THE headteacher of Oxfordshire’s only Church of England secondary school has pledged to keep religious education at the heart of the curriculum after concerns from the Bishop of Oxford.

Julie Fenn, headteacher at the Marlborough School, Woodstock, said RE would not be “squeezed out” by the English Baccalaureate (Ebacc), brought in last year to assess pupils and schools.

Her comments came after a report by the Rt Rev John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford, said a focus on other subjects meant fewer children were studying RE through to GCSE.

Schools are judged on how many pupils achieve a C grade or higher in English, maths, science, geography or history, and a language.

Mrs Fenn said: “For us there is no question of the Ebacc squeezing RE out of our curriculum. All pupils follow the GCSE course.

“The concern for us is that it has been left out of the Ebacc as a humanities subject, which doesn’t seem to have any logic at all.”

She said the school would not ignore the new assessment measure, but would not force children into taking subjects they did not wish to take, to increase Ebacc percentages.

Bishop John warned that RE teaching was “not healthy” with many teachers lacking even a basic understanding of the Christian faith.

Mrs Fenn said this was not the case at the Marlborough School and links with Oxford University enabled it to recruit teachers who had specialist training in the subject.

She added: “Our experience of RE teachers has been that of a real commitment to their faith and their subject.

“They have a genuine desire to share that with pupils in interesting ways and to involve young people in applying Christian values in their everyday life.”

Faith schools have been in the news with questions over the proportion of children who should be admitted on the basis of their religion.

Bishop John said this had seen a rise in hostility towards faith schools.

As a voluntary-controlled school, pupils at the Marlborough follow Oxfordshire County Council admissions procedures and are not given preference if they are practising Christians.

Mrs Fenn said: “We have never experienced any hostility towards us as a church school.

“To the contrary, pupils often join us at 11 from out-of-catchment schools because we are a church school, and at 16 when they join our sixth form.”

Vicars of different denominations run assemblies and take part in RE lessons, and church visits take place for occasions throughout the year, such as the sixth form leavers’ service, she said.

Mrs Fenn added: “Preserving our Christian character is deeply embedded in the school and supported by strong links with our local churches and clergy.

“It adds something special to the school, which is very important to us.”