Faith Schools And Racial Segregation?

Totally agree wol1968. It's repugnant that they would put a non-Catholic looked after child behind baptised Catholic in the admissions criteria, falling below the moral high ground set by the non religious schools. I'm an atheist but, what would "their" Jesus have done?

Whyjustwhy, yes I can see that people in areas where there is little pressure on school places must look on with bemusement wondering what all the fuss is about. And politicians from those areas don't feel any urgency to look at the issues. However, the national drive to reduce surpluses while simultaneously try to cater for different religious groups will bite everywhere eventually.

Some rural areas are already being impacted, but in different ways to urban areas, for instance in this case a rural village that doesn't have its own community secondary school is objecting to a new faith school in the neighbourhood. I think most people would recognise that the new school isn't ideally located for the Sikh community it is intended to serve, but finding suitable accommodation closer to home has clearly proved too difficult/expensive.

I think it must be very difficult if you live in an area where it's very hard to access good schools.
We live in a rural county, and the catholic secondary school was set up to provide a catholic education for families living across 6 towns/parishes.
Having looked at the county council website, each town has a community secondary school, and in each case, places were offered to all students living in the town. In most of the schools places were also offered to out of catchment applicants too.
So, in this case I think our catholic school is not undermining anyone.
(Actually, I suspect you could make a good argument for another faith school to open, as all the others (bar one) are community schools)

I find it particularly ironic that many in-demand faith schools seem to be encouraging a Pharisaical adherence to the letter of church teaching, while working completely against the spirit of Gospel teaching. IIRC Jesus had very little time for the no-work-on-the-Sabbath brigade and would rather have filled the faith schools with the sort of kids that would give the caricature PFB mum a heart attack.

Angel, I don't know, perhaps they would and perhaps they wouldn't. At least they would have the opportunity. However people don't neatly fall into two buckets called "faith" and "non-faith". They are two ends of a scale, and very many people are somewhere in the middle, for example:

• Strong faith, but not churchgoing
• Lapsed faith, but want children to learn about their faith heritage
• Devoutly religious, but attending church X rather than church Y that has top priority.
• Not at all religious, but happy to attend church regularly to get a school place.

Only the fourth one in that list would get a place at many oversubscribed VA schools.

Icecream - the link you've given to 'Our vision for Catholic Education' is v interesting. Assuming that schools practice this, would any non-faith families want to send their DC to a faith school?

Titus, yes, and some who are getting in are feeling they've been coerced into changing their worshiping habits in order to get a place.

Popular culture is so busy being pleased with the tired "on your knees to avoid the fees" line, that its so far missing the "on your knees to avoid a long anxious wait for an allocated place in an unpopular school an inconvenient distance away" situation that is becoming increasingly common in some parts of London.

The not-religious-enough thing is an interesting point. I do know devout Catholics here in this area dominated by Catholic schools who still can't get their kids in, as they have to do boring things like work, and so can't do as much dedicated church stuff as people with more money.

Angeleyes, everyone has the right to educate their child in their own religion, and, as per Article 2 of the Human Rights Act 1998, Part 2, those rights must be respected. However, that doesn't mean there is an automatic right to state funding for it, especially if it leads to (quoting from the link) "unreasonable public expenditure." As the Archdiocese of Southwark says (page 16) "Parents will recognise that the availability of free Catholic schools and colleges is a privilege."

And in the current climate of reduced surpluses and reduced choice that privilege will inevitably come under pressure, because there are lots of other people who would like their own dedicated schools too, not enough money in the pot to fund them all, and an increasingly disgruntled non-religious (or often simply not-religious-enough) population who are being squeezed out as a result of funding being channeled into schools they can't access.

babybarrister, see note 30 at the <a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-00013-2012.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">bottom of page 14.

Quote: "Funding Agreements for entirely new Academies (i.e. not convertors from the maintained or independent sectors, or those sponsored Academies with a predecessor school) and Free Schools with a religious character provide that where the school is oversubscribed at least 50% of places are to be allocated without reference to faith"

It only applies to newly opened academies / free schools.
Local Authorities can still open VA schools, which can then convert to academy status, as a legal way of avoiding the 50% rule.

The definition of Catholic education is:
"Catholic education is a lifelong process of human growth and development. It is more than schooling. It begins in the home, continues in the school and matures through involvement with the Christian community in the parish.
These three dimensions of home, school and parish must work together if Catholic education is to truly attain its goal of forming mature human persons in the image and likeness of Christ."

"Why is there not even a mi imum % of non worshippers on existing schools though?!"

Because you haven't lobbied hard enough for it yet! It would be strongly resisted by the Catholic Education Service. Perhaps less so by the CoE though.

"All CofE VC schools are 100% community criteria"

No they're not. See here.

All CofE VC schools are 100% community criteria. VA schools vary - some have quota of community criteria places, others don't.

Other denominations and religions tend to have fewer designated 'non-religious' places.

Labour did indeed allow the opening of large numbers of faith schools (and even allowing for the upswing in Hindu free schools, more than opened under the Tories).

Catholic schools are very diverse. CofE are typical. Muslim, Hindi and Jewish schools less so.

"What analysis is done of bums on seats rather than pretty looking criteria?"

There was some recently, see here, commissioned by the Church of England. It showed a strong correlation between bums on seats and school places . I expect a lot of people in the church are uncomfortable about that, and a lot of others are perfectly happy with it, but either way it will be causing some much needed internal debate.

"Well two CoE schools with a restriction on the no. of worshippers ..."
All new CoE schools have an upper limit of 50% on faith school places. The three (not two) in the article linked earlier went further in being 100% open. That doesn't "make up for" the others. But it is a welcome trend, not to be sniffed at if it encourages others to do the same.

It's now Diocese of London policy to encourage its new schools to be 100% open. Each school will have to wrestle with its conscience over that, but at least if they ignore the policy they can be held to account. For instance this one has said it can't possibly be 100% open because its partnered with an existing girls' school and they want to treat boys and girls equally. It remains to be seen whether that means they will reduce the faith intake at the girls' school to 50% to match the statutory upper-limit on the new boys' school!

The state faith school next door to me wouldn't give me an application form for my kid, saying that there wasn't any point as it was oversubscribed by Catholic children (most of whom lived much further away). I'm not impressed that a school I help pay for won't let my kid in.

Religious apartheid is a bad thing, however attractive it seems for those parents who are in a position to take advantage of it. I don't think some children should be privileged, and some penalised, on the basis of what religion their parents follow.

Plus, it is storing up problems for the years ahead. We have kids growing up now who only know and mix with kids of their own religion. That isn't a recipe for mutual understanding and tolerance when they all grow up.

Talkin/Amber, Governments aren't in the habit of getting rid of things that are popular. Like an earlier contributer [Sat 03-May-14 11:52:38], they think the answer is to create more of the same, because they assume a direct correlation between their popularity and their faith designation.

At least if admissions are opened up, faith schools will compete on a more even socio-economic footing with community schools, and the 'popularity contest' will be less skewed.

Amber
www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229671.500-god-notbotherers-religious-apathy-reigns.html#.U2aFCvldXTo
the 50% ... 3% stat is my favourite

Bang on, even...

I regularly bang in about getting rid of faith schools . Opening up admissions is a step in the right direction, but I think we'd be better off as a society if they didn't exist at all.

the number of new schools of any hue being set up is not enough : A nice load of secular schools that match society would be good
but Gove is under the psychic power of Bliar and thinks god is good in schools.
More fool him.
More pity those with kids younger than mine.