School Admissions in Faith Schools
The School Admissions Code (2021) sets out the mandatory requirements and statutory guidance for admission authorities, governing bodies, local authorities, schools adjudicators and admission appeals panel when managing school admissions.
Admission authorities for each school are required to state the criteria which will be applied to allocate school places in the event that there are more applications than places. The admission authority will depend on the type of the school. For example, the admission authority for an academy is the academy trust and the admission authority for a voluntary aided school is the governing body. However, the admission authority for a voluntary controlled school is the local authority.
Published: October 21st, 2025
4 min read
Can faith play a role in over-subscription criteria?
When setting their admission criteria, schools with a religious character may take account of religious faith and activities when considering applications.
Schools with a religious character are required by the School Admissions Code to offer every child who applies, regardless of faith, a place at the school if there are places available. However, they may use faith-based oversubscription criteria where the school is oversubscribed so long as parents can easily understand how any faith-based criteria will be reasonably satisfied.
Court consideration of faith-based admission criteria
The recent case of R (on the application of CKT and DGT, by his mother and litigation friend CKT) v Twyford Church of England Academies Trust and another [2025] considered whether a Church of England school had indirectly discriminated against a prospective pupil on the grounds of race by failing to offer him a place.
In this case, the school was oversubscribed and consequently refused the Claimant a place at the school. As part of the admissions criteria, 20 points could be awarded where the child or their parents voluntarily attended Church of England services or churches affiliated to it, which includes various national orthodox churches.
The claimant’s mother attended an orthodox Eritrean church, and a score of 20 was therefore applied. A final additional point could be awarded if the family's main place of worship was a Church of England church, or ‘churches in communion with the Church of England’. This did not include the Eritrean orthodox church, and therefore the application scored 20 out of a possible 21 points.
In addition to its scoring system, the admissions criteria clarified that in the event of oversubscription, 150 places would be allocated as Christian places, 21 would be allocated as ‘world faith’ (meaning non-Christian) places, and 19 places would be provided to applicants with musical abilities.
When the application was denied, the claimant mother alleged that that school’s oversubscription criteria indirectly discriminated against racial groups. She noted that non-Anglican Christian communities, such as Eritrean Orthodox congregation, is predominantly composed of black individuals.
Why did the court decide that the school had not breached the Equality Act 2010 when applying faith-based criterion?
In this case, the court decided that the school’s admission arrangements were indirectly discriminatory in relation to race. This was because of the racial or ethnic profile of the Church of England congregation and other Christians (who were non-white), and the application of an additional point to those of the Church of England congregation.
This was significant, because no child awarded 20 points had been given a place at the school in three out of the previous five years – all places had gone to children being awarded the additional point.
However, the court found that the discrimination was justified under the Equality Act 2010 as faith schools have a legitimate aim, which the oversubscription criteria was linked to. It was also considered that the school could not take another, less discriminatory, measure which would not compromise its objective.
If you are implementing new admissions arrangements or seeking support with admissions appeals, our team can support you.
