What is a Bishop’s Visitor?
Originally, a Bishop’s Visitor was appointed by a bishop to inspect religious education given in voluntary schools in his diocese, but our Bishop’s Visitors no longer do this. The inspection of religious education in voluntary aided schools and collective worship in both voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools is now undertaken by specially trained Section 50 inspectors. Today’s Bishop’s Visitors can be either ordained clergy or lay people who are appointed by the Bishop and commissioned by him to fulfill a specific role in relation to the Church schools in the diocese. That role is to provide a link between the Bishop and the Diocesan Director of Education on the one hand and the Church in Wales aided and controlled schools in the diocese on the other. Bishop’s Visitors are therefore Diocesan representatives who, along with the Diocesan Director of Education, his Deputy and the Diocesan Schools Officer, forge links with Church schools on behalf of the diocese. They are the vi
