St Chads is a popular school

11:47am Thursday 6th November 2008

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I AM pleased that Mr Brind welcomes the imminent joint-faith approach of St Chad’s (World October 22).

This positive attitude has been the prevailing one throughout the long but positive consultation process that we have undertaken with the support of the dioceses of Shrewsbury, Chester and Halton Borough Council.

The response from public meetings and written consultation has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic, with, quite rightly, pertinent questions about curriculum, finance, worship and admissions.

St Chad’s is a popular, successful and over-subscribed school and like all schools in this position it means that some parents and children are disappointed when they are not admitted to their school of choice.

The current admission application process closes this week and until applications are processed by Halton no-one knows what this year’s figures will be therefore it is too early for Mr Brind to say it is ‘unlikely’ his little boy will be admitted to St Chad’s.

I am also surprised by Mr Brind’s report of his telephone call where, in his words, the ‘very first’ question he was asked was about his son’s religion. We always automatically send out an admissions request form for mid-year applications or direct parents to Halton for September admissions as we are not involved in the early part of the admissions process. If a parent indicated on a form they were Catholic we would ask for a baptismal certificate but it would not be the ‘very first’ question to a telephone call.

I think it is unlikely that all Church of England students currently in primary schools will apply to St Chad’s as many have older brothers and sisters in schools in Warrington, Chester and Runcorn and parents will not want to split their family’s education. I hope no children will be, in Mr Brind’s words, ‘excluded from next year’s intake’ and have done everything I can to lessen this possibility by increasing the pupil admission numbers, from 170 in 2008 to 190 in 2009.

This number will eventually rise to 240 which on current primary numbers will allow all Catholic, Church of England and other students who want to share our journey to join this ‘outstanding Catholic School’ (Ofsted 2007) as we move towards becoming an outstanding joint-faith school.

MR A KEELEY Head teacher St Chad’s Catholic High School Runcorn