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.

"Would a completely secular school still teach the children to love one another, show compassion, kindness, forgiveness and understanding?"

LOL at the suggestion that without religion it's not possible to be/do any of the above!

Organised religion has, throughout history, been a means for controlling the masses. It's designed for brainwashing. Doesn't have so much sway with so many people in a globalised, mobile, information-led world but it still has the power to do great harm and for that reason, IMO, is not something I want fed into my daughter's head like it's fact and truth.

I don't think it's possible to gauge the tolerance of any particular state or its citizens.

What the US system has going for it is simply that the public schools are the place, sometimes the only place, where children of all faiths and none, and all ethnicities, sit down and learn, and eat lunch and play music and sports together, and nobody goes home asking why the family version of the Lord's Prayer isn't the same as the one that was recited at assembly, or why their family doesn't pray to Jesus as they did in school that day.

The US wasn't set up as an anti-religious or a-religious political experiment, and the public education system wasn't always secular as it is now (has been secular since the late 60s) but the value of keeping state and church separate in the publicly funded schools is appreciated as a factor contributing to the cohesiveness of a society that is very multi-ethnic in a lot of places, very homogenous in others, and also as a factor helping various churches keep their particular message clear where the children of their flock are concerned.

Interestingly, in cases where attempts have been made to reintroduce school sponsored prayer in the US, opponents have included both the Mormon and Catholic churches. As early as the late 19th century Catholic parents sued a school district in Wisconsin to prohibit the use of the KJV in the public schools there, and won.

""Would a completely secular school still teach the children to love one another, show compassion, kindness, forgiveness and understanding?"

Well, my completely secular family does!

Of COURSE secular schools wouldn't teach morals or ethics! That's clearly impossible without religon. All Atheists are sociopaths who should be locked up.

Please forgive my ignorance with regard to Atheism / Secularism. I did not intend to offend.

seeker, you took the words right out of my mouth before I could type them!

Christians and people of faith do not have the monopoly on goodness and decency and compassion you know wildmutt.

You don't see how a daily act of worship 'does any harm', because you believe in the deity to whom the worship is directed. Other people (in their millions) do not, and feel rather uncomfortable that their children are expected by law to WORSHIP, yes WORSHIP remember, something which they are not at all sure even exists, and for which the state (nor anyone for that matter) can show them any proof whatsoever.

You have to admit, in the cold light of day that's a pretty bizarre concept.

That is not to say children should take a few minutes each day to collectively reflect on matters of morality and philosophy and understanding of their fellow human beings. But why should God have to come into that for people who do not believe in God?

If you found out that your child's school was telling them daily (and with total conviction) that aliens walk among us disguised as humans and that they can see into our minds and read all our thoughts, and this mantra was repeated day in, day out, until your child believed it, I'm pretty sure you'd be on the phone to your Education Authority like a shot, wanting to know what the hell was going on?

claw3, that's certainly not right about government funded schools having to reserve non-faith places. Should be, but isn't.

I was speaking to a C of E priest yesterday who was talking in awe and delight about a church in one of the posher parts of SW London where they now have congregations of 300 for the family service on a Sunday, and baptisms included within the service every week. It has become the thing to do now amongst people who previously wouldn't have dreamt of going to church on a Sunday, and a very effective way of ensuring that one's precious offspring don't have to encounter the Underclass at a tender age in the classroom.

To whoever suggested that RC schools take the poorest children, this is not at all borne out by the statistics.

Sorry I meant to say: 'that is not to say that children should not take a few minutes...etc'

YANBU. I grew up in Northern Ireland and seriously felt then/feel now that segregated education was one of the things that kept the communities apart and delayed peace. And that was just between two christian factions.

Fellatio, I see your point and thank you for your thought provoking (on my part) post.

Going away slightly confused now wondering if I actually have been brainwashed

I grew up in the Republic of Ireland in an area that had both C of I and RC national schools, and feel the same as you Teej. No reason at all why we couldn't all have gone to the same secular school if it had existed, and gone our separate ways on Sundays. As it was, my parents sent us to a private school way out of the area because the RC school had a really huge intake in Infants the year I would have started and just one teacher (something like 50 DCs in the class) and the C of I wasn't taking Catholics.

"Would a completely secular school still teach the children to love one another, show compassion, kindness, forgiveness and understanding?"

Well the faith schools in the town my parents grew up in clearly failed on the above.

Gangs of children from each religious tribe would regularly gather to indulge in sectarian bullying and violence against each other on the way home from school.

Salt and light my arse.

mathanxiety your poor parents! having to go private because all your local schools are basket cases/too ridiculously over-subscribed is bad enough but being told sorry you're the wrong religion - bah! i really feel for the OP too.

I didn't do the faith school thing and was lucky enough to have parents who believe people are people but was always aware that many other children/adults didn't have those breaks...

when children are segregated, they become able to believe that people who are "different" to them are lesser in some way and therein lies danger for us all.

I'm going to write to my MP about this I think, and the Minister for Education. Not really sure where to start so that seems like a reasonable place. There are so many parents it seems who would prefer a secular education for their children, or are feeling they have to fake a religious belief in order to get a good quality education for their children, it's just not right.

Now of course I know there is no money, because the last government spent it all, but the only way I can see change happening when we do have a healthier bank balance is if parents make their feelings known. The proportion of non-faith vs faith schools that are state funded is clearly completely out of kilter, and in actual fact it isn't even possible to have a completely secular education in the UK. How is that right?

The situation needs to be redressed, most likely with new secular schools as the church is so entrenched in the existing system it would be hard to peel them away from existing schools.

Does anyone know of any existing campaigns in place or govt plans to redress?

This organisation is quite interesting:

accordcoalition.org.uk/aims

They have a number of campaigns and things to get involved with.

British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society also have campaigns running that some of you might find interesting. They don't quite chime with me as I think learning about religion is important, but in an objective sense, not confined to one religion and not having the monopoly on morality IYSWIM.

I'm a member of Accord, crazycatlady. I'm not sure that they are actually doing all that much though. It's the sort of thing one would have expected the Lib Dems to get behind, but now that they've been swallowed up by the Tories I can't imagine that they will be much help.

Oh that's interesting, and disappointing Zeph.

I haven't actually found any high profile groups that are led by parents campaigning for secular education. I'm going to do some more research, but at the moment I'm considering whether to set one up from scratch. Needs a lot more thought clearly...

BHA have a campaign against faith schools. The Dawkins association may make them appear too partisan for some though.

www.humanism.org.uk/campaigns/religion-and-schools/faith-schools

linky fixed
BHA Faith Schools Campaign

I see that the BHA are trying to raise £40,000 by December 2010 to fund their 'Say no to faith schools' campaign. They have £5,000 left to raise. I think the recent Dawkins programme has boosted support...

if the faith schools are so awful why is it that loads of folk want to get into them????

Christ on a bike, demisemi. Do you want to try reading just a little bit of the thread?

There's always one.

(It's usually me, to be fair.)

As a busy Mum myself, I don't know how other Mums find time to engage in such pointless argument. It wasn't that long ago that individuals respected other people's rights to hold a different opinion to their own. It was called tolerance and it defined much of the British way of life, fair play and all the rest. These are Biblical values which formed the basis of British society. I don't like the humanist alternative, which is no alternative at all. That's my opinion and I'm entitled to it! Can't we be more tolerant of each other, we're never going to agree about everything?!

Well done for finding the time in your busy schedule to tell us your opinion, Mags1963. It's terribly enlightening.