Since the Anglican Church in England and Wales began to build schools long before the state developed machinery to do so, around a quarter of all primary schools remain connected with the Anglican Church. The church school inspection system maintains that Anglican schools have a distinctive ethos. The Student Voice Project argues that school ethos is generated by the implicit collective values, beliefs and behaviours of the students, and was designed to give explicit voice to the students in response to six specific areas of school life identified by the Anglican school inspection criteria as relevant to school ethos. Drawing on data provide by 8,111 year-five and year-six students attending Church in Wales primary schools, the present study reports on the six ethos measures and on significant differences reported by female and male students, and by year-five and year-six students.

Historians have used a number of political, social, and other factors to explain the controversy surrounding elementary education in Victorian Britain. This article underscores the importance of religious motivations. The Act of 1870 – a significant extension of state responsibility – did not end debates about the purpose of education and the pros and cons of government involvement and religious instruction. Prominent among voluntaryists and anti-secularists was A. J. Beresford Hope, whose position offers useful insights into the educational agencies of the Church and the manner in which churchmen responded to new circumstances. This article explains Hope’s attitude and uses it to explore some of the causes and consequences of the Act of 1870. What type of schooling best suited the British people? Should it have a basis in something other than religion? How could the Church and its supporters meet the challenges posed by education reform?