This sounds pretty worrying, if what is suggested turns out to happen, and the church has a hand in running a significant number of schools. Of course its hard to know the impact for each school - some might not notice much difference, but for others there may be a significant effect. When I got to secondary school, one of the things I liked best was not having to participate in nearly as much religious crap as I did in primary school. The odd assembly was taken by a local clergyman, but that was tolerable, and in RE we rarely focused on christianity at all, it was mostly learning about other religions (mostly hinduism I seem to remember, which is odd). Anyway, I would have hated it if I'd been made to participate up to age 16 or 18, and I feel for those pupils who may have to now if the church takes over the school.

I was very surprised to hear about Malton School's 'double conversion' - my Mum has been a teacher there for over 20 years now, she hasn't talked about this before, I don't know how much it affects her yet if its still at a consulting stage, but I'll be interested to hear how much she knows next time I speak to her. I'll urge to speak out against it, but I doubt she would - she wouldn't have much influence anyway (unless there were many other teachers opposed as well), plus she's always been a bit of a religious sympathiser. Not a churchgoer, except on Christmas Eve, but described herself as 'Christian' on the Census (which did irritate me), and generally sees religion as a 'good thing'.

Suffice to say, I am glad I am not of school age any more!