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.

"I know the difference between atheist and secular, but IMO, and IME, those who make a fuss about secular are atheists."

So, when I say i want schools to be secular, you have decided that I am lying and I actually want schools to be pushing an atheist agenda?

Now there's a brilliant basis for an intelligent, adult debate!

I totally got a (hedonistic, atheist) boner when blueberry lamented the possibility of schools being "totally souless places where faith is actually repressed".

What a top idea.

I am going to find some drugs.

Now then, Coalition - share!

Paracetemol or Ibuprofen?

Well if that's all you've got I'll stick to Merlot!

I too want schools to be secular and not atheist. I do personally beleive in God but dislike the term atheist as it implies something not to believe in, IYSWIM.

However, I do want schools to teach about religion: we live in a world of many religions and it is important that children learn that people believe in - and follow the faith of - many versions of God.

I also know many devout Christians who would prefer schools to be secular as they believe that the proper place for teaching faith is in the home/family.

Are they lying too MmeBlueberry?

MmeBliueberry - Even if you think people have ulterior motives behind arguments they are making, you still need to deal with the argument. By all means, call them on it, but you still have to address the actual argument.

YANBU.

Fine to be a faith school but so long as that school is stated funded, it cannot discriminate in favour of children of that faith. Not sufficient that a proportion of their students are not of that faith, its doors must be open to all irrespective of their faith.

If members of the public have been asked in a survey (as a representative selection of society, as with any survey) if they support schools with a religious ethos and 69% say they do, then that is public support.

Yeah DandyDan, and that might be 69% of a sample of say, 250 people, or I could be generous and say it might even be as many as 2500 people. Even then its findings would still be worth jack shit in the big scheme of things - and that's even before knowing what the questions asked were.

There's a huge difference between registering your ambivalence towards an issue like the existence of faith schools by saying you have no objection to them in principle and saying that you'd have no objection whatsoever to your child attending an Islamic faith school if that was all that was on offer in your catchment area.

Try again mate - your argument is still weak.

"If members of the public have been asked in a survey (as a representative selection of society, as with any survey) if they support schools with a religious ethos and 69% say they do, then that is public support."

Yeah DandyDan, and that might be 69% of a sample of say, 250 people, or I could be generous and say it might even be as many as 2500 people. Even then its findings would still be worth jack shit in the big scheme of things - and that's even before knowing what the questions asked were.

There's a huge difference between registering your ambivalence towards an issue like the existence of faith schools by saying you have no objection to them in principle and saying that you'd have no objection whatsoever to your child attending an Islamic faith school if that was all that was on offer in your catchment area.

Try again mate - your argument is still weak.

State-funded faith schools are a historical anomaly and are the result of the way mass education developed in this country. If we were starting from scratch, there is no way they would exist at all.

They make about as much sense as separate Jewish police forces, Catholic hospitals and public lavatories that cater only to Baptists.

Madonna - No, I'm not saying that. I'm happy for secular schools to be the norm and believe that good local secular schools should be in feasible proximity to all. Just, I'm asking for an option to be able to send my kids to a faithbased school and would be happy to travel to do that. I think that if you want something out of the ordinary, like a faithbased school, you should be prepared to put yourself out a bit. I don't think people who live near faithbased schools should feel cheated because it's not a secular school. They know this when they buy the house after all.

Sorry, just catching up with this thread...

"I don't want school to tell children that God does not exist - I want school to explain that some people believe in him and some people don't."

That viewpoint still infers that god exisits but just that some people choose not to believe in him/it/or whatever form it's believed god takes.

I would just be happy if schools did not insist on presenting the existence of god as a fact. End of.

It is certainly not good enough for me if they simply "explain that some people believe in him and some people don't."

Fallen - fair enough!

Mme Blueberry, you are such a hoot! I think my favourite quote from you was about Christian values versus "hedonistic lifestyles"! I reeeeally hope you're just doing a huge wind-up job here!

Snobear, your last post was seriously boaksome. What a mental image to leave us with.

Night all. I might just shoot off and leave this thread as well but hope you all have fun discussing.

We keep hearing about teaching faith on this thread.

What does this mean exactly?

All schools have RS, so let's ignore that.

Do people think faith schools have catechism classes, because that is the only way I can think of teaching faith. It's not even faith. Faith is a personal relationship that can't be taught, only encouraged.

I teach in a Catholic school and I can assure you we do not teach the children to be Catholics or teach anything of Catholic church practices, but we do live out Christian values (which is a good thing and nothing to fear). The Catholic school my kids go to is much the same in this regard. As I said earlier, our many Asian families, who are practicing Sikhs and Muslims actively seek out our school specifically for its Christian values. We are an open school and even have a school uniform hijab.

There are as many myths about faith schools as there are about independent schools on Mumsnet and it is pretty sad after the cycle of debates that no one who believes these myths moves on in their understanding.

But there are people living out Christian values in homes and schools every day, because as a general rule Christian values are good and sound, and they coincidentally collide with our own good sound values and morals. But for us Christianity doesn't need to come into it. We don't need a label or a group identitity or an excuse/reason for goodness and decency and honesty and compassion- it just comes naturally to millions of us.

I just don't get the thing about a religious ethos being a good way to teach children to be decent to their fellow humans. I'm not saying it's not a good way - I'm sure it is, as a reference, but it's not necessary, and it's not the only way.

And as for teaching faith - you are right - it cannot and should not be taught. For children who really care, it can be explored and nurtured in their own time, out of the classroom and the school assembly hall. But as I (and others) said earlier, we should be teaching about faith, because it's fundamental to our understanding of the world. But I'm still really really incredulous that in 2010 in Britain there are people who think that expressing faith, or living their collective lives according to a particular faith, or the need for a communal/obligatory daily act of worship should be encouraged as part of anyone's school day.

And MB if your school doesn't teach people how to be Catholics, but merely lives out Christian values, then why on earth is it a Catholic school? Again, it's devisiveness. We may as well have schools divided along Liverpool and Everton football supporters lines, or Tory v Labour, or Black v White. It's like, come over here and show your allegience to my team colours.

And I'm glad to hear that you don't teach people to be Catholics, because I always said over my dead body would any of my children ever go to a Catholic school, for fear of that very thing. Luckily I've never needed to pretend I have a faith to get my children a decent education, but I would have hated myself if I had had to choose between lying to go to decent Catholic school or putting up with a below-average non-Catholic one.

But do you teachers at your school kid yourselves that these children and their parents are all rushing to mass every Sunday? Because I can tell you, they are not. In the same way that most loosely CofE families are not. So what is it all for?

Fellatio, our school is probably around 10% Catholic, so no, they are not going to Mass every Sunday. You don't have to be Catholic to come to our school. There is nothing divisive about it - it is a very inclusive school.

But your school is obviously in an area which over the years has been colonsised by a high number of families of Asian descent, so it is unlikely to be over-subscribed by Catholics! That would not be the typical picture of most Catholic schools I am sure.

The one near us (a largely white area) seems to have a disproportionate number of children of African descent at it, but I'm sure that is because they are Catholics. The few Asian children in our area do not go there.

Having said that, as a school it is regarded as no better or worse then the others around it, particularly. Dermot O'Leary went there!

You obviously know a lot about my school

Well unless it is an extremely unusual Catholic school in that it really doesn't prefer you to be Catholic to go there, or unless it is a dreadful school that even the Catholics won't touch, then I kind of made an assumption! Sorry if I was wrong.

You just don't know everything, Fellatio.

Spot on there.