CHRISTIAN charity Oasis Community Learning will next week announce it is to take over a third Croydon school – Byron Primary in Coulsdon.

Rachel Millard speaks to the Reverend Steve Chalke, the outspoken minister behind the organisation, to find out how his beliefs affect his vision for education.

How did your own schooling in Croydon affect your view of education?

I went to Davidsons. On the first day, we all stood in the assembly hall and the head teacher looked at us and said: 'You will not be doing O levels; you will do CSEs; you are not the type of children who would benefit from doing O levels.' So I never did any O levels and I was not pushed. My experience there was one of the reasons why I am so keen to create opportunities. In Shirley Park last year, we took on a cohort of students who were not expected to get any exams and we provided them with an alternative education system, sitting in a small group. Every one of those students got five GCSEs at grades A*-C, including maths and English.

The Government is cutting the number of vocational qualifications that count as GCSE equivalents. Are you worried about how this might affect Oasis academies' GCSE results?

The Government says it might have some impact across the board. The truth is we knew from last year this was going to happen, so we have worked hard to ensure the courses we deliver are courses that count. Nationally they have used the example of a BTEC in horse-grooming counting for four GCSEs, but we never did that. Education is a tough thing to work at. We do not take anything for granted. But we have been aware that this will happen, and, without being overconfident, we are sure we will do well.

Why do Oasis academies not select some students by ability, as they are allowed to do?

We believe in giving everybody opportunity. If we exclude someone, that is a really selfish act, and it makes it tougher for the guy down the road. The Croydon Advertiser may look at a school that takes in children who are hard to work with and say 'Your results are not good'. It is because that school has taken in young people who are needy. It is a huge societal issue that we need to sort out. If we said 'We will only take kids from a certain background', we will look good, but we create a problem. We think it is selfish to not play our part in all of this. Every child has potential; it is a question of finding what engages them.

There are obviously questions around the trust's religious ethos and how that impacts the students.

We are quite schizophrenic in society. Everybody loves sending their kids to Church of England schools – including Muslims, Sikhs and other faiths – because those schools are good and they are driven by a great set of values and a Christian ethos. They also like sending their children to Oasis, and they would tell you why – there is a sense of spirituality, and morality based around spirituality. We believe that spirituality and faith are important parts of life, and we do not like the fact that secular society pretends these things are not important, squashes them. There are many Muslim schoolchildren at Shirley Park, and a prayer room. In one or two of our schools there are probably more Muslims than anyone else.

Some parents would simply rather their children's education was free from religious influence. Would you say Oasis academies are not for them?

I think that is why parental choice is really important. As a parent I would hate it if my children's education did not include anything about spirituality. That is an educational failure. We live in a country and a world where faith plays a really important part. My view is that it would be an abuse for Oasis to proselytise any child. We never do that. And we take children of all faith and no faith, and we have staff of all faith and no faith. There is no agenda to push Christianity. Having said that, if you emerge from the educational system knowing nothing about the Christian, Hindu, secular etc. worldviews, you are ill-equipped for life and you will discriminate. You will be part of the problem, not part of the answer.

Some people say, 'Take religion out of school', as though secular humanism were not a religion. They say teaching has got to be objective. It is not objective to say 'There is no God'; it is a massive faith statement. 'On the basis of my total non-understanding of the universe, I can pronounce confidently that God does not exist' – that is a huge statement of faith. So whether a person is an atheist or a Christian or a Muslim, we all live by a faith of some sort. There is no such thing as an objective education. An atheistic education that says God does not exist ignores the fact most people have faith in God of some sort.

Why has the Baptist denomination traditionally not got involved in running schools?

Baptist churches organise themselves. That means you do not develop national strategies, and some things are easier to do with a national strategy. A church could decide to get involved with schools, but then you wonder how many churches have got the capacity and the skill spread to take on this big task.

You have spoken about wanting to run other public services. Are you looking at anything in Croydon?

In Shirley Park we have developed the children's centre. We have an embedded NHS team and midwives in the children's centre and the nursery. We are involved in discussions with all sorts of councils about how we can help them pick up children's work, youth work and some of the services that are hard for them to deliver in the current economic climate. The reason for that is that no child is an island. The best way to help some children with their literacy and numeracy may be to form a relationship with their dad or mum, so they can learn how to deal with the situation.