The risks to choir schools are as great today as they were 100 years ago, the chairman of the Choir Schools’ Association (CSA) has said.

Speaking at the association’s centenary conference, Paul Smith, headmaster of Hereford Cathedral School, highlighted the risks he believed were faced by schools that educate the UK’s cathedral and collegiate choristers.

Mr Smith said:  “I wish I could add that today proper forethought, planning and insight would never allow a repeat of such concerns amongst our membership, and that the values and principles upon which our schools are based are much better understood and appreciated by legislators and politicians.

“I wish I could say that, but I suspect that the risks to our CSA schools today are as great, if not greater, than they were in 1918.”

Victims of ‘lazy stereotypes’ 

He used his address at the conference in St Paul’s Cathedral to say: “For those of us in the independent sector, there can be little doubt that we have few friends at the moment.

“Politicians, of all shades, seem hell-bent on issuing ill-informed edicts, based upon lazy stereotypes, which purportedly seek to ensure the independent sector does its bit to justify charitable status.

“The independent sector is an embarrassment to governments, because their schools have the audacity to invest and nurture in a broad holistic education, not a narrow results-driven curriculum, and in doing so independent schools highlight the ill effects of a continuous stream of reforms imposed upon the state sector.”