THE HEADTEACHER of a Catholic high school has welcomed the Government climbdown over plans to force faith schools to take up to a quarter of pupils from other religions.

Sean Devlin, of Blessed Edward Oldcorne Catholic College, Worcester, said ministers should have consulted more before announcing the plans.

Last month Education Secretary Alan Johnson said the quotas would be imposed on new faith schools.

But he made a U-turn after an unprecedented backlash from Catholics across Britain.

Mr Devlin said he welcomed the climbdown, because such quotas were unnecessary.

"It would be wrong to set quotas. The Government should have, in my opinion, consulted more before making the pronouncement then it would not have had to make a U-turn," he said.

"Most Catholic schools have a significant number of non-Catholic pupils anyway."

He said that although Blessed Edward's did not have a set quota of pupils who were not Catholic, they operated an admissions criteria which enabled the school to be extremely inclusive.

He added: "We draw from 23 primary schools so there's no way we are exclusive economically or socio-economically."

The Church of England, which has 4,646 schools in the country, has already agreed to set aside up to 25 per cent of places voluntarily for non-believers and people from other faiths.

Last month Bishop Perowne CE College headteacher Julie Farr said the school was already operating an inclusive policy for children outside the faith, with a strict set of criteria though not a quota.