England and Wales’ Court of Appeal has upheld an Anglican secondary school’s use of a Church of England worship criterion when allocating oversubscribed places, finding that the resulting indirect disadvantage to some racial and ethnic groups was justified.
The challenge concerned Twyford Church of England High School and an additional admissions point available to applicants who met a specified worship requirement. The claimants’ family worshipped at an Eritrean Orthodox church and did not receive that point. They argued that the criterion placed members of some minority communities at a particular disadvantage and was unlawful under equality legislation.
In a judgment handed down on October 22, the court accepted that the rule had an indirectly discriminatory effect. It nevertheless held that the school trust had shown a legitimate aim: preserving the institution’s Anglican character in a heavily oversubscribed setting. The criterion was a proportionate way of pursuing that aim, the court concluded, when considered within the admissions scheme as a whole.
The court also rejected the argument that the trust failed to comply with the public sector equality duty. That duty required conscientious consideration of equality effects; it did not dictate a particular substantive outcome or prohibit the trust from retaining a faith-based priority once those effects had been properly weighed.
The decision, CKT and DGT v Twyford Church of England Academies Trust [2026] EWCA Civ 1364, leaves the admissions policy in place. It does not establish that every faith-based priority will be lawful. Proportionality remains sensitive to the evidence, the policy’s design and the institution’s stated objective.
Read the official judgment page.
