Once again, both Catholic and Church of England schools head the list of schools performing well.

This is an even greater achievement when one looks at the percentage of children who are eligible for free meals in these schools - 17 per cent in Catholic schools and 12 per cent in C of E schools. State schools have 20 per cent.

This gives the lie to those who allege Church schools select and do not take their share of our disadvantaged children.

The Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Estelle Morris, wants to force Church schools to accept children of other faiths (and, ideally, of no faith).

This is an attempt to water down the success of these schools so State schools do not face such tough competition.

Yet she cannot ignore the success of Church schools when Tony Blair wants 100 more of them.

The dilemma is illustrated by Minette Martin, the Daily Telegraph columnist (in an article a few Saturdays ago), who, understandably, wants her child to go to a Church school near her home because it is successful and has a caring, disciplined ethos.

But she also wants the religion taken out of it. If she achieved her wish, the school would return to the moral illiteracy we see in many State schools.

There is a failure to understand that children learn best in an atmosphere of firm, caring discipline, where Christian (or Muslim) values are taught and acted out. This is why Church schools exist.

Others in politics, the media and education administration have tried to undermine Church schools by saying they are divisive.

This is not true. Earlier this year, even the Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly said Catholic schools should be praised for breaking down sectarianism in Scotland by their open-minded teaching of religion.

-Mike Sherlock, Mountbatten Drive, Eastbourne