A significant number of Catholic children from the Spelthorne area (especially Staines and Stanwell) have been unsuccessful in securing places at any Catholic secondary school for the 2019/20 academic year. This is because one of the main admissions criteria is distance from school and our area is at a severe disadvantage compared to others purely because of geography and school catchment area boundaries.

Practicing Catholic families in this area need the reassurance that their children will be able to enjoy a Catholic education in one of their local secondary schools, and in particular St Paul’s in Sunbury and Salesians in Chertsey.

The aim of this petition is to highlight this issue and find a suitable solution with the help of the Local Education Authority (LEA), the Diocese of Westminster and the schools mentioned above.

We suggest that a solution could be found by changing the admissions criteria and catchments and/or increasing secondary school capacity.

As well as our children, we also represent the interests of our local community: we are very aware of the wider impact this lack of provision will have on the area in the long-term with practicing Catholics choosing to live in areas where Catholic education is more likely.

This would threaten the tight-knit community the area enjoys as well as the viability of local Catholic schools such as Our Lady of the Rosary school, which finds itself unable to present parents with a Catholic secondary school option with the current entrance criteria set by St Paul’s and Salesians.

This petition will support letters which will be sent to the Diocese, the LEA, St Paul’s and Salesians in the next few weeks.

Please take time to sign our petition and share with your friends, family and colleagues by the 13th May 2019.

GDPR - we will be sharing the petition with Surrey County Council, the Diocese of Westminster, St Paul’s College in Sunbury and Salesians in Chertsey. We will not share any data outside of these establishments; however, they may choose to publish the data.