Faith Schools And Racial Segregation?

But who is the arbiter of right and wrong, NearTheWindyMill? I don't want my children (product of an unmarried but very stable relationship) to be told that sex outside marriage is wrong. People argue that I wouldn't have to send them to a school that taught those views, but we all know the extent to which parental choice is an illusion.

Shouldn't state schools, where they touch on ethical and moral issues, do their best to reflect the majority view of the population they serve? And, despite David Cameron's suggestions to the contrary, most people in the UK aren't Christian.

Windymill, yes, it's hard when cultures are so varied. Segregating people makes them feel 'safe', so is very attractive to many families. It's just not good for society as a whole. That's why it's the polician's job to take a helicopter view, and a moral lead, rather than simply doing what is popular with influential sub-groups. Policians tend to be short-termist about these things, but if all those unelected Bishops in the House of Lords started putting the greater good ahead of protecting their own communities, maybe it could lead to positive change :)

Certainly improving quality across all our schools is the key to getting people to accept changes to current admissions structures.

It's a bit chicken and egg though.

Trouble is though I wanted my DC to be educated in an environment where our family values would be underpinned. I wanted a school to support our views on marriage for example. Unfortunately at the non cofe school we visited the head said that she wouldn't tell a child that using drugs was wrong because in many cases that was a criticism of their parents and also that the school's sex education policy would never include the words stable loving relationships AND marriage under her watch.

That's why our DC were sent to the local cofe school. I dont' think this is an issue about church schools and segregation per se, it's about raising the bar across the educational landscape so that all schools support the right messages for the long term success and happiness of the children. In my opinion if children aren't taught right from wrong at home then the schools need to be strong about this.

JakeBullet, yes, there are variations, due to different demographics.

Have you checked your school on the map on the Fair Admissions Campaign website? It allows you to compare individual schools with their local area average for socio-economic stats. I'm on my mobile so difficult to do the link right now, but I think its a top menu item on the site so you should be able to find it quickly.

Am not sure why but my son's Catholic school is very well mixed. There are lots of different cultures and races. I would say that 50% of the school population is not white.

However at secondary level this changes. Many of the non white pupils go out of area for secondary education. ..the belief among their parents is that the local secondary schools are no good. The local Catholic secondary is less diverse as a result although still has more diversity than many. About 5% of pupils there are Muslim.

Two schools have "statements with school named in section 4" as first criteria with "looked after" as second criteria. The third school, an academy doesn't appear to mention statements but I haven't got time to read the whole thing in detail. It's first criteria is "looked after". They also have ability tests with only a certain amount of places available for each ability band.

Garden, another relevant section of the code is para 14 which says "Parents should be able to look at a set of arrangements and understand easily how places for that school will be allocated".

For that reason they should put their SEN statement upfront, rather than in the notes.

A difficult hoop to jump through or a formality?

Getting an SEN statement is a difficult hoop to jump through, full stop. Under that criteria, there would have to be a particular reason why the statement names the school in relation to the specific need, e.g. because they have a particularly good reputation for dealing with that need.

Do your other local schools prioritise all children with SEN statements or just those that have the schools named in their statement?

Checked the admissions criteria again and below the criteria under NOTES, I found the following:

Note 1

Children with a Statement of Special Educational Needs which names the school in part 4 of the statement will be admitted.

So, not as bad as first thought. Not sure the implications of having to have the school mentioned in part 4 of the statement as opposed to choosing it as first choice school? A difficult hoop to jump through or a formality?

However, looked after children still below baptised catholics which although legal remains morally reprehensible.

Talkin, para 1.37 of the code says:

"Admission authorities for faith schools may give priority to all looked after children ... whether or not of the faith, but they must give priority to looked after children ... of the faith before other children of the faith. Where any element of priority is given in relation to children not of the faith they must give priority to looked after children ...not of the faith above other children not of the faith"

However, it is silent on whether they need to prioritise look-after children not of the faith over other children of the faith, which means the criteria at the school in question are legal on that point (and it's a very common policy - VA schools in my area do the same).

Para 1.6 of the code says:

"All children whose statement of special educational needs (SEN) names the school must be admitted"

So if the policy doesn't make it clear that SEN children would have top priority then I think it would be in breach of the code.

and if Prh47Bridge is around, he might know how those lists fit in with the Admissions Code

Garden, that sounds like a good question for the Governing Body of the school in question. Voluntary Aided schools are their own admissions authorities.

Can anyone explain why a Christian school, supposedly extolling the virtues of Christian teachings, values and morals wouldn't have SEN kids, looked after kids and disabled kids at the very top of their admission criteria?

Completely agree, OP. I object to faith schools on two grounds. Firstly your point, that I can't see it as anything but counterproductive to separate children in this way. If we're going to encourage tolerance and understanding between people of different faiths and none (and, as you say, by extension often also between people of difference races and cultures), we're much more likely to achieve that by children getting to know each other.

Secondly, there's extensive evidence to show that any form of selection widens the gap between the already advantaged and the already disadvantaged, as the fair admissions campaign has demonstrated so clearly. I find it astonishing that faith leaders can support this.

Icecreamsoup, I completely and utterly agree with you. I think it's genius of Fair Admissions Campaign to isolate one small element of faith schools to work on. It's the most egregious thing about them, especially in an era of school shortages.

When people talk of 'atheist schools' do they think that we non-believers should be allowed to discriminate against those who do believe when it comes to school admissions? Can you imagine if community schools had criteria that included 'non baptism of children'? Crazy yet no more crazy than excluding children because they haven't been baptised.

Do those of us who are against faith schools and their admissions policies think that faith schools have been undermined by what's been happening with the Islamist 'Trojan Horse' business in Birmingham? It seems to me that those Tory high catholics would be the first to object to that and yet it is very comparable to schools like the Oratory.

"Eye opening to say the least."

Exactly. By isolating the admissions issues of faith schools from the much wider and more complex question of whether faith schools should exist at all, they are making good political headway. The issues are very clear.

As I said earlier, it's much easier to address complex problems by breaking them down into smaller problems and tackling them individually. The groups involved in the Fair Admissions Campaign have very different views on the bigger questions, but they all agree over the admissions issues and have joined forces to tackle them together.

"Sunnydaysablazeinhope said "There's two reasons I'll choose a faith school over anything else. I'm guessing the same two reasons as every other parent: 1) it's by far the best performing school. 2) it teaches the basic tenets of my faith. I couldn't give a rats ass what colour the kids are or sex."

Individual parents are behaving logically in the circumstances. It's the politicians that need to take stock and decide whether the system is fairly serving the country as a whole. That's why groups like the Fair Admissions Campaign are focusing on presenting research to politicians showing the social consequences of their policies, rather than on persuading parents to boycott faith schools (which, let's face it, would be a hiding to nowhere).

"Though most CofE schools are VC (fully community criteria) ..."

Actually Meditrina, many VC schools do prioritise faith applicants over community applicants. See here.

"...synagogues, mosques and temples..."

Meditrina, non-Christian faith schools started to receive state funding only very recently, in response to understandable calls for equality. Their numbers are increasing rapidly under the Free School programme.

"Faith schools exist because churches ... founded them - many welll before state education existed at all"

That is very true, and needs to be respected. However, the Church schools were created as a charitable gesture, not an evangelical one, to serve local communities that the state wasn't providing for at the time. Now that the state is almost fully funding them, they need to make sure that their admissions policies continue to serve their local communities. Many are bypassing their local communities to select families from a wider area that meet their faith criteria, which is fine for private schools, but a lot more controversial for state schools. (Again , it comes down to the "choice" argument. Yes, the Free School policy technically allows non-faith groups to have choice too, but there isn't enough money for everyone to have choice, and the Government needs to stop pretending that there is. Currently they're providing privileges to minorities rather than choice to the majority.

"1. Baptised catholic in care .."

That is a particularly unpleasant distinction. By definition, children in care tend to come from very chaotic families where baptism isn't necessarily a priority. If an un-baptised child from a Catholic heritage is adopted/fostered by a non-Catholic family, they shouldn't be given low priority for school admissions compared to an equivalent child who is adopted by a family who are willing/able to get them baptised.

Meditrina said: "If there is a demand for atheist education ..."

There isn't in particular. There's a demand for inclusive, community education, which isn't the same thing at all. Inclusive community education caters for children of all faiths and none. Children learn to rub along side each other despite their differences, which is a valuable skill in the modern world.

There is also an understandable demand for "choice", but as per this thread, it simply isn't possible to give everyone choice without vastly increasing the number of surplus places.

"would need a waiver about "collective worship" in same way as Muslim and Jewish school have..."

Muslim/Jewish schools don't have a waiver. They can provide an alternative form of worship, but "no worship" isn't allowed. Of course many Community Schools find their own interpretation of "worship" which is acceptable to their communities, but it's still a point of contention for many. (There are several Mumsnet threads on the topic).

meditrina so allocating school places according to a parents willingness to sit in a pew regardless of whether they actually believe in Christianity is acceptable? That is what is happening around here. We have a shortage of primary school places, 75 parents in our borough just found out they don't have a school place at all. In this suburb and the next we have two CofE primaries, two catholic primaries and two community schools. The Catholic primaries have selection criteria so rigid not even many practising Catholics are Catholic enough eg didn't have the foresight to get their children baptised by 6 months, especially the ones that are not white British, it has 1% of it's children on Free School Meals compared to 10% at the community school next door. The CofE schools have ignored their diocese who want schools to serve the community and our MP who has called on them to be more community minded and increased the number of foundation places that go to parents who have sat in the pews of their churches, so that they too are now exclusively for those willing and with the knowledge to meet the faith criteria, the result is that the children of parents who are not willing or don't have the knowledge are left with no school place or one that is next to impossible to get to on two buses with toddler siblings in tow. Add to that, that the Council puts in bulge classes wherever it can to cope with the shortage of places and if it is a Catholic School and they are the only places offered to non Catholic children they do not give their siblings priority over Catholic children in future years so parents end up having to juggle children at different schools.

I may not be an expert theologian but to me doing that to children does not seem right, or particularly Christian....