the ruling after a complaint against a Catholic primary school.
A parent had objected that Holy Ghost Catholic primary school in Wandsworth, south-west London, had discriminated against “separated, step and gay parents” in its use of the terms.
Peter Goringe, one of the 12 schools adjudicators, upheld the complaint, saying: “In the absence of any clarification of the term ‘parent’, the use of the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ might, as the objector suggests, be taken to imply that the school is restricting its definition.”
Many Catholic schools have already replaced the terms with “parent 1” and “parent 2”, according to the Sunday Times.
A spokesman for the Catholic Education Service said: “We expect all Catholic schools to comply with the school admissions code and we work closely with dioceses and the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) to ensure this happens.”
The spokesman added that “we have been working closely with dioceses and the OSA to develop a Certificate of Catholic Practice. This aims to produce a unified approach to admissions for all Catholic schools and which fully complies with the code.”
Pro-life vigil gave me strength to keep baby, mother tells MPs
Parliament has heard of how a woman changed her mind about having an abortion thanks to the kindness of pro-lifers.
Sir Edward Leigh, the Conservative MP, read the testimony at a debate in Westminster Hall over the introduction of buffer zones outside abortion clinics. The woman, Kate, who did not want to give her full name, said her three-year-old daughter, “an amazing, perfect little girl”, would not be alive today if MPs seeking to stop vigils outside clinics had their way.
In her testimony she said she had never wanted to have an abortion but felt “immense pressure” from people around her. Outside the clinic at Ealing, she said, she was offered a leaflet by a woman “who told me she was there if I needed her”.
She said: “Once in the clinic, while the group [who had accompanied her] were distracted, I leapt out of the ground-floor window and cleared three fences to escape. I talked to the woman on the gate again, who offered any support I needed to keep my baby, and this gave me the confidence to leave where I was, supported by the group that this women worked with.”
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