§ MR. CORRTE GRANTI beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether he is aware that 150 children attending the High Pavement Board School, Nottingham, have been excluded from the main building owing to the new rules as to accommodation in higher elementary schools, and that they are now being taught temporarily in adjacent buildings; and whether, seeing that the Board of Education has refused to sanction this arrangement, suggesting that there is accommodation in All Saints National School, he will explain under what law or regulation the Board of Education propose a transfer of these scholars to a denominational school.
*THE SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON, Oxford University)The Nottingham School Board converted the High Pavement Higher Grade Board School into a Higher Elementary School with the sanction of the Board of Education. This rendered necessary the finding of school places elsewhere for a considerable number of children. The School Board proposed to fit up the laundry and 266 gymnasium of the Higher Elementary School for this purpose. The Board of Education could not approve of the withdrawal of the laundry and gymnasium from the Higher Elementary School, more especially as there appeared to be vacant places in neighbouring schools, both board and voluntary, and notably in the All Saints National School. I may say that it has always been held that in dealing with questions of supply of school accommodation, the Board of Education, acting under the Education Acts, 1870–1900, have no authority to take into account the form of religious instruction which may be given in available schools.