Creating denominational schools he said pushes the responsibility elsewhere and lets all the rest of us off the hook

Creating denominational schools, he said, “pushes the responsibility elsewhere and lets all the rest of us off the hook”.But defenders are equally easy to find. “The children in our schools need the spiritual dimension taken seriously and religion-based schools are in the best position to do that,” said the Right Rev Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford.It might be argued that religion and a good education have gone together since the monastic foundations promoted learning in the Middle Ages. The Church of England furthered the link when it built schools to educate the Victorian poor. But demographic shifts in Bradford suggest that the sheer demand for Muslim schools may make them considerably more exclusive than many Church of England and Catholic schools, some of which have taken more children from other faiths than from their own over the years.Bradford’s ethnic minority population continues to rise and the white population in work is projected to reduce by 11,000 in the next few years. Feversham states it will not have the capacity to take non-Muslim children, in the short term at least.Nor is the local Muslims’ desire for the new state school likely to be diminished by Ofsted’s criticism of the education Bradford council has been providing for children from ethnic minorities, delivered in a damning report last May.Mohammad Ibrahim, chairman of Feversham’s school governors, said: “If we ever undersubscribed we would welcome [other faiths] but I don’t think that will happen in the near future.”In the meantime, racial appreciation must seemingly come from within. The school’s headteacher, Rehana Shafquat, said: “I believe that to understand other cultures you need to understand your own first Only then can you understand how others fit in.”. Oxford University is to launch a new drive to attract admissions from the state sector after discovering that, even at many of the country’s top comprehensives, only a handful of their sixth-formers have applied in the past five years

Oxford University is to launch a new drive to attract admissions from the state sector after discovering that, even at many of the country’s top comprehensives, only a handful of their sixth-formers have applied in the past five years.
It was expected that after the controversy generated by Laura Spence’s rejection by Magdalen College ­ she was accepted as a scholarship student by Harvard instead ­ a larger number of applications would be made from state schools and further education colleges.

This has not been the case.Now, admissions officers are to contact each of the top 100 institutions ­ as judged by their A-level results ­ offering to address staff and sixth formers, or host visits to Oxford.Jane Minto, head of Oxford’s admissions, said: “These are excellent schools and a large number of their students go on to good universities. We want to put ourselves in the frame.”Although most of the schools at the very top of the table are producing a regular flow of applicants to Oxford, others, where the average A-level score was close to three B grades, rarely featured on the university’s lists. A number of schools, which were once a regular source of applicants, have seen numbers decline.John Watts, an admissions tutor at Corpus Christi College, said: “Young people are often uneasy about putting themselves up for scrutiny, especially if they think they are going to find a load of posh dons in strange old buildings.”¿ Spending by individual Oxford and Cambridge colleges on basics such as libraries, computers and academic staff, rivals that of entire universities elsewhere in the country.New figures show that spending at these universities has been underestimated because only money from central university authorities has been taken into account, when many of the colleges are rich in their own right. For instance, Oxford’s colleges spent £1.86m on information technology equipment in 1998-99 in addition to £4.7m spent centrally.. David Carlyle Rocastle, footballer: born London 2 May 1967; played for Arsenal 1984-92, Leeds United 1992-93, Manchester City 1993-94, Chelsea 1994-98, Norwich City on loan 1997, Hull City on loan 1997-98; capped 14 times by England 1988-92; married (three children); died 31 March 2001. David Carlyle Rocastle, footballer: born London 2 May 1967; played for Arsenal 1984-92, Leeds United 1992-93, Manchester City 1993-94, Chelsea 1994-98, Norwich City on loan 1997, Hull City on loan 1997-98; capped 14 times by England 1988-92; married (three children); died 31 March 2001.
As spring turned to summer in 1989, there were few young men in English football who seemed more thrillingly and comprehensively qualified than David Rocastle to bestride the coming decade with their all-round excellence.A few weeks on from his 22nd birthday, the multi-talented Londoner had just celebrated his dazzling part in lifting Arsenal’s first Championship crown for 18 years and, having made his England d?t the previous autumn, he could look forward to an international future which oozed with limitless potential.For George Graham’s Arsenal and Bobby Robson’s England, David Rocastle looked to be a priceless asset, a smoothly creative but resiliently tough midfielder-cum-winger and the sort of performer around whom serially successful sides might be built. And yet somehow, although he went on to gain further honours and the immensity of his early achievements can never be forgotten, his career petered out in frustratingly anti-climactic fashion.As the years wore on, Rocastle was plagued increasingly by injuries and, perhaps, suffered a consequent reduction in confidence.

In addition, he was unfortunate enough to become part of several teams which performed with surprising inconsistency after his rather unexpected departure from Highbury when the soccer world appeared still to be at his feet in August 1992.Rocastle had been recruited by the Gunners after excelling for South London schoolboys, signing as an apprentice in August 1983 and turning professional on the last day of 1984. Thereafter his star rose rapidly and his senior d?t followed at home to Newcastle United in September 1985.In 1986 “Rocky” was voted the Gunners’ player of the year after becoming a regular on the right of midfield and, having earned the first of 14 England under-21 caps, he covered himself in glory during the club’s successful League Cup campaign.His most memorable moment was contributing the late winner in the Littlewoods Cup semi-final replay against their bitter north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane. He excelled in the subsequent Wembley victory over Liverpool, too, and topped a campaign of unalloyed personal triumph by being named in his fellow professionals’ team of the season.By this time Rocastle was a darling of the Highbury faithful, who revelled in his ability to weave his way past bewildered defenders with the ball seemingly glued to his bootlaces. His exquisitely balanced dribbling skills were supplemented by startling acceleration and a fierce shot, and he could pass a football with both crispness and accuracy.There was a whiff of fire and brimstone about the Rocastle game, too, and if he could lose his temper on occasions usually that necessary steely streak was harnessed to the good of manager George Graham’s ever-improving team.The most effective season of his life was 1988/89 when he didn’t miss a game as the Gunners lifted the Championship in the most dramatic of all title races, winning 2-0 at Anfield in the final game to snatch the prize from their hosts’ grasp thanks to a late goal from Michael Thomas.By then appearing regularly in the full England side, having made his entrance against Denmark in September 1988, Rocastle received yet another accolade, that of Barclays Young Eagle of the Year; he was honoured once more by selection in his peers’ team of the year, and there appeared not a cloud on his horizon.However, the 1989/90 term did not go according to plan.

Arsenal’s form slipped and with it, temporarily, went Rocastle’s sureness of touch. Suddenly he seemed prone to releasing the ball at the wrong moment, his distribution became wayward and, come the spring, he fell prey to knee trouble and his club place was no longer a formality.Rocastle was hugely disappointed not to be picked for the 1990 World Cup Finals and during the domestic campaign of 1990/91 a broken toe caused him to miss more games than he played. However, he recovered in time to compile enough appearances to earn a second Championship medal, as Graham’s Gunners recorded another title triumph with a body of performances far more entertaining than the “Boring Arsenal” brigade of snipers ever acknowledged.Buoyed by that, Rocastle returned to his best in 1991/92, his gifts glowing so incandescently in a new central midfield berth that he earned an international recall and seemed to have overcome an irritating mid-career falter, despite his failure to make Graham Taylor’s England squad for that summer’s European Championships.Then, to the dismay of most Arsenal supporters, in August 1992 he joined Leeds United in a £2m deal, the reigning champions thus seeming likely to benefit from his prime years Sadly, it wasn’t to be. In fact, his international career ­ comprising seven wins and seven draws in his 14 senior outings ­ was over, and although Rocastle sparkled intermittently during his first term at Elland Road, Howard Wilkinson’s team was struggling to live up to its mighty deeds of the previous season. Also, to make the newcomer’s situation more testing, he suffered further injury problems and the veteran Gordon Strachan proved feistily disinclined to yield his place.Accordingly in December 1993 Rocastle switched to Manchester City in a transaction which saw David White travel in the opposite direction, but his career lost further impetus in an indifferent side at Maine Road, and eight months later he was on the move again, this time alighting at Chelsea.Still only 27, Rocastle flickered tantalisingly for several months under Glenn Hoddle, only for foot injuries to sideline him for most of 1995/96, after which he was never able to force himself back into the first team, which was by then managed by Ruud Gullit.Though Rocastle offered generous guidance to youngsters in Chelsea’s reserves, that was no suitable role for such an accomplished footballer, who was reduced to loan stints with Norwich City in 1996/97 and Hull City the following season.Thereafter he played some football in Malaysia but David Rocastle was out of the mainstream of the professional game when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer which attacks the immune system, in February this year.Ivan Ponting. John Aaron Lewis, pianist, composer and bandleader: born LaGrange, Illinois 3 May 1920; married (one son, one daughter); died New York 29 March 2001. John Aaron Lewis, pianist, composer and bandleader: born LaGrange, Illinois 3 May 1920; married (one son, one daughter); died New York 29 March 2001.
Despite the fact that he admirably contrived to be both the Count Basie and the Duke Ellington of modern jazz, many followers of the music disapproved of John Lewis.

This was because he brought the disciplines of classical music to constrain the boisterous and unruly freedoms of jazz.They were wrong in their objection. Lewis used brilliant intellect and restraint in his inventions. They never produced the ecstatic exuberance of a Charlie Parker solo and rarely the warm glow of a Gil Evans masterpiece, but his compositions were sustained by a brilliant and wide-ranging originality that made his piano solos and orchestrations deeply satisfying.He never lacked direction or the confidence to pursue his aims. As the critic Max Harrison wrote “Lewis succeeded where all others have failed in grafting a number of classical devices into the technique of jazz without doing violence to the spirit of the music.” Lewis was as inspired by Bach and the baroque as he was by Basie and the Bird.Lewis’s appealing piano style had its roots in the playing of Count Basie.