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.

thecoalitionneedsyou - currently I fall under the Elim Pentecostal church in the above list, however, previously to that I wouldn't have even been on the list at all because my last two churches were both unconnected independent churches!
I have to say from your list I'm a little surprised Seventh Day Adventist appears on there! I had always thought they were like Jehovah's Witnesses!!

Sorry think I've digressed from the discussion!

Henny1995 - I don't think there is a wave of anti-faith prejudice rolling through the country. I see religious groups worried about their historical privileges being eroded as they are asked to justify them, and presenting as persecution a normalization of the relationship between state and faith.

Our Dear Leader and Tony Blair both used state schools for their children where they could afford and ought to have sent their children to private schools. Those state religious schools are nothing like as good as the schools their children ought to have gone to but they sacrificed their children on the altar of their politics.

There is no desire amongst parents to remove state funding of religious schools although I would support that. What is very unfair is that there are not enough schools for many faiths in the UK. We do have a hindu and muslim state school near us and there are Jewish state schools too but I don't think there are as many as Christians have and that's not very fair.

Seventh Day Adventist have (Observer) against them on the list (from wiki) so maybe they go to the meetings but don't count for admissions.

Xenia - seeing as Euan is now getting nice bonuses working for Morgan Stanley, it wasn't really THAT much of a sacrafice was it?

Xenia - how would it work if you had a state-funded school for each faith in every school catchment area? Where would you draw the line at which faith gets a school? And how would you engineer exactly the right number of places for children of the 'matching' faith to attend each year without any places being wasted?

But I don't see education as just about getting a good job.

I couldnt' find any videos of him talking, just this picture www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1244370/Defiant-Tony-Blair-takes-Cherie-Euan-dinner-trendy-Japanese-restaurant-despite-Iraq-inquiry-summons.html

Some of the policies that you are suggesting, TheCoalition, a page or so back are illegal, oppressive, represent a dangerous erosion of civil liberties (private ownership, freedom of information, freedom of religious conviction - which was historically deemed the first human right) and bear a startling resemblance to the actions taken in many formerly Soviet States.

Generally the freedom of religion has contributed very positively to the life of society, fostering a number diverse perspectives, practices and social visions that have historically enriched our society (and I am sure will enrich our society in the future).

Kistigger, your former independent churches may have been included as members of the Evangelical Alliance which is a very loose fellowship of churches that includes churches of all denominations and none. I guess you'd know better than me but Churches Together in Britain and Ireland represents the vast majority of Christians in the UK.

FuzzFace - I'm just saying that the land ownership issue isn't insurmountable ;)

I'm not sure where the freedom of information of religious conviction issues come in though...

I'm all for freedom of religion. That's why the state shouldn't fund it.

The point you are failing to realise is that Atheism or even Agnosticism is not a position-less social position. It is not a neutral middle ground on issues of faith most of the time it represents a materialistic reductionism that has been far from substantiated by the evidence available.

Most scientists including well-known public scientists like Steven Hawking have given up the search for the 'Theory of Everything'. Recognising that we are going to have to live at least for the time being (if not for eternity) with multiple theories about the earth and the universe. Even if we were to discover a scientific 'Theory of Everything' we would still be left with the question: 'What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?' - Quote from A Brief History of Time.

No I'm not failing to realise that. I'm accepting that and saying that schools should profess no viewpoint on faith, including agnosticism/atheism. That would be fair to everyone.

I don't want Atheist or Agnostic schools. I want Secular schools. They seem to manage in lots of other parts of the world - why not here?

TheCoalition, to have no view point on faith is a position. It is to say that this doesn't warrant educational exploration and analysis. That position is in my view untenable given the historical, linguistic, ethical, scientific and philosophical contributions that faith perspectives have made to society. The first schools were places of religious education, the first hospitals were centres of religious healing. Some practices at times were bad but look at the bad scientific methods of healing using leeches and water treatments. Darwin's daughter Annie was subjected unsuccessfully to these models of healing. I believe that the plurality faith and non-faith (secular) schools enables and even fosters a diversity of thinking about society and experiential exploration that enriches us all.

Fuzzface - Having no view on faith is quite clearly not taking a position on the value of faith. It's saying it is outside the scope of this institution to take a position of the truth of various faith positions. It certainly doesn't say don't talk about or educate children about faith. That would be a silly position, because yes faith is clearly important historically, socially and politically.

I don't think leeches and water treatments had been subjected of double blind controlled trials when they were used on Annie. Medicine has never been very good at applying the scientific method.

• I should correct that, Annie was subjected to water treatment but I have information about the use of leeches on her.

Exactly TCNY and Seeker Secularism is the way to go.

FuzzFace seems to be supporting the earlier viewpoint that to ignore the whole notion of God (apart from in RE lessons) is to DENY HIM. It isn't the same thing at all.

Leeches are actually used in modern medicine, but not in the same way they once were...

Single sex schools discriminate children of the opposite sex.

Grammar schools discriminate children who are average or less academically.

These schools do not even allow any chance to children who do not meet the criteria.

Faith schools give preference to or allocate a number of places to a specific faith.

Most schools give preference to children who live close to the school.

The bottom line is that not every child has an equal entitlement to every school. Get over it!

My experience of Church of England schools is that they attempt to reflect the make up of the community they are in. I know of at least one clergyman new to an area being unable to secure places for his own children in the parish school because the CofE quota has been met. Personally, if I were running a faith school, I would give preference to non-adherants, and let believing children be salt and light in community schools.

I teach in a Catholic school and we are about 40% Asian (probably 25% Sikh and 15% Muslim). We are only about 10% Catholic. I know for a fact that the Asian families choose our school because it is Catholic. They like the Catholic ethos.

I believe that parents who select faith schools also pay their taxes (probably more proportionally) and I don't get the notion that their rights are not as important as those parents who did not get in prefer secular schools.

This country is big enough to tailor schools to the wishes of most of the stakeholders.

And you don't abolish what is good.

Fellatio - I think that when you say 'Ignore it' people think you mean ignore all mention of faith and pretend it doesn't exist, when all we (well, I) mean is discuss it all you like, but the institution should not take a view as to the truth of any particular faith or absence of faith.

MmeBlueberry - Socially conservative parents pick school run by socially conservative organisation shoka!

Seeker - You want secular schools. I want to be able to send my children to a faith school. We both pay taxes. Why shouldn't we both be accomodated? I've made the point earlier about there being no such thing as genuinely faith neutral schools.

No need to abolish them Mme Blueberry. Just stop them discriminating.

Well FF, Hawkins has just changed his mind, though. He now thinks there was no God.

If parents just paid for all schooling things might be simpler.

MmeBlueberry - So your answer to discrimination in the education system is to introduce more discrimination?

If you were running a faith school and giving priority to non-adherents, I don't think you would be running it for very long.

Why do parents have a right to a faith school?

Can I ask for the right to a middle class school? Or a Marxist one? Why not?

What do parents of faith not get from non-faith schools that they have a reasonable expectation that the state should be providing?

The country ISN'T big enough to tailor schools to the wishes of most stakeholders - well not without an awful lot more schools. Which is why schools should instead take a neutral view on these kinds of issues.

Faith schools are not adding any academic value. They do not work because they are faith schools, so removing the faith element should not damage them. You wouldn't be abolishing the good.

"I would give preference to non-adherants, and let believing children be salt and light in community schools."

Sorry but ??????????????? Not quite sure what you mean by that but I think my (currently) non-adherant child has plenty of salt and light in her life already, ta.