A new website promoting Christian ideals for schools has been set up by the Bishop of Lincoln, the Right Reverend John Saxbee.

Produced by the National Society for Promoting Religious Education, the site provides teaching aids for Christian ideas like faith, humility and compassion.

The site is part of an attempt to reassure critics of faith schools ahead of the church increasing its presence in secondary education through funding academies.

"The ethos of a school can often be as important as the teaching and the curriculum," said Dr Saxbee.

"Hopefully teachers or parents or governors can take something from it so that a discussion can develop about what values they want to have at the heart of their school."

Churches were the first to provide free education for the poor in 19th century England, and with 6,900 faith schools in the country, still make up a third of the total.

By far the largest proportion of these belong to the Church of England who have 152 in Lincolnshire alone.

But of those only five cater for secondary age children.

Jane Rylands-Bolton, assistant headteacher at Christ's Hospital School in Lincoln, a C of E backed secondary, said she thought promoting these values had already led Ofsted inspectors to praise their pupils personal development.

"You can get the curriculum right and assessment right but unless you get the ethos right then it doesn't work.

"We are a multi-faith school and these values form part of a lot of religions.

"A teenager is programmed to be selfish but our job is to teach them that growing up involves having to help other people."

For more on the site, see Saturday's Echo.