London school in multiple breaches of admissions code, says adjudicator

One of the country’s most famous faith schools has made dozens of breaches of the schools admissions code, an adjudicator has said.

The London Oratory, a Roman Catholic school with academy status, was the subject of a complaint to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator by the British Humanist Association.

Adjudicator Bryan Slater found the school had breached the code both in its admission criteria for 2014 and those proposed for the following year.

Among the breaches he found were the prioritisation of applications on the basis of practical or financial help to organisations associated with the school; admissions criteria that used participation in religious activities not as laid out by the relevant religious authority; and failing to allow admission of children of no faith.

Dr Slater also found the school used the wrong criteria to judge pupils religious zeal when deciding between applications that exceeded the number of available places, and that it had an abnormally low proportion of non-white pupils for a school in inner London.

The school could not be contacted for comment.

Mark Smulian