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.

Treats - you're still jumping through a hoop, even if it's one you do every week, and not specifically for school entry.

If you can get your children to church every week, you're likely to be able to get them to school fairly regularly.

Our local faith-school doesn't do 40% faith-based stuff! It follows the national curriculum which includes, as for everyone, a measure of religious studies (of the six major world faiths) - certainly not 40%.

Faith schools have a place in state education because the state is a pluralist liberal social democracy and because the bulk of (primary) educational establishments in this country were provided for by faith institutions and in many cases, still belong to them.

If people don't have a faith (and aren't in the catchment naturally), why are there huge numbers of people - from outside the natural catchment - wanting to go to faith schools?

YABU, something sounds off, one of my sons goes to a faith school, and it's the best school out of the 2 in the area, one of the best in the county.

We didn't even live here for 6 months prior to him starting, let alone regularly donate or attend church.

Infact I'd say a high majority don't attend church regularly. The school does a lot of self funding and it's an amazing school. We got in and it's over subbed by far due to the prestige of the school, so I don't see people having an issue with it being a faith school in my case, just annoyed they can't get in. I am sure there are new guidlines now that the school should and could take over faiths.

I'd imagine if you pulled tax payers funding, you'd have to build another school to re-house all the pupils that have no school to go to any more as it closes, so the point would have been? Especially if your idea would to be do it nationwide, sure in your mind it will make you feel better, in reality it won't happen as to many schools would close and then the govt would have to spend more money getting places for these schools.

In rural areas lots of schools are faith, there would be no where to teach the kids!

But they do also say that the parents who choose faith schools may have differences in attitudes and preferences for education - haven't read the full document, but the summary doesn't suggest it's selection based on aptitude or wealth.

seeker - true, but you wouldn't see it as 'jumping through a hoop' - it's an essential part of your week that you would do anyway.

As someone upthread said, the current situation is a result of LEAs historically having to rely on faith schools to provide school places. If people object to that, then they need to lobby their LEA to provide more non-faith places. If the LEA want to buy school buildings off the Catholic Church, in order to turn the school into a non-faith school, I'm sure the church would be happy to sell......

Treats - I'm sure the Church would be happy to DONATE them out of charity. It's not like they need the money. Or indeed need the money for the 90% of their running costs that the state pays.

Treats - those with aptitude or wealth use it to play the system leading to some faith schools having a disproportionate percentage of children with wealthy or apt parents.

TheCoalition - no they wouldn't. They do need the cash - many dioceses are broke. It's a myth that the church - in this country anyway - has vast reserves of money.

I'm not doubting that some parents play the system and I'm not defending them. I'm simply saying that it's not the faith schools or their churches that should be blamed for this - it's the LEAs that don't provide enough alternatives. And most RC schools still provide a good education for disadvantaged communities, as they have done for decades.

minipie
"The law prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion in all other circumstances.

I cannot see how this can possibly be reconciled with state funded schools prioritising pupils of a certain religion. Surely that is completely and obviously discriminating on the grounds of religion?"

i couldn't agree more. it really is ridiculous. It also means discriminating in favour of wealthier families, as chruchgoers in the UK are wealthier than average see the churches own research
"Adults in social grades AB (professionals, senior and middle management) have
above average prevalence of regular churchgoers"

what is more the teachers at these schools often have no faith at all themselves!

Faith schools see teachers teaching stuff they don't believe to the children of parents who don't believe. I wonder what the children make of it?

i don't dispprove of a bit deceit to et your kid into a better school: the system shouldn't push people to doing it. My integrity means less to me than my kids education.

YABU. Many of us pay taxes for things we can't use, such as people who can't drive paying road tax, or people without children paying for all schools.

It would be a shame to close these schools as there is obviously something about them that people like and want, that other schools are not providing. Why don't non-faith schools follow the example of the things the faith schools are getting right, if so many parents feel that's what they want their children to have?

Treats "boiledegg1 - what's your argument? That churches should be held responsible for people pretending to be believers so as to get their children into a school?"

Yes, successful church schools that have such admissions criteria should take some responsibility for administering such a poor system that people can exploit so easily. If I was the head of a highly successful church school and I wanted to do as Jesus would, then I would admit those children, perhaps from non-Christian backgrounds that have fewest opportunities in life. Isn't the primary role of the church to serve its community, not its members? I'm not a Christian so you tell me.

TCNY, the state has no money currently to buy land from the church. I think we are stuck with the status quo until state finances improve.

Honestly and this is in my epxerience and to readdress the one sided balnce of this thread, or make an effort to at least.

You hear these arguments/points a lot where we live, it all of a sudden becomes about the faith and there are huge arguments for/against the faith schools.

Around here the very people who make these points using faith as their argument, didn't let the faith issue bother them when the applied to the school, only in bitterness when they got turned down. That's just my experience.

I have to agree that it's ridiculous that schooling is the one area where religious discrimination is still allowed......

But it's not always discriminating in favour of the wealthy. RC churches in London have seen a huge increase in attendees in recent years because of the growth in Eastern European communities - most of whom can't be described as wealthy. CofE is probably different though.

The national curriculum is taught in RC schools in the same way as non-faith schools, so you're not asking a history or a science teacher to teach something they 'don't believe' (and natural selection IS taught in science lessons). The faith only comes to the fore during school assembly, or the termly Mass, and in RE classes. Teachers are free to excuse themselves if they don't want to attend those, and none of the children would think twice about it. It would be odd to have an RE teacher who didn't believe, but everyone else is free to believe what they like.

Treats - Well their head office shouldn't be so tight then.

Well then we just compulsorily purchase them after destroying their market value by prohibiting religous education in state funded schools and placing planning restrictions on them so that the sites can only be used as schools.

But it would be nice is they just said 'Thanks for all the lovely money, we'll be off now, you can keep the school'.

boiledegg1 - What do you mean by 'the church'? I'm only talking about RC schools, which isn't the established church in this country. It has a duty to minister to the RC community - not the community as a whole. Whether or not the CofE should think about the whole of the community and not just its attendees is a different matter, given that it does have political clout and a certain degree of state funding.

Many priests attached to highly successful church schools DO go to some lengths to weed out those who attend just to get into a school. Some will only recommend children for their school if they were baptised in the first year of their life, as that's an indicator that the parents are serious about the faith.

I'm asking a philosophical question (genuinely interested to know the answer): is the primary purpose of a church (or church school)to serve the general community in which it sits (rich, poor, Christian, non Christian), or its members?

If the admissions policies of some schools were more inclusive and not so dependent on attendance at a particular church of a particular Christian denomination, this might help defuse some of the anger some people feel.

Treats - Why SHOULD the state fund RC schools? What does the state get out of it?

I think very much YANBU, and it annoys me that ds is now coming home with odd ideas (eg, dh, a scientist, was explaining the new gyroscope toy he'd brought back for ds, saying 'and the Earth is like a gyroscope too' 'oh and God set it in motion!' ) but there is nothing we can do as our choice here in Scotland is Catholic, 'non-denominational'=CofS, or private (and private is as likely as not to be religious in some way).

The thing is that in Britain as a whole, we didn't start with anything like a level playing field: the churches started educational establishments and obviously it is in their interests to keep a hold on them somehow. Financially, they can't just get rid of property and land, morally they don't want to not be part of education (this is questionable, to me, but I suppose not to a religious person), they've been in it from day one and so why on Earth would they choose to disassociate themselves from education?

It's a historical quirk more than anything, and people like me can rail against it as much as we want to but I don't think anyone is going to listen, realistically. As for selection: once you accept that there are faith schools and they won't be going anywhere, it makes total sense that of course they are going to select on the basis of church attendance and baptism. The whole system is fucked, but it can't be made fair without a HUGE change in church policy, govt policy, sale of thousands of properties...

In a social democracy where education is funded by the general public through taxes and where churches and other religious organizations have historically established schools and other educational institutions I think that it is not unreasonable for those institutions to receive some level of state funding as educational providers (assuming that those sending children to the school are taxpaying citizens). I am also of the opinion that parents should have a choice in the way their children are educated whether that is to choose a school with a religious value system, or a focus on music and dancing, or scientific excellence. That said admissions policies should be looked at to ensure that the school is maintaining its duty to the community in which it is set.

TheCoalition - that's a very punitive approach.........

It's not the churches' fault if they happen to be running the only school that offers a decent education in an area. I don't disagree that it's unfair on those parents who wouldn't choose a faith-based education for their children, or aren't entitled to apply for it. But why would the solution have to involve destroying the value of the churches' property??? Who does that benefit?

seeker though you have a point - it also is a means of excluding people from poorer households

and although people on this thread seem to be saying stuff like 'oh but its not that unfair' any discrimination in favour of a religion for services provided and paid for by the state is wrong.

YANBU - shocking that we (the state) are paying for kids to be religiously indoctrinated in islam/RC/COE or jewish religion. If you want your child indoctrinated, what is wrong with 'sunday school'?

But as a first point of action, schools that are state funded should be open to all, with admission decided/allocated by the LEA.

So, if your nearest (faith school) was privately funded that would help you how?

You'd pay the fees for your child? Or still have no real choice - but at least all those less affluent religious kids would be in the same boat?

Nice!

And the state provides funding for the RC schools because it doesn't have enough places in other schools for those children to go to if they didn't have places in RC schools.

It's an entrenched system and it's not an easy relationship to break, even if the church wanted to.

My 5 year old is in a faith school, just started P2 (in NI), we had to supply school with her baptism cert prior to admission, that was it, she spent all last year learning about space, big bang etc, religion is dealt with in assemblies and she learns prayers in part of a lesson, ie please help poor people, please take care of those who need help etc, thank you for food etc. She certainly is not taught that god made the world and God keeps it spinning.