Would you/have you started going to church to get child into a good church school?!

Lets set one up then!

Yes, TandP- if thats chool existed I would be first in the queue.

I wanted my Kids to go to a faith school where they can learn what I believe (sort of ), but not at the expense of everything else- and this school has no-one from other Faiths. Black kids yes, but they are the children of the Minister. I want more variance than that for them. DS1 announced he's a Buddhist recently- and had his Buddhism book he took in removed from him.

General apology for all spelling, grammar and general incomprehension in my posts.

DS2 is ill and demding...and that is my excuse.

And actually Haha iI know a few myself

UQD, no the schools do not state it in their admission policy, but it remains an undeniable fact, and therefore no better.

To say the exclusion of lower income families it deosn't matter because no one explicitly states in a policy, yet we all know it to be a reality seems a luducrous and unsustainable position.

Let's deal with the reality of the situation and not policy statements.

Yes some can rent, some (illegaly) use grandparents addresses, to others these are choices they don'thave. So again we're back to chiocs for some to access the good schools that aren't availaable to all.

my post below shoud have read not wealthy but quietly well to do.

my dd is at a church school and mixes with people of other faiths and cultures.

I would be happy to loose my supposed catholic school and have a multi faith school where she can mix on an even wider basis but the respectfor faith is still there. IN fact if such a school opened I would send dd there.

Oh and the points below- having a 'dysfunctional ) sorry SN son, I would agree that these schools are simply not set up to cope with them, mainly because their intake criteria virtually eliminates them. Our catchment, as it were, can be walked through in under 5 minutes- everyone else applies (we're in catchment). As a rule therfore, they can easily reject applications forom SN / demanding kids as very few children are actually within catchment. They get to screen most. As the nursery prospectus said, @in the event thata child with sn be admitted to Nursrery'- as in, its bloody unlikely!

maybe I am just very lucky I live in an area that is wealthy but quietly well to do and quite smug and the state primaries and our "successful secondary"relect that. Ten minutes aways is a council estate and lots of renatl accomodation, mostof the kids come to the secondary that I teach at and the two low achieving primaries. Then there is my dd church primary which takes kids from the slighly smug houses and the council estate. Admittadly we don;t have any black kids but we are not a particularly diverse town, I think in my comprehensive where there is no selection there are two black kids. My dd mixes with a huge variety of kids from very wealthy families to families from the estate and more average families like ourselves. All that joins us togther is that we are activley religious ( there are pupils from other faith communities) or supportive of a religious school.

Ah well if your against faith schools for reasons other than lack of access and choice for all, then a whole new debate starts.

The main objections on this thread were about lack of equal access for all taxpayers.

The discussion on here at least didn't seem to be

'we're so religious and moral and that's why our schools are so good.'

If you've many objectionable Christians like that Haha I can understand you're aversion

Goodness no.

Because:

A) I don't believe in dishonesty. If you want to go to Church for Faith reasns go; if you want because of what it can get you- . I just think- you know, Christianity and lying or deceiving- anyway

B) Mine go to a Christian school due to catchment, not so much Church with a Capital C, but a Capital everything else as well! And do they learn to be good Christians? well it depends on what you think of as Good Christian. If like me you think of a Christian as someone who is prepared to try and live to the standards Jesus gave them (albeit modernised a bit if you want-as in being gay / unmarried OK, imo, lying hurting etc not- its all about the love- Galatians 'For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment: you shall love your neighbour as yourself? ) then this school doesn't get it one bit. yes they pray 5 times a day; they also lie.

C) On a more practical level, I think the boys are missing out on the diversity of a non- faith school. I want them to mix with people from all cultures and faiths, and grow up in acceptance and love.

Smiley - as that was me Haha was quoting - the requirement to have a £250K mortgage for certain catchments is NOT an inbuilt, deliberate barrier. It's one which has arisen because of economic factors, estate agent greed, interest rates, etc. There are still ways round it - people rent in the catchment, use grandparents' addresses and so on. And a small change in the ctachment can result in big effects on the house prices as we have seen in the Brighton/Hove situation, so it's not an immutable barrier.

It's NOT as if the school sat down, said "How can we keep out the riff-raff?" and built this is as a selection criterion from the off.

That's why it's different from faith schools.

When you say "build your own cohesiveness" what do you mean? I shouldn't be forced to do that. The schoo, should be a welcoming community for all.

It's a hard one to answer:

All good schools will be over subscribed.

So who gets in??

In some it's if your of that faith.

With most it's if you can afford to live in that area.

Both exlude many who would like to be included.

A choice has to be made.

Objecting witout any answers if pretty futile.

Actually, I'm firstly against faith schools, even if they were poor performing.

Secondly, I am against back-door selection.

Thirdly I am against people being smug about their high-performing school, suggesting it is down to faith, good teaching, whatever, when actually, it is down to the absence of dysfunctional pupils (Not that I am suggesting anyone here was acting that way)

That's all.

I will have to go soon, despite being a lazy incapable thick superstitious teacher who teaches in a shit school that should be closed down I am due to go in to school on my day off to plan my lessons and mark my books!

Highest perfromiong schools of all tyopes have lower FSM than the national average.

Of course they do as they select on economic (catcehment) grounds. faith schools do this too, they select on faith and catchemnt ie Christians in their area.

Haha I'm no longer sure what you object to?

Do you object to good schools?

Do you objcet to all selection?

Or only faith selection but not economic, or academic selection?

Dc and twinset both right, if your anti selction , to be consistent you'd need to do away with privet, grammar, catchemnt, and allow governement to decide who went where.

Although actually this would still be selection, just governement selction, so we're back to 'out the hat' the only fair way if you're totally against any selection and equal access to all.

I never said we were in the top twenty education systems.

"We need to be brutal on failing schools. The bottom 1% of schools each year should be closed and the teachers sacked."

I agree in principle here I have exceptionally high standards of my own and have little time for those who don't share them.

It does depend what statistics you use, we may be in the bottom 1% or nea r it due to the type of kids we teach, but on value added we are top of the town. It is hard enough to attract quality tecahers to a school like mine and I worry thatyour proposal would make it harder.

haha - that report only looks at discrepancies in the top 200 schools all of which faith or otherwise had big discrepancies between fsm at the school v the local population. all that tells us is that middle class people know how to play the system to get their children into the top schools, faith or no faith.

for rc schools as a whole fsm rates are in line with the school propulation.

I'd love to know what web site Twinset is getting her "facts" from.
The best educaton systems are the French, Russian and Japanese. We don't make the top 20.

France has a large private sector, and what she hasn't bothered to find out, private education is largely controlled by religious groups.

Japan is a mix, mostly state like Britain, but with huge amounts of private tuition paid for by more wealthy parents.

Russia used to be 100% state education with almost no religious schools. But of course it had a private system in all but name. If you were a member of the nomenklatura eleite your kids went to a much better school and university. Political pull taking the place occupied by wealth in other countries.
Now it is a mix, but in many measures it is still the best of any large country.

What twinset has missed big time is that the clear and obvious correlation is lack of parental input to high outcomes.
In the best systems, kids are taught what the state tells them they will be taught.
The worst systems are like Britain, where parents get all sorts of input, of which relgious schools are a symptom. Measured by menys spent vs outcome the worst is America.
Parents have lots of input, electing school boards, and regularly vetoing not only employment off staff but indivdual books in the library. It's a disaster area.
Lots of data points in between, like Germany or Scandanvia.
India has grown enormously because it flaty ignored the way that many parents didn't want their daughters educated. Pakistan is a slum because daughters often aren't, and it's well documented that the best predictor of educational outcomes for both boys and girls in education level of mother, not father.

I hate selection, my ideal world would consist of schools like my dd faith school, not becuase it is a faith school but because genuine parental choice has been exercised. We all wanted a faith school and we got one, even though we may be thick superstutois religious idiots who need talking to slowly we all pay out taxes! 32of us applied and 32 of us got in! It is not a middle class haven but a true hotchpotch thatrelects are area but we are united by our faith and that unity provides a fantastic education.

The school in which I teach has also got it right, as we have free spaces we do not select - we take anytone and that is the reaso I teach there and have recently chosen not to teach in a faith school - not becvause it is a faith school but because it is over subscribed and is now selcting parents by the back door and even proudly boasts that has halved the number of kids on free school meals that attend.

I deslpise selection but I love choice, but thatis a hard thing to achieve!

Smiley - I don't have all the answers. I think the whole school system as it stands needs to be scrapped. Like Blu I think secondary schools should be smaller - more like primaries. More money needed. Teachers better paid. People should go to school in their local community if it suits and not be bussed around. I don't know???

If you live in the SE, house and rental prices are high all over. Having a big mortgage doesn't mean you're in the catchment for a good school. I do and I'm not. I'd rather not have to move house in the future. I'd rather that the MCs in the area did not run off and sent their children to the secondary on my doorstep. House prices are high here but it is a mixed area with a fair amount of cheaper rental housing and some social housing.

No. I have started going to church (every week since last December) for my own reasons and only started going when I was good and ready to reexamine my relationship with God and the Church. But its too late for DS1 to go to the c.of e. school we would have liked him to go to. I think its wrong to go just to get a school place.

Because sometimes, and poerhaps this is my religious claptrap getting in the way, it is necessary to put the good of society ahead of your own needs. I don;t agree with homeschooling but can see in some circumstances it is necessary, but I woudl worry thatif the private sector was abolished, and lets face it it never is going to be home schooling would become the new private education.

If everyone used the state sector it would ahve to improve, for example in my own school we are running out of money beacuse of an artificially low council tax. As a result we are having to mae recdundancies, this is happening but it would stop if parents kicked up enough fuss. I know that this would not behappening if the parents of our kids were well educated and have jobs with influence and power.

Here's an interesting report about the top performing 200 comprehensive schools (not grammar), 84 of which are faith schools, showing the pupil population's eligibility for free school meals versus the local post code area

The gap between free school meal eligibility at the faith school versus the local area is much higher than the gap between the top performing comprehensives.

DC, I'm also the child of an immigrant - and a 'coloured' one at that.

Still disagree with your sweeping statement though.