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

Behaviour issues - I don't suppose if you had a child with behaviour issues you would want them travelling half way cross town to the faith school especially if they had problems with school avoidance

When I was telling other mums at playgroup that ds was going to the local catholic school several said that the school had reputation for being strict which their children would find difficult so maybe it is self selecting on behavioural grounds

Exactly, Paula and Violet

agree cappucino. faith schools used as a blanket term makes as little sense as world music.

anyway, this may be of interest to the open-minded.

Quality and Performance: A survey of Catholic Schools - addresses issues such as proportion of children with SEN, FSM, ethnicity and other/no faith in Catholic schools. IMHO the results are different from stereotypical pre-conceived notions.

I was stating an average, and you and I both know that on average schools that discriminate on religion have been shown to discriminate against kids with special needs.

You have produced no reason for why so many fewer needy kids end up in schools run under religious discrimination. Care to try ?
"reasons" are causes, not "my school doesn.t as far as I know".

The ramps are a legal requirement under the disability discrimination act, not some act of charity.

But yes, many religious schools do not discriminate against disabled kids, and I accept that yours may not. Some actually seek them out, which is a fine example of Christian charity.

Also I'd be happy to understand how you know for a fact that your school doesn't discriminate against kids with extra needs.
Ramps aren't proof of anything. In any case kids in wheelchairs ain't the issue, it's ones with behaviour or learning issues that seem to get it in the neck from discriminating schools.

"We know for a fact that special needs kids are far less likely to get in"

DC you and I have discussed this before. It's a blanket statement which certainly doesn't hold true for me or my special needs child or my faith school.

Just like the last time you trotted this out, you provide no evidence or source for this 'fact' or any qualification of what kind of faith school you are discussing. All of them? Catholic? Muslim? Jewish? Ones in Margate?

But as my faith school prepares to spend squillions of pounds putting ramps etc in to accommodate its special needs children, and has a higher proportion of the young disabled children I know in the area than any other I can name, I'd like a bit more back-up to this 'fact' that you trot out whenever this subject comes up

Indeed PPB.
And it is ironic that some of the posters complaining about the selective nature of faith schools, and ridiculing those who are religious, are the same ones who have admitted 'playing the system' in order to get their children into them.

It seems to me that maybe some of you should be getting more upset about the state schools being so bad instead of being derogatory about schools that are good.

DC, our local state catholic has a massive special needs section, one of the best in the borough.

BeckyBS - agree totally. my catholic schools had lots of children from working class homes / bussed in from "lesser" areas / council estates etc. as relatively "mc" (however that is defined, but i felt we were better off than most others i knew) i was definitely in the minority and felt in a different wealth bracket to most of my class (bigger house, cars, holidays etc etc)

as for church - we went every sunday growing up (mum had irish catholic guilt - i have none , think there was only 2 or 3 in my class who went regularly at all.

i think a lot of the perceptions and myths about catholic schools are just that - if you ask people who go/have been to "normal" ones (not christian bros etc which were minority) you will find the same experience.

DC Ours certainly didn't, the special needs department of the secondary school is huge the headmaster takes great pride in the achievements of those children, it is the most ethnically mixed in the area and more socially diverse than any of the nearby schools. The only selection is going to mass regularly on Sunday morning (or Saturday or Sunday evening or during the week in special circumstances)

No.

Beckybrastraps, completely agree with your post.

Religious schools select. We know for a fact that special needs kids are far less likely to get in, and it's reasonable to assume that the sort of parent who is prepared to jump through hoops in order to get in will tend to be more supportive.
Thus religious schools get a better intake. Given they don't have to use so much resources on kids with more needs, it's interesting that they only do a bit better.
The fact is of course that many state schools are complete slums, kept open only to pander to teaching unions and the vested interests of LEAs. Bad schools screw up the lives of quite literally hundreds of kids at a time, yet no government has been willing to take the necessary steps.
Thus parents want to escape these horrors, yet religious schools are allowed to discriminate.
If it were the other way round, I think we all know the law would be changed PDQ.

But no-one is addressing what I think is 'UnQuietDad's' main point - that State schools should be open to all and by discriminating according to church attendance, faith schools are patently not open to all. By way of answer to 'imaginaryfriend', I don't know what wpuld make for a perfect system all I can see are patterns of unfairness and it has taken decades of government tinkering to create such a mess. I have no proof of this but my impression is that the mc dash for faith schools has come about as a response to the introduction of comprehensive schools nationwide. Beause back in the '70's that introduction was, in many areas, so appalling many of the generation who were its guinea pigs don't want the same for their kids. I can't decide what would be best - back to selection but with properly funded schools for those who don't get in to 'grammars' or genuine comprehensive schools with proper setting/streaming.

UD, the church school my son will be going to IS by far the best in the area, as the league tables show. Our nearest high school is on special report and (despite being in Surrey) has a very bad reputation NONE of the local parents will pick it so most of the children come in from other areas. We did go to look at it and I told DH I would not send a cat I liked there for a crap. The school DS1 will go to has its own pool, a very well equipt ICT suite and one of the best science blocks I have ever seen, (DS1 wants to be a forensic scientist)
I am a Christian, I am not intellectually lazy and I have even been known to read Asimov (DH is a big fan) I have also read the God delusion by Richard Dawkin.
Faith (for me) is a personal choice, the same as if some people want to follow R Hubbard and think their is a mother ship behind the moon .
I do get p*ssed off with people "finding God" just in time for the schools intake, although most priest see through this.

To imaginaryfriend, I suppose my answer is the obvious one - that, more often than not, faith schools have some perceived desirable quality which sets then apart from the rest of the "bog-standard" schools in the community. Good results, an approved "ethos", a nice uniform... Parents have all sorts of reasons for sending their children to faith schools, some no doubt deeply-felt and some more superficial.

But I wonder how much of the 'special' character of these schools comes specifically from their teaching of faith. If they lost the faith dimension, would they not still be good schools? If your answer to that is no, then I'd be interested to know what, specifically, the faith dimension gives which makes a school "better", and which could NOT be achieved in a secular framework.

No, I don't think private schools should beocme part of the public domain. That's a totally separate argument which we're not having here.

To paulapb I'd say yes, but just because that's the case we shouldn't necessarily encourage it or seek to further it. It surely has to be fair that a STATE school in your community is open to ALL pupils - if you want to educate your children within your choice of faith school, that is your prerogative, and one which I believe you should have to pay for through the independent system. If you wanted to educate your child in Scientology, you'd probably have to - why should teaching of Christianity be funded through taxes, and not Scientology? What if someone wanted to set up a Viking school, teaching that all Norse myths were to be believed and followed?

I was amused by DC's lesbian sex comparison. I have no idea if it's true. To take a less controversial one, I think one statistic which is pretty sound is that the same number of people go to church on a Sunday as go to watch football matches on a Saturday - it's about 1-2 million. What would people think of a "Manchester United" state school which required pupils to be taught that it was unquestionably the best team and everyone else was wrong? Or a "Sheffield Wednesday" school? Seems daft? No more daft than god-schools.

No. Raised a Catholic, left in my twenties, tried various other religions, now do nothing. NOTHING would make me attend church to get my kids into a particular school, could not bear the hypocrisy of it.

I went to a catholic school, just a bog standard comprehensive, not a Christian Brothers school or anything like that, and I just don't recognise the whole guilt thing.

I also don't recognise the middle class thing. Our demographic was emphatically not middle class. It was predominantly working class. It was an excellent school with a caring ethos, tight discipline, strong leadership and a true community feeling, which I have to be honest found lacking in some of the schools in which I have taught. Most of the pupils were nominally catholic, but a large proportion of their families were lapsed.

And the parents were alomst uniformly supportive of the school. Perhaps a catholic thing? Whatever the reason, I think it was another contributor to the school's success.

The middle class argument for the success of faith schools is not the whole answer IMO.

I don't get it either.

paula, you put that question in one sentence. I've been trying to say that elsewhere in about 50 sentences. Why would anyone go to such effort to get their kids into a school which has beliefs they think are 'mentally ill'?! I can't get my head round it.

I think for a child to really learn from a teacher they need to respect the teacher. How can that happen if you are telling your son that they are deluded and superstitious?

No I wouldn't - the nearest CofE school to me turns out some right thugs and they don't necessarily get into good unis either. Either pay to go privately or put up with it. Why should the church pay to educate y our child into a faith when you don't believe in it?

Before anyone says anything I rarely go to church myself but I do respect those who do go.

So what would you suggest, im?

No, I'm not suggesting that only mc parents go to church but I am suggesting that many 'faith schools' and certainly the one in our area (rural, not London) have a disproportionate number of mc families. You have only got to look at the percentage of pupils on free school meals which is way lower in the faith school than it is in the other schools. Whilst the faith school route remains as an option, it makes it even more impossible to have a fair system for all.

Ooh ... a fan!