to believe Faith schools should be privately funded ?

[Peetle]

I should explain my interest. The nearest primary school to my house is about 250 yards away and involves crossing two not very busy roads. It is a faith school. The next nearest is about 300 yards away, across a major road and in the middle of a council estate. It's ofsted report full of phrases like "higher than average English as a second language", "higher than average free school meals", etc, etc. Other local schools are over a mile away and we're likely to be out of their catchment area.

To get into the faith school families have to attend our local place of worship regularly for two years, know the officials and prove regular financial donations to the establishment. Of course, once these families have got their first child into the school they stop attending and donating. I also know of families of different and even contradictory faiths attending purely to get their children into the school. And I frequently see people picking up their children in cars, suggesting they live considerably further from it than we do.

We have no hope of getting into this school, not being hypocrites and not wishing to give our children the idea that it's alright to be dishonest about something if you want it badly enough.

My point is that I don't mind people wanting to give their children an education in their chosen faith, but I object to my taxes funding a school I can't use and which encourages parents to profess a religious belief they don't hold purely for the purposes of entry.

Can I ask... what special treatment are faith school or people wanting to attend faith schools receiving?

I have to point out that as far as I am aware, no faith schools were built with public money. The churches bought the land and built the school with their own money. They might be using taxpayers money to run now but so do other schools.

dandydan - there is even a section on it on the link you posted :-

www.cofe.anglican.org/info/education/faqcofeschools/#employment

fsmail - What do you want from a faith school that a non-religious school cannot provide? I've listed what I see as the advantages and disadvantages - what do you disagree with?

Faith schools don't get better results for their pupils then non-faith schools.

The education bill would go up MAYBE 1% if capital expenditure is 50% of faith schools budgets, so in practice much less than that.

TheCoalition --

I don't see special treatment here, just an old arrangement that has never been appropriately questioned.

And I agree that the religious component of the schools has nothing to do with the academic achievement levels -- which tend to be better than non-faith schools, but not for reasons of religion. Even in disadvantaged areas of inner cities in the US Catholic school children tend to do better than those in the local public schools where parents have different priorities for their money.

Yes, they discriminate, and it is perfectly legal, and their ability to do so is backed by the government, which is a perfectly unreasonable and not sensible thing to do imo.

I am all for faith schools funding themselves and a clear divide between church and state.

theheathenofsubburbia
"100% of people in this country pay tax (VAT etc).
10% go to a church weekly.
The state provides 100% of the running costs of faith schools."

I don't understand your logic...

Are you suggesting that faith schools should only receive 10% towards their running costs or are you suggesting that 10% of all schools being funded should be faith schools??

kistigger - they get to send their children to a school that supports their faith at the expense of the state.

The land/buildings issues is a red herring - their are all kinds of ways around that if one wanted to find one.

Confiscation/Compulsory Purchase/Planning prid quo quo/leasing back etc. etc.

Though one would hope that in the event of faith schools being abolished Faith groups would continue to run them/allow the facilities to be used out of charity.

Coalition: There are no genuinely faith neutral schools in reality. They are supposed to be faith neutral but for people with a faith, they don't seem that way. I say this after teaching for 12 years in (mostly)supposedly faith neutral schools.

A recent conversation I overheard:
Colleague 1: I love teaching RE...gives me the chance to set kids straight about all this God bollocks.
Colleague 2: Yeah, I know what you mean. You have to tell it like it is, don't you?

When my husband was doing his RE training at uni, there were a significant number of trainees (who are all now teaching btw), who privately said they'd chosen to teach RE to "debunk" religion.

It's impossible to be faith neutral in reality. By faith neutral, people really mean broadly secular humanist with a respectful nod towards the major religions (publically) and (for some staff) a laugh and a joke about them in the staffroom later.

As a UK taxpayer, I'd like the choice to send my children to a school that supports the faith we raise them in, not undermines it by teaching evolutionary theory as "fact" for example, who see it as normative for underage kids to have sex or where staff see if as a personl mission to undermine kids faith. Ironically, the kids at the church school I taught in were in tears after their RE teacher scoffed at something they believed as part of their faith and that actually WAS a faith school. You'd be surprised ar what goes on in schools...

Well there you go, even faith schools don't necessarily have staff that uphold the faith they purport to represent.

of course govt schools are allowed to - and actively do - discriminate against candidate teachers on grounds of religion.

indeed this is generally regarded as a 'good thing'

it is what faith schools are all about. Eveyone who supports faith schools supports discrimiation against teachers on grounds of faith, and against children on grounds of their parents faith.

it's bizarre that the govt passes anti-discrimination laws, spend millions training non-christian teachers .... and then makes it hard for them to work in 50% of its own schools.

Henny - that's why the government made it possible for parents to set up their own schools - so that they can teach their children that the world is 6000 years old and similar. Fortunately not many people wanted to do it.

For the record, i don;t believe that any state school in this country teaches under age sex as "normative" and I am skeptical of an RE teacher 'scoffing" at a child's beliefs.

But then I don't believe that teaching children about evolution undermines anything either.

Henny1995 - I know - at the moment they are required to have a 'broadly christian ethos' - this is still not neutral.

And I accept that secular humanism is not a neutral position. Which is why I talk of faith neutral rather than secular schools as I did earlier in the thread.

Schools SHOULD have teachers with a range of views. Some of them will believe that religion is a load of nonsense. Others (like you) will be religious. It is better for children to be exposed to a range of views than to only one set. It is up the school itself to ensure that this is done within a neutral framework.

As a UK Taxpayer I'd like to see science taught in the best was possible - so the fact of evolution is central to biology for instance. This should be true for all schools of any sort. I'm not sure what you mean by normative in this sentence - I'm sure in some schools it IS normal (in the sense that a large number do it) for under-16's to have sex. I'd rather this was dealt with appropriately than ignored. I don't know what a particular teachers personal mission might be, but I don't see a problem with them explaining what their views are and why they hold them in an appropriate setting and way. If that tests someone's faith, that's a good thing.

I personally hate faith schools as they create a divide in our communities.

My DSS's primary school was catholic.

It was attended by 85% Black or mixed heritage children (where they were almost all black/white mix)

next door was a state primary it was attended by 75% Asian children.

What a way to create a divide in a community.

Neither school did particularly better than the other just split up all the children along both ethnic and religious lines.

flyingintheclouds

but BOTH of those schools were STATE schools! That's what this whole thread is about! Why does the state run schools along those lines?

stubbornhubby - I think flyingintheclouds agrees with you...

I do agree with you stubborn!

Where we used to live the local school was a CofE and it's population was 90% Asian so it is not always true that faith schools are going to create divide or exclude different faiths or non-faith people!

Surely by taking all faith out of all schools is simply promoting atheism instead as an alternative 'faith'!!

And normal state schools do not cause a divide?

What about you live and class divides? You can go to that good school if you live in a nice area. You cannot afford that house so this is your choice. What bigger social divide is there than that.

In most faith schools there is a much broader basis of class because faith schools tend to cover much larger areas. I personally would prefer my child to attend a school with people from different backgrounds, different religions, different ethnic backgrounds and different financial backgrounds. Near us this is not possible. One area is predominantly white middle class, one area is white working class and one area is Asian mixed class with 1% of the pupils being non-Asian. The only schools that have a mix are the RC school and the CofE school so if anything these break down the divides. The situation is getting worse and the councils do not seem to be bothered.

kistigger - No, that would mean schools teaching that god does not exists. What we want is schools that say 'there are lots of religions - this is why they think. This instisution has no opinion as to the truth of any of them'.

fsmail - That's not a function of sanctioned discrimination by the state though. It is a problem though.

"Surely by taking all faith out of all schools is simply promoting atheism instead as an alternative 'faith'!!"]

Actually our local non-faith school near us does a lot of religion and has a JAM (Jesus and Me) Group and the faith school teaches non-creationalism in science so in religion there is very little difference to what is taught. The only difference is the social mix as far as I can see.

Faith schools should not exist. Free, impartial discussion about religion, within schools, is an important part of education as a whole. But all faith-based schools have an agenda - why else do they exist?

There just over 20,000 maintained schools in England of which almost 7,000 are faith schools (source Edubase 2010). Does 35% of the population of the UK really attend church?

Education is about broadening horizons, critical thinking and questions. There is no place for the narrow minded world of religion in schools.

No I agree that 'a daily act of collective broadly Christian worship in Primary schools' is probably not necessary. The promoting atheism thing was on the assumption that many of the views here are as strong as Richard Dawkins who seems to want every trace of religion removed from all schools. I see I was mistaken that that was the intention, sorry!

I agree it seems unfair that people should not have a choice to go to a school that is not a faith school in some areas. However, I do not see why they should not get a share of the funding considering how many children they teach!

To a degree though, I find the religion or acts of faith practiced in many schools can be very superficial and as a Christian it is a tough decision which is worse, faith being taught by someone who does not mean it/has no faith OR not being taught at all!

Vallandry - I believe many faith schools (the old ones) were built because there was a distinct lack of schooling available for the poor, not because they wished to inflict their views of faith on the populous. I may be wrong though!

Yes

The OP is being unreasonable.

Her taxes are not paying for that school. Her taxes go into a big central pot with everyone else's taxes, including the taxes of those parents who choose the faith school.

The easiest thing to do is just to imagine that the school just isn't there and send your child to the nearest non-faith school.

But also think about why faith schools are, in general, highly sought after. If these schools were independent, then very few children could benefit from that kind of education, so there would be a net loss to the community.