The Salvation Army has set up a school in Birmingham for children excluded from mainstream education as part of its mission to help those “who have been rejected” from society.
The Christian evangelical charity – which is more associated with helping the homeless and elderly – claims the pioneering centre was the first of its kind and in keeping with the 130-year-old organisation’s central ethos.
The Salvation Army corps’ headquarters in Aston has been turned into a classroom where disruptive youngsters who have been kicked out of school are taught by tutors under a partnership with Christian educational specialists, The Lighthouse Group. The Salvation Army’s divisional commander for central England Major Samuel Edgar said: “The Salvation Army’s mission has always been to help those who have been rejected and give them the idea that there is no such thing as a down-and-out.”
Major Edgar stressed religious instruction was not part of the curriculum, though it was hoped that youngsters would pick up some of the lessons of being responsible citizens inherent in Christian teaching.
“We are working from a faith basis,” he said. “But primarily it is the reason we are doing it rather than the way we do it. We are not running a Christian school.”
