Those who go on to do science degrees have been appalled by the ignorance of the mainstream school students as to the [evolution/ creationism] debate Scientists have embargoed that debate in secular schools But in Christian schools the debate is taught I hope that will spread. If you don't mention evolution to the children at a young age, they are naturally creationist It fits how they see the world. There's no doubt that God is the creator and the Bible is reliable. We introduce evolution to them as part of the debate at secondary age."Baker holds two biology degrees and obtained her BSc from Sussex University, where she was taught by the eminent evolutionist John Maynard Smith. "While I was there, I stopped being an evolutionist," she says. "You always hear there is overwhelming evidence for evolution, but no one could tell me what it was There was a refusal to debate it when I tried to. "But that is an individual belief, and there is no policy on it running through the new Christian schools.

Sylvia Baker is the founder and ex-head of Trinity Christian School in Stalybridge, Cheshire, established in 1978. She has taught evolution and creationism alongside one another for 25 years, and now advises other Christian schools on the teaching of creationism."I tell children that I believe in a six-day creation, a matter of thousands, not millions of years ago," she explains. Genesis is a theological text, and anyone who puts creationism into biology lessons is mixing apples and pears."Creationism has been taught in the classrooms of the Christian Schools Trust for about 30 years. The trust supports a loose network of more than 50 independent Christian schools across the country, catering to more than 3,000 students. "We will teach our view in RE lessons; that there is a God, that life has meaning But teaching six-day creationism in biology is mad.

"I have no evidence to suggest that any school in the state sector is teaching creationism," he says. I get impatient with my colleagues saying that schools are being sponsored by strange evangelical sects. It's a nonsense, especially in a country that has had religious groups in charge of successful schools for hundreds of years."No controversy followed the United Learning Trust, a subsidiary of the United Church Schools Trust, as it established academies in some of the most deprived areas of the UK, including Lambeth, south London in 2004 and Manchester's Moss Side in 2003.The Rev Steve Chalke is the chairman of Oasis Community Learning, a Christian charity that plans to open its first academy in Enfield next year. He says: "They do not teach creationism in science lessons, they discuss it in RE lessons That's perfectly acceptable on any curriculum.

The Emmanuel Schools Foundation is funded by Sir Peter Vardy, a Christian philanthropist, and secular groups have been up in arms about the college and its pair of sister academies' alleged teaching of creationism since 2002.But three successive Ofsted reports have judged the college, its staff and the pupils' behaviour "outstanding", and its results speak for themselves.Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Education Select Committee, has visited Emmanuel. I am entirely unsympathetic to those who push creationism as an alternative scientific theory. It's astonishing that they have hijacked a place in the media."The school that first sparked controversy over the involvement of religious groups in the state education system was Emmanuel College in Gateshead. If evolution is acceptable as a point of view, then creationism should be too. Science works on observation; you can't observe evolution, so it is not strictly science Evolutionists are hijacking science to make their case. The charge against faith schools of indoctrination is untrue.