To go to church to broaden my childs choice of school

No vicar is going to sign the letter if a parent is honest about not being a believer but only going to church for the school place. And if the child asks why the family has suddenly got religion the parent would have to lie to them as well. Very distasteful in my opinion.

I would ban faith schools tomorrow, by the way.

I'm a Christian.

I think it's appalling that we have Church schools funded by the State.

We lived in a village and my dc went to the village school which was CofE. We aren't. Every child in the village went, so no Church attendance was necessary, but I don't agree with the CofE stance on a lot of things but had no choice as it was the only school.

All state schools should be non religious.

As someone raised RC and spent my education in catholic schools and Sundays in church I find the pp’s who speak of indoctrination hilarious.
I know many catholics and they are certainly not indoctrinated. Most of us pick and choose the bits of our religion that suit us.
I refused to send my dc to catholic schools because didn’t enjoy being a pupil in a catholic school.
They both went to the local comprehensive and did v. well.

@izimbra the thing is there are many (state) schools in London with long long waiting lists - I live near one which is practically worshipped on Mumsnet yet really it isn't anything that special.
Yet a C of E school a couple of miles away was undersubscribed.
I was just saying it's interesting.... that's all.

Although, if the OP actually attends weekly for two years then isn’t that all you would need to sign off on? I’d be amazed if people had to prove they held a sincere faith to a vicar.

I’m a bit weirded out by the people who have said this is immoral. Is it any more moral to live close to an excellent school than to go to church?

So you would have preferred to have your 8 year old go to a school miles away from all her friends, rather than walking to her local school? That's the reality of the stranglehold that the CofE have on village schools.

You live in London where 3 times as many children attend private schools and where state school choices are huge because of the sheer number of schools within travelling distance for most children. A good number of state secondaries in London offer partial selection or choose by fair banding/lottery.

Step away from London or any major urban area and families have far, far less school choice. Public transport is terrible in many rural or semi rural areas, which restricts people's choices when it comes to school. Then throw in religious admissions criteria and it all gets really hard.

My old mum and her cronies decided to start going to church in their 80's just in case they'd got the hereafter all wrong. Apparently they sat in someone else's pew and a little ungodly squabble ensued so they never went back. I'm still pretty sure that, if she went anywhere, it was upstairs and she's looking down.
(Irrelevant to the post except that making use of religion, when it suits, can occur at any age)

@weAllWanttheBest

Use all the options on the application form in your order of preference. Just in case.

School admission is a game we have to play by the rules. They make the rules so you’re fine to play by their rules. It’s not like the churches and the schools don’t know why they have a sudden influx of parents with young children.

The church is there to serve the people. If you are respectful of the views held and don't mind your DS being taught certain beliefs then I don't see why not. If there is a God I'm sure he wouldn't be too fussed about why you'd joined his congregation. I'm sure if he can see into everyone's hearts he'd know your motives were no less suspect than many others.

Is that you Julia?

It's interesting reading this because where I live in South East London several schools have closed down or merged.
This is a mixture of low birth rates and families moving out of London but several of the schools that have closed were C of E or RC schools.
Two were among the oldest schools in London (St Martin's in the Field and Archbishop Tennison).
St Martin's had been undersubscribed for years and many of the pupils weren't practicing Christians (there was a high level of Muslim pupils as it was single sex and many parents preferred that).
Mumsnet often feels like a parallel universe to me for many things but this obsession that some people have with getting into the "good church school" seems to be the opposite where I live - or the schools wouldn't have closed down due to lack of pupils would they?

They just go to whatever other school is available, and do their best with whatever teaching is on offer.

At both of my DD's Catholic schools, church attendance is not a requirement for admission as the admissions are dealt with by the local council who have no knowledge of if you attend church or not. The criteria is based upon the usual looked after children at the top of the list, followed by children who have been baptised Catholic in one of the feeder parishes, then other baptised Catholic children as the top 3 points. All school admission, faith or not are done via the council online with a supplementary form done for faith schools, providing details of baptism and a copy of documents has to be provided. I'm sure there are at least 50% of pupils who have never stepped foot in church since the day they were baptised.

You know what they say, if you can’t pay the fees, get on your knees!

I don’t agree with it, and don’t feel it would send a very good message to my child.

I tend to think that a child that has support at home and wants to learn will do well in any school.

It could happen if the child pretending to be religious lived closer to the school than the one not pretending….

Do local C of E or catholic feeder school students get priority for admission? They do for our local religious secondaries so you may find that you're still some way down the list.

Who's lying?

If a parent fulfils the criteria for the bullshit religious selection process by sitting through a tedious church service once a week for however long it is, then there is nothing dishonest about that at all. In these days of dwindling church attendence I'm sure most places will be happy to have someone else to try to indocrinate and get donation money out of each week.

Thankfully I live in a country where this shit isn't a thing anyway, but the problem here is the fact that state-funded schools are allowed to openly discriminate, not that that parents game the system.

Or you could take the perspective that it’s a great example. Mum values education and is willing to go out of her way and make effort to get the best results, therefore education and working hard must be important.

@Magnastorm @LaerealSilverhand

Fair enough. Not something I would do-or expect my child to lie about. But you do you.

All our local church based schools when I was a teen were rubbish, one’s improved a lot and is a mixed boy and girl Catholic comprehensive.

Do what you like. I ended up going to one rubbish girls school then transferring to year 3 of a local private convent. My DB and an ex of mine went to different Christian brother/monks schools and they all hated it and didn’t do well there.

@weAllWanttheBest please don’t put just one preference on your application form. Doing that will not get you a place, simply because you haven’t put any other preferences.

If you don’t get a place and have any other schools listed, the authority isn’t obliged to find you a school place thereafter.

"If we hadn't taken you to church, you wouldn't have got a school place in your own village and the council would have assigned you one miles and miles away where you didn't know anyone and none of your friends went."

It's practically compulsory in some areas. Our village junior school (but not the infants, bizarrely, despite also being CofE) gives priority to those who attend church so if you actually want to get a place, you go to church - regardless of your actual religion, or lack thereof. It's just a ridiculous hoop you have to jump through. The nearest junior school that doesn't give church attenders priority (despite also being CofE) is an 8 mile round trip and you would be unlikely to get a place due to the distance cutoff.

What is so bizarre is that all of the schools in our villages are CofE but its a complete lottery as to whether they select on church attendence or don't. Some do, some don't. It's all to do with whether they are "grant maintained" or "grant controlled".