Church of England schools urged to hold parents’ evenings in prisons

It follows a scheme in south Wales where inmates joined their children for meetings with teachers.

Parents from about 50 schools have already tested the idea, which has now been commended by the Church’s lead bishop for prisons.

Bishop of Rochester, the Right Rev James Langstaff told Premier why all schools should follow suit.

Speaking about the HMP Parc initiative in Bridgend which he has visited, he said: “It’s not a specifically church-related initiative but it has been running for a time now and seems to suggest now that there’s some fruitfulness in this.”

Parc’s head of family interventions, Corin Morgan-Armstrong, told Wales Online that the aim of the unique scheme is to reduce re-offending by improving fathers’ relationships with their children and to ensure children of prisoners get the support they need in school.

Bishop James said, while it would be “difficult” to introduce the scheme in England, he wanted to find a place where a Church of England School could pilot it.

He said: “It would be really good to see if we could find a part of the country, perhaps through the Diocesan Church School’s network in that area; we could set up a pilot and see if this could run in an English setting.”

He also said Christians should back the idea.

Explaining, he said: “The basic model is one that Christians should be really positive about because it plays to the things we say we are concerned about, which is about transforming lives, giving people the…