Last Updated on November 3, 2026 by Karl Thompson
What is a faith school? A faith school is a school with a religious character, usually linked to a particular church or religious organisation. In England, about a third of state-funded schools are faith schools, most of them Church of England or Roman Catholic primary schools. They are funded by the state like other schools, but can reflect their faith in their ethos, their religious education and, when they are oversubscribed, their admissions.
Faith schools matter to sociologists because they raise questions about choice, selection and social cohesion. They are popular with many parents and often get good results, but critics argue that this is partly because they take fewer disadvantaged pupils.
This post explains the types of faith school, how many there are, how their admissions work, what the evidence says about their results and intakes, and the arguments for and against them. It’s part of the education policy topic in the education module, examined on AQA Paper 1 (7192/1). All figures are for England.
Types of faith school
| Type | Who runs admissions? | Religious education | Staffing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voluntary aided (VA) | The school’s governing body. May give priority by faith to all its places when oversubscribed | Can teach RE in line with the school’s own faith | The governing body may give preference to teachers of its religion |
| Voluntary controlled (VC) | The local authority | Follows the locally agreed syllabus, unless parents ask for RE in line with the school’s faith | Up to a fifth of teachers can be ‘reserved’ teachers appointed for their fitness to teach RE in the faith |
| Faith academies and free schools | The academy trust. New faith academies and free schools must offer at least 50% of places without reference to faith when oversubscribed | Set by the school’s funding agreement | Set by the funding agreement |
Some private (independent) schools also have a religious character, but they’re outside the state system. See my post on private schools.
How many faith schools are there?
The most recent detailed figures I’ve been able to confirm are for January 2019, from the House of Commons Library:
| State-funded mainstream schools in England (January 2019) | Faith schools | Share of schools | Share of pupils |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | 6,179 | 36.8% | 28.4% |
| Secondary | 623 | 18.1% | 18.0% |
| All | 6,802 | 33.6% | 24.1% (1.94 million pupils) |
| Religious character (all state-funded mainstream schools, January 2019) | Number of schools |
|---|---|
| Church of England | 4,579 |
| Roman Catholic | 1,966 |
| Other Christian | 130 |
| Jewish | 49 |
| Muslim | 31 |
| Methodist | 25 |
| Sikh | 12 |
| Hindu | 7 |
| Multi-faith | 3 |
Source: House of Commons Library (2019) Faith Schools in England: FAQs.
Two patterns stand out. Faith schools are overwhelmingly Christian: fewer than 2% have a non-Christian religious character. And they are much more common at primary level, where more than a third of schools are faith schools, than at secondary level.
Faith schools and admissions
Faith schools must offer a place to any child when they have places available. They can only give priority by faith when they are oversubscribed, with more applicants than places. The School Admissions Code allows schools with a religious character to do this, and requires them to make it easy for parents to understand how the faith criteria will be applied (for example, how often families must attend worship).
How much priority they can give depends on the type of school. Voluntary aided schools can allocate all their places by faith when oversubscribed. New faith academies and free schools must offer at least half their places without reference to faith. Governments have twice considered removing this 50% cap: in May 2018 the government decided to keep it, and in February 2025 the government again decided to keep it, rather than go ahead with a 2024 proposal to remove it.
Do faith schools get better results?
In 2016, the Education Policy Institute (EPI) compared faith and non-faith schools:
- Raw results were higher. At GCSE, 60.6% of pupils in Church of England schools and 63.2% in Roman Catholic schools got five or more A*–C grades including English and maths, compared with 57.4% in non-faith schools. On average, faith school pupils got nearly a third of a grade higher in each of their eight best GCSE subjects.
- Most of the difference was due to intake. Once pupils’ prior attainment and backgrounds were taken into account, the gap at primary level largely disappeared, and at GCSE it shrank to just over a seventh of a grade per subject.
- Faith schools take fewer disadvantaged pupils. They take a lower share of pupils eligible for free school meals than their local areas. A pupil at the average faith school had about two-thirds the odds of being eligible for free school meals of a child in the local area. Nearly 1 in 10 faith secondary schools were as socially selective as the average grammar school, compared with about 1 in 30 non-faith comprehensives.
The EPI concluded that more faith schools might help meet demand for places, but were unlikely to offer much higher quality than other schools, and risked increasing social segregation.
Arguments for faith schools
Parental choice and diversity. From a New Right perspective, faith schools add to the diversity of schools that parents can choose between. Many parents choose them, including parents who aren’t religious, because of their ethos and results.
Religious freedom. Supporters argue that parents have a right to have their children educated in line with their beliefs, and that the state should support this rather than leave it only to those who can pay for private faith schools.
Shared values and community. From a functionalist perspective, influenced by Durkheim, faith schools can transmit a clear set of shared values, discipline and a sense of belonging to a community, which helps to integrate pupils into society.
Results. Faith schools’ raw results are higher than non-faith schools’, and supporters argue that their ethos contributes to this.
Arguments against faith schools
Social selection. The EPI’s evidence suggests that most of faith schools’ better results come from their intakes, and that many take fewer disadvantaged pupils than their local area. From a Marxist perspective, faith admissions can become a form of covert selection by class: middle-class parents with the cultural capital to meet the criteria get their children into popular schools. See my post on selection policies in education.
Polarisation. If faith schools take a smaller share of disadvantaged pupils, nearby non-faith schools take a larger share, widening the gap between schools.
Social cohesion. Campaign groups such as Humanists UK argue that separating children by their parents’ religion works against social cohesion, and that state-funded schools should be open to all children equally.
Discrimination. Critics argue that it is unfair for state-funded schools to give priority to children because of their parents’ religion, particularly where a faith school is the only good school nearby.
Faith schools and sociological perspectives
- Functionalism: faith schools can transmit shared values and build solidarity within a community. HOWEVER, if they separate children by religion, they may weaken solidarity across society as a whole.
- The New Right: faith schools are part of a diverse market of schools that parents can choose between.
- Marxism: faith admissions can help middle-class families secure places at popular schools, reproducing class inequality.
- Postmodernism: a wide range of school types, including faith schools, fits the postmodern idea of diversity and choice in education. But faith schools are also evidence against it, because they are based on religious belief, the kind of single big explanation of the world (metanarrative) that postmodernists say people no longer accept. See my post on postmodernism and education.
Faith schools in the exam
Faith schools are useful evidence in questions about selection, marketisation and diversity and choice, and about the role of education in transmitting values. For example:
- AQA June 2022, Question 04: “Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate the view that marketisation policies have increased diversity and choice in the education system.” [30 marks]
- AQA June 2019, Question 01: “Outline two criticisms of schools selecting pupils by ability.” [4 marks] Faith schools don’t select by ability, so they aren’t the answer here, but they are a good example of how selection happens in other ways. See selection policies in education.
Sociology of Education Revision Bundle
If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision notes bundle, written by Karl Thompson, who taught A-level sociology for eighteen years and spent twelve as an AQA examiner, marking all three papers on the current specification.
Signposting and Related Posts
This post has been written for students studying the education module as part of AQA A-level sociology. Related posts:
- Selection policies in education
- Grammar schools: advantages and disadvantages
- Arguments for and against private schools
- Education policies: a summary
Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com
Sources
- Department for Education (2021) School Admissions Code.
- Education Policy Institute (2016) Faith Schools: Pupil Performance and Social Selection; summarised in Johnes, R. and Andrews, J. (2016) ‘Faith schools do better chiefly because of their pupils’ backgrounds’, Democratic Audit / LSE Religion and Global Society blog.
- House of Commons Library (2019) Faith Schools in England: FAQs, Briefing Paper 06972 (Long, R. and Danechi, S.).
- Humanists UK (2025) press release on the 50% faith admissions cap, 10 February.