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Single faith schools promote better understanding of cultures, offer children more opportunities and deliver better academic performance, according to a group of experts in ethnic issues, writes Derren Hayes.

Speaking a fringe meeting of faith schools at the Local Government Association conference in Bournemouth, Bill Taylor, leader of Blackburn and Darwen council, told delegates that secular schooling should be compulsory for all.

Taylor said single faith schools improve academic achievement, discipline and life opportunities.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council, said children perform better when they were surrounded by people from their own culture, religion and ethnicity.

He said: "Minority communities care passionately about having children educated somewhere they are surrounded by their own culture, but in a way that is not isolated in society."

Lord Ouseley, president of the LGA, said faith schools can promote understanding of other cultures rather than cause division. He said: "Faith schools must deliver an outcome academically and provide knowledge and understanding of national diversity.

"The vast majority of children are being denied that, and most of the children are white."