Primary school admissions - MNHQ needs your thoughts!

Sweetie, you had a go at me for not providing data to prove that Catholic schools are full of white MC children. Given I'd never asserted they were, it's unreasonable to expect me to provide data to support the idea.

I'd be perfectly happy for any faith (you'll note I've never said this is a uniquely Catholic issue, at least the Catholic Church is honest about its discriminatory goals) to fund education for its adherents. Unfortunately it doesn't as they have managed the coup of getting the state to fund it for them. Well played, faith schools.

It would be a disgustingly wasteful use of state funds, let alone Furthet entrenching religious and state segregation, for the state to fund schools that reflect the faith makeup of local areas. Who's going to build the schools for the atheist kids under your model, out of interest?

You know that plenty of people on FSM work, right? However, the point is that faith selecting schools (NB again: not all faith schools) cream off the more privileged, meaning the non-selective schools support a greater proportion of FSM/EAL pupils.

Or if NHS hospitals only admitted Christians, should all the non-Christians go and 'build themselves' their own hospital?

I find it very disturbing that if I were going to start a free school for white, catholic girls, the only part anyone would have official beef with is the 'white'.

Why is that? Why can't one segregate a school by race but one can segregate a school by religion?

Maybe sweetie could answer whether if a school was built by an entirely white community it should be able to limit its intake to white kids...and then tell any non-white kids nearby that they should look into building their own school?

The religious leaders in the Catholic Faith, purchased the land and commissioned the building of the schools many years ago.

They don't pay to run them though - the taxpayer does.

Ahh so you are not at all discriminatory yourself Sweetie but your answer to what Sikh's should do is to build their own school for there own kind?

Very nice.

How about if a school takes any money from the state then you follow the same legislation that the education establishment I work for (a university) follows ie: no discrimination on any grounds for any reason?

Our rural village has a VA CofE primary. We attend church and kids go to Sunday school. We haven't played the faith card to apply for a place because as a Christian I disagree with faith priority in admissions. There is only one other family in the village who sends their child to Sunday school. All the other children (who are nearly all ages 3-5) come from surrounding villages so they can queue jump in primary admissions. My DH and I call them 'the doughnut kids'. Their parents hang out at local coffee shops rather than go to the church service and we won't see them again once the kid turns 5. Sadly this is the state of Anglicanism today.

Jassy
You obviously need to read the full thread, there were plenty I posters stating that Catholic schools were full of the white MC.
That is where the discussion started with me asking for proof of this.
I am aware that there are less children who take up FSM in catholic schools, would you like the school to turn to people who work and say "look it would easier if you didn't work, that way we wouldn't look as if we were discriminating"
As to your Sikh friends, I would suggest they talk to their religious leaders about the option of having schools built.
The state did not commission or build the Catholic Schools. The religious leaders in the Catholic Faith, purchased the land and commissioned the building of the schools many years ago.

It's utterly outrageous that schools are allowed to discriminate against children on the basis of their parents' faith (or lack of).

This would be illegal with any other public service.

There aren't enough places as it is - there is no way that schools can cater for every faith in every area, so it is ridiculous and unfair to even try.

Schools should be schools, not churches / mosques / synagogues / temples.

I found the application process somewhat frustrating due to the mismatch between when the council sent us the first letter about it, and when lots of the local schools held their open days. By the time we started to ring round local schools, half of them had already held open days and wouldn't arrange an individual visit with us. So it would have been helpful to get the letter from the council a few months earlier!

My other annoyance was that distance is measured as the crow flies, but we live just up the hill from a river, with the nearest road crossings a mile away in either direction. So, if we hadn't proactively listed five schools we liked, we ran the risk of being allocated a 'nearby' school that would actually be a 2 mile drive away...

IceBeing
You obviously hold that view very strongly.
DH an I both attending Catholic Schools and we have friends from all different religious back rounds, some are atheists.
Just because we attended a Catholic School it didn't mean we were actively encouraged not to talk to people who weren't Catholic.
When we joined colleges, universities and the work place we are not all brainwashed we do get that we live in a multicultural society and are tolerant of others beliefs, in fact I think attending a religious school made me more tolerant of others beliefs. I am obviously only speaking for myself, I know that some people who are religious can be very over hearing and pushy with their views, but I certainly am not one of them and we are not ALL like that.

Sweetie, given that no one has said Catholic schools are full of 'white MC', why on earth would anyone provid data to prove that they were? It's a construct you've invented.

However, taken together the data shows a pretty clear picture. Faith sekection disproportionately excludes children at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale; the demographic profile of church congregations and the behaviour of MC parents gives a good indication of which parts of the socioeconomic spectrum are pushing them out.

FSM is a good proxy for privilege or lack thereof. Schools that practise religious discrimination in admissions do not reflect the demographic profiles of their local areas, as I've demonstrated - they significantly exclude the least advantaged children.

Did you find the statistics on the socioeconomic profiles of churchgoing populations helpful? Again, a good indicator of attendees at schools practising faith-based selection....

What about the Sutton Trust research on the disproportionate number of MC parents who've faked faith to get their kids into a church school? Again demonstrates impact of faith selection when up to a third of places at faith selective schools went to students whose parents knowingly worked the system, and those parents are disproportionately MC.

The Allen/West research looked specifically at the class change in Catholic congregations and the impact on the profile of Catholic schools - was that helpful to you as it dealt specifically with Catholic schools which seem to be all you're interested in?

I certainly disagree with you that the state should be funding faith schools, but that's not my argument here. My argument is that faith-based selection is disgustingly discriminatory by class as well as segregating by religion (and often race - see the Cantle report into the 2001 race riots which dealt with this issue).

You've still not answered why you think you're more important / deserving of priority for your wishes than eg my Sikh friends?

Good grief - I have just read up a bit about faith and free schools including the level of discrimination that are allowed to exhibit.

I am absolutely horrified.

Children are the MOST important people in our society to protect from discrimination and segregation. How the hell did we come to this point?

sweetie maybe but you would be eliminating the immoral and damaging practice of segregating children's education by religion - so it would still be worth it.

Archery Annie
Why evidence and research??
I asked the poster up thread to show me evidence that all Catholic Schools were white and MC, so at I have been shown that they have fewer children on FSM, well shoot us down for working, there is nothing on the criteria to obtain a place in a Catholic school on the basis of whether the child would be entitled to FSM.
In fact in our school we are actively encouraged to ensure we I inform the school if we are struggling financially to see if we would be entitled to FSM.
Also just wanted to give an example (I am aware we could be at this debate for days as we are never going to agree)
Say all faith was removed from schools, give it a few years and everyone would start to work out which schools were performing better. The house prices in that area would rise, the rich MC you all seem so sure are in all the catholic schools would start buying within the catchment and shrink the catchment down, now unless you happen to have a house right next door to this school in the first place, everyone else would be bussed out to next available school (which would be the school not doing so well) and you would all be on here complaining again.
I get that you think Faith Schools are unfair and I have said this up thread, if I weren't Catholic I would be hacked off but be careful what you wish for, in this day and age of pushy parents, you would simply be swapping one problem for another

if i were in charge i would
a) base admissions on distance measured by walking route (not as crow flies). our nearest primary is across the river thames. to get there would take 3 buses or a nightmare drive. if i could fly or swim across the river that would be helpful

b) siblings should only keep priority if they remain in catchment. our school is full of families who live the other side of town. they stayed in their tiny house til the eldest got to school age, got them in then moved out. not fair. the younger children shouldn't get places above children who are in close walking distance

c) faith criteria - on the fence... seems unfair that those with a religion get more choice, maybe the non faith schools should be prioritised to those declaring no faith?

Ah yes - why base discussion on actual evidence and research, eh?

But segregation of children by religion is a bad idea all by itself. It is also bad to segregate by class or race...but religion is bad enough on its own.

I thought we were in general against ghettoising and the idea of schools as breeding grounds for extremism and lack of tolerance?

We are also above average for FSM locally but we are not in a particularly Middle class area so that makes sense I suppose. DS is on FSM though as I cannot work at the moment.

I'd be interested to know how we fare locally for FSM take up as OFSTED etc only give national figures.

Ha! Obviously didn't visit DS's Catholic school which is hugely multicultural and one if the reasons I love it. DSL has friends who are Polish, Malaysian, Nigerian and Filipino among many others. If anything I'd say there are fewer white faces in his school. I suspect in other areas though the "white, middle class" thing is true.

Another Scottish poster here. Very easy - I just turned up at the nearest school and enrolled them.

I deferred my very bright DC1, so he started school at 5 years and 6 months. This was partly because his fine motor skills weren't great at 4 1/2, and I thought he'd find school frustrating. 5 1/2 was perfect for him; he was still lagging behind in writing even at 5 1/2, so 4 1/2 would have been a nightmare.

It was no hassle at all, his nursery teacher agreed that he'd benefit from starting later.

DC2's birthday meant that we had no choice - she started at 5 years and 4 months. Her birthday would have automatically made her one of the older ones, had it not been for older children who could have been in the year above but had been deferred.

undoubtedly people do baptise DC, pretend to have faith (or if agnostic or vague believer embrace faith) for a time and / or go to particular churches to get their DC into popular schools.

In some ways admissions based on church attendance seems no worse than distance! More people are likely to be able to invest time in jumping through the church's hoops than be able to pay housing premia!

I am glad you are all congratulating yourselves for your research.
I have read with interest. So what you have basically found is that Catholic Schools have a lower intake of children eligible for free school meals, ummm so I suppose because my husband works (in the trade sector) we must be middle class, I can't wait until he comes home from work, from his very working class job to inform him that actually we must be considered middle class as we pay for our children's school meals.
What I asked for is the evidence to support that the schools were full of white MC, so far still cannot see any evidence of this, just another stereotype created by parents who do not agree with faith schools.

Can only speak of our experience (Norfolk). I am fine with how places are allocated, not been stressful, don't see a need for changes, no idea if it's better or worse elsewhere, partly because I have learnt on MN that other people get stressed out about things I think are no biggie.

Mind, DC school is one that I think many MNers would turn nose up at. There's a lady down road who says the same, so she carts her kids daily to (still state schools, primary HT is a relative of hers) 14 miles away. I guess that suits her.

Thanks April. Given a decent internet connection I can do this all day, there is plenty of information out there!

In a nutshell: there is strong evidence that faith based selection discriminates not only on the basis of religion, but also indirectly on the basis of class.

How the various churches reconcile this with their social justice rhetoric is beyond me. Their public statements on the issue are so obfuscatory, misleading and deflecting that they skirt very close to being outright lies.