THE Bishop of Oxford has admitted there is still “work to do” on improving educational attainment in his diocese’s Church of England schools.

The Rt Rev John Pritchard addressed the Education Select Committee in Westminster on Wednesday on the issue of academies.

Bishop John is chairman of the Church of England’s Board of Education and episcopal spokesman on education in the House of Lords.

Committee chairman Graham Stuart raised concerns about the number of disadvantaged children achieving expected results in CoE schools, particularly the Diocese of Oxford, which he said was near the bottom of the list.

Bishop John said: “We will go wherever we can to serve the community. Sometimes we will not be able to achieve a short-term response or a quick response but we have been in this field for 200 years and generally our results are better than schools that are community schools or non-religious schools.”

Academies are schools funded by the Government but independent of council control and run by charitable trusts.

Locally the Diocese of Oxford is a sponsor of Oxford Academy in Littlemore, which was put in special measures by Ofsted last year.

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