Shirley high croydon

Soup - what was your issue with Riddlesdown (an oversubscribed school)? And, catholics do make a commitment that they will bring their children up in the catholic faith. The triage is often commented on - i.e. the church, the school and the family. I don't understand why a DC would want to go to a RC school when they don't practice the faith? The whole idea of going to a faith school is because of the common ethos.

FWIW, private secondary was not a consideration until we looked at what was available locally and the lack of choice due to admissions criteria.

"you are pretending to have a concern for 'the vast majority' of croydon pupils which you do not in fact display in your own life."

I completely object to this statement. I do have a concern for Croydon pupils using the state system because my children have friends whose education has been severely fucked up due to admissions problems and lack of choice and I have friends who have had to go through the hell of waiting to hear about places being allocated from waiting lists because of crap admissions criteria.

Perhaps you are unable to feel empathy for those in situations which do not affect you and perhaps you only worry about things that are a problem for you but I don't.

We are talking about state schools. The presence of independent schools makes no impact on the choice of state schools available. The presence of faith schools does. As an aside, any child can apply for a place at the Whitgift schools and they offer generous bursaries and scholarships to less well off parents - not guaranteed but certainly not a complete barrier like faith.

I am not being disingenuous, I am stating facts. Of course, clearly you know my mind better than I do.

I have no problem with catholic schools, I have a problem with faith schools. Please don't make unfounded accusations.

Poor deprived catholics from Waddon have the choice to send their child to any state school they like. Poor deprived non catholics from Waddon do not. (and I use Catholic here because you did).

My children attend private schools because of the problems with admission criteria for Croydon state schools and I have never thought them anything other than bloody lucky to be able to do so.

@Soup unlike you I made it clear that I had a vested interest in the issue in my first post in this thread. You clearly have a problem with catholic schools, not with equal access.

You are indeed being disingenuous because you are pretending to have a concern for 'the vast majority' of croydon pupils which you do not in fact display in your own life. You are implicitly criticising the right of catholics (maybe poor catholics from Waddon, like I was) to get a good education for their children while at the same time taking advantage of your own ability to circumvent the system through the depth of your pockets. It is clear, when having the full facts, that you are just fine with schools which aren't open to the vast majority of Croydon pupils so long as they are open to your own DCs. It's only the Catholics you don't like.

Of course, being Catholic, you obviously wouldn't be able to see a problem with faith schools would you?

The fact that my children go to Trinity has no bearing on the fact that the state choice for Croydon for non-religeous children is made worse by the faith schools.

You will notice that I said state schools?

I am not being disingenuous at all.

@soup you are being deliberately disingenuous. The top schools are actually Trinity and Whitgift, one of which is attended by your DCs, and they are out of the reach of practically everyone.

Do the catholic wedding vows insist upon sending your child going to a catholic school then?

Top performing state secular schools for Croydon last year, based on % gaining 5 A-C GCSES. Schools within a 5 mile radius of my postcode

1. Wallington Boys (not Croydon)
2. Wilsons (not Croydon)
3. Wallington Girls (not Croydon)
4. Coloma (catholic)
5. St Philomenas (Catholic)
6. Langley Park Boys (not Croydon)
7. Langley Park Girls (not Croydon)
8. Archbishop Tenisons (C of E)
9. Hayes School (not Croydon)
10. John Fisher (Catholic)
11. Brit School
12. Riddlesdown
13. Woodcote
14. Warlingham (not Croydon)

etc

So, the top 3 performing Croydon schools are ruled out for the vast majority of croydon children. If your child falls between Super Selective ability and ordinary, the school choice is made worse by the presence of faith schools.

Er no. Catholic girls have the choice of ONE decent school if their parents are going to keep the promises they made when they got married. I know many don't and some of us can't (there are no catholic secondary schools at all where I live) but that doesn't change the facts.

"Catholic girls in Croydon have ONE decent school to go to. Catholic boys have nothing - they either have to schlep out to Purley for Fisher (not easy from Waddon) or out to practically Norbury for St Joes (even worse)."

Er, no. Catholic girls and boys have the choice of all the secular schools plus the specific catholic ones.

@soup it doesn't make the situation worse because if those 4 schools were back 'on the list' the kids who go to those 4 schools would be 'back in the fray'

Catholic girls in Croydon have ONE decent school to go to. Catholic boys have nothing - they either have to schlep out to Purley for Fisher (not easy from Waddon) or out to practically Norbury for St Joes (even worse).

Well, St Mary's will be one of those "undersubscribed" schools. Mainly because it is not a good school. I imagine that is also true of the other. If you assume that people look for the best school for their child, the undersubscribed, failing ones are irrelevant.

I do not imagine that the one with the clause admitting the non-religious admits regardless of religion. Is it not just a small percentage? which I thought they had to accept.

Coloma only admits non-catholics if they do not fill their places with catholic girls. John Fisher is the same, being oversubscribed with Catholic boys.

Archbishop Tenisons admits 90% as church places (so that's just 10 or 11 non church).

St Andrews is complicated, using a points system whereby church commitment bumps you up the priority list. A local child with a sibling who attended one of their catchment schools would score 48 with up to 13 bonus points for religion (specifically C of E). How this works in practise wrt numbers of non C of E children I don't know.

So, that is 4 schools pretty much wiped off the list before you start, making competition for the n=secular schools more fierce. How does this not make the situation worse?

But Soup - as downto has said at least 2 (possibly 3) of the RC schools in Croydon are undersubscribed. Of the 2 CE schools - both very popular but there is a clause where non religious are accepted. There are a lot of over subscribed schools in Croydon (where distance for example if the main criteria) and children who live in these particular affluent areas benefit.

"I don't get why you think the faith schools make the Croydon situation worse."

Because if you aren't the right religion or committed your choice of schools is much smaller.

I don't get why you think the faith schools make the Croydon situation worse.

But Coloma doesn't select on ability?

Caoimhe is right - until recently Croydon had 5 Catholic schools, Coloma, VF, St Joe's, Thomas More and St Mary's. At least two of these are undersubscribed, and contain many non-Catholic children. In spite of this, the council thought it would be a good idea to hand over one of it's failing secular schools to Coloma to run as an academy. Coloma is a very good school, no argument, but the fact that they are very good at running a Catholic, academic, all girls school does not mean they are necessarily going to be great at running a difficult, rough, secular academy.

In addition, 2 other failing schools have been taken over by a faithy charity, Oasis.

So if you are not a fan of faith schools, the situation in Croydon has indeed become tighter for you.

Virgo Fidelis does fall under Croydon - have a look at the league tables.

I think lots of Bromley Catholics still go to Croydon schools (or at least to Coloma) or to Lewisham or Lambeth.

I'm sorry you don't have a Catholic school near you but I still think it is crazy that Croydon has so many.

5 catholic? Coloma, St Mary's, Thomas Moore, St Joes and what? Surely Fisher is in Sutton? And Virgo Fidelis isn't in Croydon borough, nor is St Phil's.....

In my day lots of Bromley Catholics went to the Croydon schools. So effectively, you've got 5 schools (if it is 5) out of 37 which are catholic schools. Hardly ridiculous. Although a bloody sight better than where I live where there are NO catholic schools at all. None. :(

Metabilis3, are you referring to the number of faith schools?

Well if you compare Croydon to its neighbours, Bromley and Sutton, the figures are very different:
Croydon - 21 state secondary schools - 7 faith schools (33%) - 2 CofE and 5 Catholic

Sutton - 15 state secondary schools - 2 faith schools (13%) - both Catholic

Bromley - 17 state secondary schools - 1 faith school (6%) - CofE

@caoimhe I wouldn't describe it as a ridiculous number.