To go to church to broaden my childs choice of school

If you are willing to put in the time to go to church every week...Why not?

Vicar has to sign a form to say you go, usually. Better start quite a while before your year of attendance required though .

Pretty easily.

How do people who do this explain it to their children?

My NDN’s did this, even got their DC baptised and as soon as their DC got a place in the school, they stopped going. Had a real spell of them getting up early every Sunday to go to church that suddenly dropped when their DC started school.

I don’t really care about people doing this tbh, the church must know it happens.

What aspects of Christianity are you opposed to?

Murder / killing being wrong?
A bit of adultery on the side is alright, right?
Lie is ok?
How about false witness - perjury?
Greed is good and oh I wish I had her money, jewellery, husband?
Try to do the right thing, the moral thing? To help the poor, those less fortunate.

Which of the above are you opposed to?

Don't overthink it. "They" don't drill onto your head at a church service. The minister/ priest reads part of the bible. They discuss it in understandable terms. You sing a few hymns. Perhaps you learn or hear what the church believes. You don't submit to mantra chanting dogma. You are not forced to marry or be with Big Chief Man.

Exactly this.

Do that if you want to. Check that church attendance is the only option for admission, the ones near me have a certain number of local places or other criteria. It gives options that allow you to apply without lying.

I was in a similar position but there's no way I could have lived with myself by lying that I had a faith. I think modelling honesty and integrity to your children is important.

But the OP states that church attendance is a requirement. And baptism is still a pre-requisite for many Christian schools. How likely is that these schools will attract practising Jews, Muslims, Sikhs etc? Such schools are less diverse pupil-wise and any teaching about respecting others will be theoretical rather than based on exposure to the different beliefs of your peers and friends.

Completely agree - no place for this kind of religious closed shop in state education.

Yanbu if you feel it's the right school for your DC.

There is no requirement to have faith - criteria have to be specific and objectively measurable and it's impossible to measure the magnitude of someone's faith. You just have to be physically in the church for the appropriate times. You could sit there listening to atheist podcasts or playing tetris on your phone for the required number of Sundays and you would meet the criteria.

I met the faith school criteria as I go to church anyway but we put the faith school as 3rd choice because it was actually not the best fit for DC for numerous reasons.

My children go to a faith school and we attended services, volunteered etc to get them in. There are plenty of people not of the school's faith who do these things as well because it's an academically good school and they want their kids to go there. I think it's fair enough as long as they're willing to embrace the school's ethos 🤷🏻‍♀️

What I don't like is people who send their kids to a faith school and then complain about the faith element of the school and actively try to ensure their children don't have to participate in it 😬

Not a great example to set to your kids... mum is a fake ...

Why do you want to send your child to a school the purpose of which is to indoctrinate them if you are not religious?

"And CofE schools are expected to ensure that their RE teaching - a fully academic subject which teaches about other faiths and critical thinking - is absolutely outstanding. And yet in non-faith schools, RE teaching is in crisis. So your assumption that church school children would not be taught to be ‘respectful and open-minded’ is inaccurate and contrary to the reality in uk schools."

Isn't a core feature of Christian faith the belief that the only real god is the Christian god, and only followers of Christ can escape an eternity in hell? So 'I respect your faith but you're wrong and you're going to hell' basically. Obviously you keep a 'respectful and open-minded' manner. But underneath you think everyone except people who share your faith are wrong and are eternally fucked.

"but they still exist for ‘all faiths and none’ (unlike faith schools like Catholic or Jewish etc). So they are multi faith!"

Are the children whose parents attend church advantaged in the admissions process?

The Church of England own the land and buildings of around a third of the state schools because church goers from 200 years ago thought it was good to educate children when the state didn’t. They have covenants and trusts in place to ensure that the building is solely used for Christian education but they still exist for ‘all faiths and none’ (unlike faith schools like Catholic or Jewish etc). So they are multi faith!

And CofE schools are expected to ensure that their RE teaching - a fully academic subject which teaches about other faiths and critical thinking - is absolutely outstanding. And yet in non-faith schools, RE teaching is in crisis. So your assumption that church school children would not be taught to be ‘respectful and open-minded’ is inaccurate and contrary to the reality in uk schools.

Be warned OP if your going to do it you need to attend regularly for quite a time period. The ministers/priests/vicars are very used to once a month brigade 6 months before applications and many won't write the letters as its obvious why they started attending!

My DD is in Y5 and the local CofE school has a great reputation. We attend church anyway (though probably not often enough for a letter from the vicar in strict terms but that has more to do with health and DS additional needs).
We looked round and gosh, they think a lot of themselves. We want a school that will care for her and make her feel comfortable. Not one that thinks it's a Russell Group feeder school and, when you ask safeguarding questions, says "well if that's important to YOUR family".

It really doesn't work like that any more, not round here anyway. Catchment/proximity to school means absolutely nothing in any of the schools in my area. Genuine RC faith also means little because admission goes on 11+ and entrance exam results. DD despite being RC, tutored and in the catchment, sat the exam and failed.

There are many dc from other major religions in that RC school. The parents tutor like crazy to get them in, then happily let the child take the compulsory Catholic studies GCSE, because the academic standards are so incredibly high there compared to the other local secondaries.

The faith thing is just another level of unfairness in an unfair system.

I went to a Catholic school in the 80’s/90’s. Church goer at the weekends with the family.

Maybe things have changed but all my friends parents were also Catholic, it was very socialiable with lots of events. Consider you might not feel fully part of the community.

My DC isn’t baptised as I turned against all that years ago. My family are very liberal in many ways but since being an adult can see how the school teaching and religious environment wasn’t great for me.

Everyone wants the ‘best’ school for their kid. Just recognise thats not just results.

Yes, very true.

I think it's a completely reasonable thing to do in response to an unfair discriminatory admissions system.

Well I don't think faith-based schools have a place in modern Britain. Children should grow up in multi-faith environments, learning about and respecting all beliefs including their own to help them become respectful and open minded adults. It's a hard no from me, but I'm not you, OP.

Attending church services when you don't believe in that religion solely to get your child into a specific school is teaching your DC that you should lie or at least pretend to be something you're not to get what you want in life.