A survey of 6,000 by the charity Show Racism the Red Card (SRTRC) and based on questionnaires sent to more than 60 schools around the country from 2012 to 2014, found widespread misconceptions about the number of immigrants and non-white people living in England.
However, Julien Bond who now works for the Methodist Church said he found it hard to believe that CofE schools could be blamed for the statistics: "Quite often in church schools, if we're talking Church of England then there is an interest in giving people some understanding of others faiths," he told Premier's News Hour.
The study, believed to be the largest of its kind to be carried out in the UK, found that 60% of the children questioned believed it was true that "asylum seekers and immigrants are stealing our jobs", while 35% agreed or partly agreed that "Muslims are taking over our country".
Mr Bond also suggested the make-up of the communities where the schools were surveyed was crucial to its outcome: "Some of these issues come where there is no contact, so I was wondering where these schools were which were surveyed and what their local experiences and local demographics are."
"It does fit with what people are saying more widely, and it's clearly not true, but one of the issues in our country and society is that there are perceptions which are not easily shifted and are often wrong," he added.
