Are 'faith schools' more or less divisive than Grammar and Independent schools

Independent schools are the most divisive, because you can't get in without the money, whereas religion is open to all those who believe I suppose.
Grammar schools are a good idea for bright working class kids to have a leg up but I guess they have been flooded by those who could afford indie but decided to save their money

IMO grammar schools are the most divisive out of the three the OP has mentioned. This is because faith schools divide communities by religion, indie schools divide communities by wealth. Grammar schools divide both communities and often families by intellect. Division in communities is unpleasant, but division in families is far worse. I have one average child and one academic one. They will be both be going to a (faith) comprehensive.

At our local C of E faith school we have traveller children and muslim children. The school's charitable fund pays for children to go on residential trips if they can't afford it. The ethos is one of caring for one another and rewarding children for acts of kindness.

Just how is this socially divisive?

I'm not in agreement with them because they are trying to stop church places altogether, which will mean some people who are active church goers and want to send their children to a church aided school will no longer be able to.

I really think that school admissions policies should be looked at area by area. Eg. if there is a town that has several church schools and only one community school the town would be able to ensure there were a decent number of non church places at each school. If there is a town that only has one church school and several community schools there would not be a problem with having more church places at the church school as there would be a few non church schools to chose from.
In a village with only one school the places could be allocated to those living nearest.
I expect this happens in most places and there are a few areas where there are not enough school places and admissions criteria need to be looked at.

I don't have a problem with trying to make school admissions fairer to all but this will not be achieved if church places are scrapped altogether. It will simply be different chunk of people getting into good schools and another chunk of people finding they can no longer send their children to a faith school.

Why nasty? If you "don't think it is right for schools only to take people from the faith as a school should also represent its local community", then surely you are in broad agreement with them?

I don't think it is right for schools only to take people from the faith as a school should also represent its local community.

However if you take away all the church
places people who attend church and are less well off would not be able to send their children to a church school of their faith. If you take away all the church places it would end up being those living nearest only which always ends up being those who can afford a house at an inflated price next to a good school.

I have looked at accord's website and they are a pressure group to stop schools offering church places...so any survey they have done is likely to be biaised in favour of what they are trying to achieve.

I will certainly not be signing up for their nasty organisation

Snorkle - I have to say that my experience (in London) is that while there does seem to be quite a strong middle class bias in Anglican churches, this is not really true of Catholic congregations. Doesn't change the principle though of course.

We've got a large Irish, Indian and Filippino community here, not many of them qualify for your middle class label.

zanzibar, that Catholic holy days only require 40mins attendance doesn't tell me what other faiths require, & still might be an issue for those without their own transport.

However, whether or not time constraints are the reason working class people shy away from religion is really irrelevent - it was a tongue in cheek comment in response to your chelsea tractor jibe. The important point is that in many cases churches (& presumably other religious meeting places) are mainly frequented by the middle classes and working class people often don't attend which leads to a social bias in faith schools.

Faith, Grammar and Independents are all to some extent discriminatory but that does not necessarily equate to divisive. However, I think its been clear enough in Northern Ireland that faith schools there perpetuated division appallingly. In the case of Grammar schools, I'm not sure that discrimination should be viewed as entirely negative - having myself been to a school which was in the process of turning from Grammar to comprehensive, at which my dad taught, it was fairly clear that mixed ability classes served no-one well.

Dictionary definition of discrimination:
1 a: the act of discriminating b: the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently
2: the quality or power of finely distinguishing
3 a: the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually b: prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment

It seems to me that Grammars allow for meaning (2) whereas faith schools tend to meaning (3)

It is not hard to understand. Realistically, not all parents will want their children to go to their local school if it is Jewish/Catholic and they are not, but some will. And at the moment in many areas they can't. And yes it really is worth the effort.

Well clearly at primary level it's all about the parents. Unless they have started quizzing 4 year olds on their Catechism before they let them in.

Quite, edam

I find your views equally bizarre. If there is supposed to be "choice" in the state sector, how is it fair that I as a baptised Catholic have the choice of all the schools in my area (assuming that I have my child baptised and attend mass at the local church every Sunday), where my non-Catholic neighbour does not?

I doubt very much that if you did have a fair admissions system you would end up with the scenario you describe of a minority of Jewish children in the Jewish school or Catholic children in the Catholic school, as obviously those schools would not be the first choice for a lot of parents of different faiths/no faith.

I think all schools funded by the state should have the same admissions criteria and be prevented from discriminating on grounds of supposed religion - supposed because it's judged on the parents' religion, not the child's and because in many places there are lots of people who suddenly develop an interest in going to church at exactly the time the forms require.

Back when I was little, before all this pretence about (non-existent) 'choice', I went to a CofE middle school. It took the local kids - some CofE, some no religion, one girl was in the Sally Army, another was Hindu. Don't remember any Catholics but everyone else was there. No need for special letters from the vicar about what good Christians you were or anything.

In particular, the CofE is the established church which has a legal duty to care for anyone who asks for its services - weddings, funerals, christenings and pastoral care. It is ridiculous that CofE schools have, in many places, become some sort of exclusive club. If the church wants to go down that route, they can jolly well disestablish and lose all the privileges that status brings - like having bishops in the House of Lords.

Well said zanzibarmum.
It's surprising to me how often people say that many Catholic schools get good results, have excellent pastoral care, high expectations and good discipline, and they don't see why they should be allowed to keep all those goodies to themselves and have admission criteria that select.
And so few make the connection between living your school's mission statement and how that impacts on every aspect of a school. It's a Catholic community, and that's what a good Catholic education looks like.

A school's ethos does not come from what the children's parents choose to do on a Sunday. Faith schools could perfectly well function with their ethos intact while abiding by the same rules on admissions as community schools. Arguably more so.

(Incidentally, I had never heard of Accord before reading this thread, but am now signed up as one of their supporters - I am grateful to you for highlighting them.)

Happywomble - actually Accord has no issue with faith schools themselves: the issue is with the admissions criteria by which they are able to select pupils (see here. In your area it may be that the faith schools include children of other faiths. In urban areas this is less often the case. In my area it is certainly not the case.

There is no clear answer to this.

Some faith schools which only take people of that faith could be said to be divisive. However most don't only take people of the faith. At my DS faith school those going are a mixture of those who live near and those of the faith. There are people in all income brackets from millionaires to free school meals. There are children from different ethnic groups. There are very bright children and some who really struggle academically.

It sounds as though this comment comes from an organisation that does not support faith schools and is looking for any old excuse to shut them down.

There are some people in this country that would probably like to see the back of private schools, grammar schools and faith schools. I doubt the education system would be better without them..probably a lot worse.

It depends on what criteria you are looking at and the area. Where I live, the faith schools tend to be more inclusive in terms of social and ethnic background than the state schools - as an example, another MNetter mentioned on another thread that her dd was being teased because of her unusual (non-English) name. That would be very unlikely to happen at my dd's school because so many of the children have "unusual" names as they come from families who have immigrated to the UK in the last 50 years or so...