Heather Bellamy spoke to the Evangelical Alliance about the proposal to register all Sunday Schools.

Simon McCrossan

The head of Ofsted has confirmed churches will have to register Sunday Schools under new Government proposals. The Evangelical Alliance has campaigned against the current plans and branded the proposal to register all Sunday Schools as the State regulation of religion. To find out more Heather Bellamy spoke with Simon McCrossan, the Head of Public Policy for the Evangelical Alliance.

Heather: So why are Ofsted looking to register Sunday Schools?

Simon: These proposals are part of the Government's wider counter-extremism strategy. They are looking at dealing with the problem of extremism and those who don't subscribe to British values. It's widely agreed in public that the focus of these proposals are Madrasa schools.

These proposals are aimed at what's called out of school settings and they don't have to be religious. The proposals state that if you teach a young person, or a young person attends a setting, for more than six hours in total during a week, then that will trigger the registration of your setting and the inspection and regulation of Ofsted.

Now bear in mind that a young person can quite easily attend a church setting for six hours or more in a week. Simply put, it could be two hours of church on a Sunday, two hours at youth group and maybe two hours at a Bible study during the week, or choir or worship practice. Any number of combinations may well trigger the registration and inspection regime that's currently being proposed, which would bring Ofsted into the Sunday School environment.

Heather: And what do they plan to do when the Sunday Schools are registered with them?

Simon: This is where the proposals get quite contentious. The proposals are aimed at preventing emotional harm, which is very vague. But more than that, what the proposals do is that they say they want to search out and identify teaching that doesn't fit with British values, such as tolerance and respect. These proposals allow Ofsted to identify unsuitable teachers and undesirable teaching. That would be defined by Ofsted who are a state body, a part of the Government agency and you can see the potential for problems.

Heather: Do they plan to conduct British values inspections on church youth work?

Simon: It would of course affect youth work and Sunday schools. It would also affect faith-based organisations much more widely.

Some people might be slightly confused, because on the eve of the debate in Westminster, the Daily Telegraph led with a misleading headline. The headline was that David Cameron was going to stop Ofsted regulating Sunday Schools and significantly he had said that these proposals wouldn't apply to a one-off event. Whereas the actual proposals do provide for that.

However, whilst David Cameron is saying it's not his intention to register Sunday Schools, because he says that they only teach children for a short period of time, in Parliament Nick Gibb the Junior Education Minister did concede that Sunday Schools would be caught by these proposals because of the aggregate number of hours. This led him to then say that the department was exploring proposals around the idea of disaggregation, which simply means, "Is there any way whereby we can stop Sunday Schools being caught by these proposals in a more proportionate way?"

But any vibrant church is going to struggle to keep track of a disaggregated provision. Do you split the provision by the setting, the teacher, the student, or the age group? How do you know they've not clocked six hours? The whole thing becomes incredibly bureaucratic and unworkable.

Image courtesy of [Stuart Miles] at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What's really chilling and what was of concern to a number of MP's in Parliament, was that one of the sanctions that they are potentially going to have, is to ban people from working with young people and close these institutions down. That would happen when Ofsted find undesirable teaching or unsuitable teachers, or settings that should have registered and they haven't.

If you're a teacher and you volunteer at Sunday School, or a Bible week, the career implications of such sanctions could be immense. We are worried that they could have a chilling effect, not just on the Church, on Sunday Schools and beach missions and faith-based organisations, but into a whole host of voluntary sector activities where it's already a struggle to attract good quality volunteers. And it may have a chilling effect where both teachers and other individuals withdraw their voluntary work. This could affect things like holiday clubs, which are a great source of childcare and valued input in many communities by parents both in the Church and beyond.