The Oxford Diocesan Board of Education exists to advise and assist the 100 aided schools and 180 controlled schools in the Diocese of Oxford.
The staff time is mainly spent on:
- appointment and support of headteachers, and support for governors
- advice on religious education and acts of worship
- consultation on any changes to schools
- assistance with maintenance and improvement of aided schools
- transfer of educational trust funds from closed schools
- use of educational trust funds for aided school buildings
- liaison with Bracknell, Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Wokingham local education authorities
- representation on scrutiny committees, school organisation committees, school admissions forums, school forums and SACREs for each local education authority
- attendance at LEA committees concerning religious education
- liaison with the Department for Education and Skills
- liaison with other national bodies, eg the National College for School Leadership
- support in raising standards before and after inspection
- pastoral support for staff.
Most of our schools were established under trusts to provide education for the ‘poor of the parish’ with teaching according to the Church of England – before Parliament allowed, in 1870, the establishment of board, and later county, schools to provide free education. The school managers or governors were responsible for all costs relating to the school buildings. From 1833 the state provided an increasing amount of financial assistance, mainly for the payment of teachers.
The national need for the expansion of education beyond the means of many governing bodies was met in the Education Act 1944, which enabled voluntary schools to become either:
- Controlled by the local education authority (LEA), which meets all the costs of the school, with a minority of church foundation governors and church trustees holding the school site and buildings under educational trusts, or
- Aided, for which the local education authority meets most of the running costs, including teachers’ pay, but the governors, of whom a majority are church foundation governors, have responsibility for improvements to the school buildings and maintenance of the exterior fabric, and can claim 90% of these costs back from DfES.
New legislation introduced in September 2000 has enabled all schools to seek a change of category if they so wish, and since then, 15 controlled schools have become aided.
Religious education in aided schools is under the control of the governing body in accordance with the school’s trust deed, but in controlled schools is according to the agreed syllabus, which also applies to all county schools. Arrangements for the act of collective worship in both aided and controlled schools shall be made by the governing body after consulting the headteacher, taking account of each school’s trust deed. The Education Reform Act 1988 has considerably increased the responsibilities of governors and headteachers, particularly regarding the introduction of local management of schools and the requirement that the curriculum, including religious education and religious worship, (a) ‘promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society’, and (b) ‘prepares such pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life’.
The 1991 Board of Education Measure has brought up-to-date the statutory duties of the Diocesan Board. The Education Act 2002 has for the first time made it a statutory duty for aided schools to consult the DBE about their admissions policies.
Oxford Diocesan Education Services Ltd was formed in July 1993 so that LEAs and school governors could pay for additional services from the DBE. The current service agreement with schools ran until March 2004.
Four-yearly inspections were started for secondary schools in 1993 and for primary schools in 1994, but after the first round are to be six-yearly. Aided school religious education and worship at all church schools must be inspected separately but at roughly the same time. The DBE has trained Section 23 inspectors for this: it assists schools in preparation, and advises governors about selection of inspectors. It has produced Open the Door – guidelines for both the leading and the inspection of worship.
