Faith Schools And Racial Segregation?

raspberryripple43, have you looked your school up on this map to find out how it compares with its local area?

"I think you're going about this the wrong way."
Er, going about what the wrong way? Not sure I follow, sorry.

"What I really like to see across all schools ... is them taking their fair share of people in poverty"
Me too.

"churches ... own the bricks and mortar of the school"
Historically yes, but not now. New faith schools (including free schools and some new VA schools) have been given publicly owned buildings.

"Anyone with a statement goes straight to the top of the list of any school RC included"
They should (so long as the statement names the school). They should also make that clear in the written policy. See the posts from Mon 28-Apr-14 19:26:18 onwards.

"as does looked after and adopted children"
In many cases, non-RC looked after children have low priority. See gardenfeature's post at Mon 28-Apr-14 06:50:59.

Just wanted to say in my ds's London Catholic Primary school, in his class one third are black, one third mixed race (ie Asian, Sout American etc) white (either British, Polish or Irish) and it's perfect. Far better than the non denominational schools.

icescreamsoup, you're obviously not pleased about 'religious segregation, but I have to say, I think you're going about this the wrong way.

What I really like to see across all schools - including grammar and private schools (haha, yeh in my dreams) is them taking their fair share of people in poverty. That wouldn't be hard to implement, and there would be far less opposition from churches who own the bricks and mortar of the school, and it would be less expensive. It's about 15 - 20% of kids on free school meals - so each school has to have a percentage of places held for kids on fsm.

Also, I think your information isn't quite right. Anyone with a statement goes straight to the top of the list of any school RC included, as does looked after and adopted children, as I understand it?

I looked round the London Oratory and heard the headmaster telling a Muslim mother whose child had a statement this.

"Unless someone challenges this with the Schools Adjudicator we must assume this is valid"

Whether it's legally valid or not, it's not right for state-school admissions policies to be used to coerce people into following Canon Law.

My money would be on the adjudicator ruling against it. The problem is that the adjudicator requires policies to be reported to him before he investigates them, and that job is generally left to disgruntled parents (although the recent rule changes about who can challenege policies has helped expedite a few investigations).

It perhaps should be the role of Ofsted to check school admissions policies against the code as part of inspections. Local Authority Admissions Forums (now non-statutory) haven't done that job particularly well in some areas, and are sometimes stacked with vested interests.

icecreamsoup my country of origin perhaps does not matter that much, it will suffice to say that there are no faith schools in my country.

To anyone pointing to the Catholic Canon Law and the requirement of early baptism... Well it looks like it is not widely available and cited in my country. Historically everyone baptises their children when they are 1-3 years old, have a nice celebration, likely in summer time, and I have not heard anyone mentioning "but Catholic Canon Law says that you have to baptize in early days". Thus naturally I was not aware of it and it only came to my light when the schools started to matter. Here in the UK.

Where we live, 3 nearest secondary catholic schools have < 6 months baptism tie. Majority of our primary schools kids go there. Where our DC will go, I don't know. Clearly I have not played "the game" right.

Catholic Canon Law requires parents to have their children baptised within a few weeks of birth. A requirement for baptism within 6 months is not uncommon in school admission criteria. Unless someone challenges this with the Schools Adjudicator we must assume this is valid.

We know from a ruling by the Adjudicator that schools may not use criteria that attempt to measure church involvement by the amount of practical and/or financial support they give. So if the school awards additional credit for participating in certain activities, for example, this can be challenged.

Just to be pedantic, schools cannot exclude anyone. If there are insufficient applicants meeting the faith criteria to fill all the places they must offer the remaining places to other applicants. I know, of course, that I am being pedantic. For many faith schools the number of faith applicants substantially exceeds the number of places so unless you meet the faith criteria you aren't going to get a place.

jacketpotato yes, one of the things I find particularly unacceptable is that being Catholic enough to get a place in an oversubscribed Catholic school is so inconsistent and can depend effectively on the personal attitudes of school or priest. It isn't just that the schools exclude pupils on the basis of the parents religion but that they exclude devout Catholic parents who do not meet the specific criteria. I am by no means clear on for instance how Gunnersbury School serves the Ealing Polish community for whom the baptism at 6 months requirement is a frequent hurdle and yet the diocese claims that it is the increase in the numbers of Polish pupils that are creating a need for places elsewhere? Are they relaxing the requirement for some parents? I gather they are but on what basis is less clear.

jacket, do you mind me asking which country you're from, and whether selection by faith is allowed in state schools in your home country?

Most other OECD countries don't allow selection by faith. Apart from the UK, there's only Ireland, Estonia and Israel. The UK has had to invoke specific exemptions from the Equality Act in order to allow it.

I am from a non British country and my child was baptised at 1.5 year old out of the custom in my country and despite of attending the mass every week all along my child does not qualify for the baptism (i.e. < 6 months) criteria for most of SE/SW London catholic secondary schools.

At the same time I know many British parents who baptised in early days and "rediscovered" their faith once their child turned 3.

I am angry about the situation but there is nothing I can do.
I don't expect to win an appeal on the basis of "country custom" so we will likely to have to move out of London to get secondary faith education. Thankfully we can afford this.

Sashh, yes, as faith schools become more and more oversubscribed they make their criteria more stringent, and that has the effect of excluding some groups more than others.

In some areas the "baptised ... small baby (normally white British/Irish) ... who has not attended mass since" still couldn't guarantee a place, because they would be well behind the "baptised small baby who has attended mass weekly, and additionally on Holy Days of Obligation, and whose parents are actively involved in church activities".

The OP raised an issue about racial segregation, which is partly true, but it's a secondary effect, rather than a primary one. The real segregation is along:
a) religious lines (obviously)
b) socio-economic lines (because the 'hoops' that need to be jumped through to get into many faith schools act as a socio-economic filter)

But it isn't. For decades RC schools have taken children who have been baptised RC. As soon as we got mass migration from countries with a lot of RCs the criteria changed to 'baptised before 6 months'.

This means that a child whose parents had them baptised as a small baby (normally white British/Irish) but who has not attended mass since will take priority over the Polish speaking child who has attended mass twice a week since birth but was baptised at 1 year.

In fact some policies would prioritise a Jewish or Muslim child over the Polish speaker.

"It's just the majority of the local environment has enough money to chose to send their boys elsewhere."

To be clear, the LA averages I quoted above were for the other Merton state secondaries, not the local residential population.

"not all rich people are white"

Clearly not. Did anyone say they were?

The Fair Admissions Campaign focus on socio-economic stats for their own sake, not because they say anything about race.

The OP raised an issue about racial segregation, which is partly true, but it's a secondary effect, rather than a primary one. The real segregation is along:
a) religious lines (obviously)
b) socio-economic lines (because the 'hoops' that need to be jumped through to get into many faith schools act as a socio-economic filter)

No they aren't talkin ds's and dd's very closest friends comprise young people who aren't white. They do, however, have parents who have a deep commitment to the education of their children and very high standards. The most badly behaved children at dd's cofe secondary were white and should, in my opinion, have been permanently excluded.

not all rich people are white

And the radius of about 1/2 mile round Wimbledon College must comprise one of the highest densitys of properties worth more than a million pounds in the country. So I'm not quite sure how the map is consistent with the local environment to be perfectly honest. It's just the majority of the local environment has enough money to chose to send their boys elsewhere.

Having said that Wimbledon College is still an excellent school if fee paying isn't an option.

Well all I can say is that I did a school run for 10 years to the school just along the road from Wimbledon College which happens also to be a church foundation school. The intake of Wimbledon College looked more badly behaved as every year passed and my ds was adamant that they were thugs and ill behaved. Very very sad considering his godfathers both went to a very different Wimbledon College which used to be on a par with the Oratory just a few generations ago. But, hey, let's all join the race to the bottom where standards don't count in the name in the equality shall we.

Wouldn't it be better if standards were raised to the highest instead and across the board. I understand this situation is similar vis a vis Wimbledon College's sister school. We sent dd initially to one of the leading SW London church secondaries and had to move her after two years because of quite disgraceful standards and expectations relating to behaviour - and the head said there had to be a differentiated behaviour policy to take account of the deprived backgrounds some of the children came from.

Lowest common denominator dilutes for everyone.

that map is all nice and yellow round here. good

thatmum50 According to the Fair Admissions Campaign's map fairadmissions.org.uk/map/ Wimbledon College is in the worst 30% of schools for representing the local community in terms of Free School meals with 7.8% of pupils in receipt of Free School meals compared to 10% in the local community. It is in the 10% least inclusive for pupils with an additional language with 18.8% of pupils having an additional language compared to 28.4% in the local community which rather backs up the OPs point .......

Thamum50, here are some of the stats for Wimbledon College versus the Local Authority average, from the latest school census data:

White British: 44% (versus 35%)
Irish Ethnic: 4% (versus 1%)
Other white: 15% (versus 11%)
African: 11% (versus 11%)
Carribean: 2% (versus 7%)
Pakistani: 1% (versus 6%)

EAL: 18% (versus 33%)
FSM: 7% (versus 13%)

You're correct that there are lots of ethnic groups represented. However, some are under-represented, and others are over-represented compared to the local area. There are obvious reasons for that - some countries are more Catholic than others.

The Fair Admissions Campaign tends to focus on the socio-economic stats, rather than the ethnicity stats. Wimbledon College doesn't do very well on their exclusivity heat map.

well my sons go to Wimbledon College and i would have to argue your point that they are predominantly white! No way, yes over half of it is white but you have very large minorities of black and other races such as asian, latino. Though this is a secondary school in south west london

I think any school not placing "looked after" children at the top of their admissions criteria (our local catholic secondary) is morally very dubious and is not setting the kind of example I would want to be my children to be exposed to. I think it's disgraceful.

I would also turn on your head your argument that a practising Christian should not be turned away from a faith school in favour of a non practising Christian, I don't think a child should be turned away from a local school and their family subjected to a long and difficult journey to a more distant school that serves another community, as happens in my community, just on the basis that their parents were not willing or able to go and sit in a pew each Sunday, or even, as in the case of the Catholic Schools, though practising Catholics were just not quite able to prove they were Catholic enough, according to a long and complicated list of requirements that stretches to cleaning the church and it's silver.

I do find the assumption that those of faith, and faith schools have a monopoly on moral values a little odd. You can have strong moral values without believing in a God and in my experience teachers, both friends and as teachers of my daughters do have strong moral values, it is part of what attracted them to a caring profession with responsibility for the development of future citizens in the first place. Equally those who do have faith can act in ways the morality of which is doubtful from other perspectives, and I count excluding children from schools on the basis of their parents religion amongst those.

What teachers of faith and no faith will tell you is that teaching in a faith school is no different to teaching in a community school. Both are communities that have to operate within a strong framework of values that are in any case determined by society via government, and particularly that dictates a curriculum that does have to help children understand the different perspectives on moral issues. The whole point around recent controversies about the governance of faith schools is that they were failing to operate within that framework.

Perhaps from your perspective Nearthe the Head was not going to teach your children your beliefs on sex and marriage, but actually this is what the government requires her to teach, and a failure to do so would be highlighted at any OFSTED inspection "within the context of talking about relationships, children should be taught about the nature of marriage and its importance for family life and for bringing up children. The Government recognises that there are strong and mutually supportive relationships outside marriage. Therefore, children should learn the significance of marriage and stable relationships as key building blocks of community and society. Teaching in this area needs to be sensitive so as not to stigmatise children on the basis of their home circumstances." www.parliament.uk/Templates/BriefingPapers/Pages/BPPdfDownload.aspx?bp-id=SN06103

The irony is that parents who do not have faith can find themselves with no alternative but a place at a faith school that is undersubscribed under the faith criteria on the basis that they will teach the full curriculum and yet your argument is that a community school does not?

I don't think I said I expected my children to be told sex outside marriage was wrong. I expected them to be told it was best it took place in a stable loving relationship or marriage. I can't see why anyone should have a problem with that because it covers both bases and acknowledges both bases.

Personally, for us a church school reflected our values at home which I did not think would be supported in the local secular primary schools. It may be that where we live the heads of those schools were rather more "right on" in outlook than I was comfortable with. Interestingly local Asian (Muslim) families prefer the local church schools too because they feel the moral values there are closer to their own. A percentage of places are now "open". I think this wrong to be honest - if practicing Christians want a church education for their child I don't think they should be denied a place in favour of a non practicing Christian.