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Original poster

Faith Schools And Racial Segregation?

157 replies

scramble69 · 25/04/2014 18:59

Why in this day and age are we still allowed to segregate kids according to faith and race?
In my town in East London Walthamstow in our catchment area there are two Roman Catholic primary schools and one Church of England which draws 95% of the white kids and a few black kids. In my son's school there are 900 kids Bangladeshi/Polish/Bulgarian/Lithuanian etc. and 5 of them are white English kids!
Of mixed parentage myself I find it frustrating that my kid can't mix with other English kids,can't be socialised in English culture,music football etc.
I'm absolutely for the benefits of schooling children about the cultures of the world and the joys of living in an international city but shouldn't local authorities ensure that this segregation situation doesn't happen as it clearly is?

OP posts:
meditrina · 25/04/2014 23:53

Catholic schools are more diverse than typical, CofE pretty much on typical. Obviously some individual schools will buck the trend, and I have no idea if schools of non-Christian faiths are as diverse (I suspect Jewish schools may not be, because of the greater role of heritability IYSWIM, but ready to be corrected in that).

I am not aware of any schools which discriminate on race.

mindgone · 25/04/2014 23:42

In our area, the Catholic schools have the greatest ethnic mix!

Deecam18 · 25/04/2014 22:39

Wow Scramble what part of the Stow are you in those 3 schools are a minority with small intakes compared with the rest of the schools in the borough.My Dc is year 6 in a walthamstow primary and all her friends are white,black,asian and of mixed heritage.She is year 6 so will be moving to secondary and i can assure you there will be a mix then as the local catholic school only has an intake of 180. Doesn't your DC mix with other kids outside of schooll in Walthamstow like football clubs etc?

AngelEyes46 · 25/04/2014 20:51

Scramble - the kids that go to the faith schools - are they all RC or CofE?
Why aren't any of the kids from other nationalities going to the faith schools?

babybarrister · 25/04/2014 20:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Parietal · 25/04/2014 19:30

Agree.

The fair admissions campaign is trying to change this so schools can't select on faith.

Whyjustwhyagain · 25/04/2014 19:03

Why not ask why do we allow children to be segregated by sex?
Or academic ability?
Or by house price lottery?

I don't think you can look at any of these issues in isolation.
Either accept that they happen, or try to change them all.