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.

faith schools often get better results that why people lie to get their children in them. what about private/prep school instead? move area to a better school? or just put up with the one in the council estate and hire a private tutor and loads of extra curricular activities to keep your child away from the riff raff?

EdgarAllinPink - I hadn't got on to that yet!

Agree, Fuzzface.

A tiny minority of C of E primary schools look at the parents' actual faith commitment and attendance, and that is to fulfil their admissions policy, which isn't a policy to exclude but to assist with the prioritisation of applications, where catchment isn't applicable. The legislation which ensures that this is done fairly is rigorous.

Too many people are narked off because they couldn't get their own children in a faith-school. If they had, and were appreciating whatever it was that made them choose that school, they wouldn't be grumbling about faith schools at all.

The trouble is that, entrenched as it is, it's also a primitive situation that doesn't really have a place in the 21st century. It isn't a given that you're Catholic OR Protestant with no other likely options.

Treats - it benefits the state and tax payers. No reason to pay more for something than we have too ;)

Even in my scenario the church would be able to either run the church privately or run it without religious content as a benefit to the community. The second of those would benefit the most people.

EdgarAllinPink - I don't know how they justify maintaining a system where religious discrimination is endemic - but it's not the church that's maintaining it. But if there wasn't such a demand from parents for faith schools, it wouldn't continue to be maintained.

FuzzFace/Dannydan - No. I object to the state funding faith based education. Especially as the idea that it gives better results is an illusion.

But TheCoalition - why on earth would it bother to run it without religious content. What's the motivation?? The church run schools because they believe that children's education should be grounded in faith. If they were instructed to run schools without a faith element, well, they just wouldn't run schools.......

Treats - The demand is there due to a perceived benefit that is the result of the demand in the first place. If there is a demand for faith based education on faith grounds, it's up to the faith not the state to supply that demand.

I really dislike the 'jealousy' line - it's as if there weren't enough of an argument against it, without taking personal circumstances into consideration!

Also it doesn't fit in Scotland. I dislike the church/state crossover in schools. Unless you opt out of the state system, you go to one of these schools. Schooling by and large depends on catchment area. I have nothing to be jealous of. I still think it's wrong.

Treats - Exactly. The faith schools are there for the benefit of the faith. Why is the state subsidising this?

TheCoalitionNeedsYou - the state only pays for 90% of the building etc costs.

The state doesn't pay at all towards the costs of the religious instruction. The state only pays for the secular teachers.

The religious eduction is all funded at my Dc's school by way of parental voluntary contribution, Those who can pay, those who can't either pay less or don't pay at all.

Its around £1,000 per child per term....

As I said I wouldn't personally have a problem with non faith children in the school just wondering what they'd do during the 2.5 hours a day they spend doing religious studies? Also I assume they wouldn't pay pushing the costs up for everyone else.

The faith schools are not there for the benefit of the faith purely and simply. I think the issue is more complex than that. A new 'faith school' might be set up for any number of reasons. But the majority of C of E schools were set up as charitable foundations and absolutely for the benefit of the entire community or for as many as could fit in the building (!) Most CE schools will have only a small proportion of children of families of active Christian faith - most of their intake will be those of nominal CE faith (tick box on a census) or no faith.

It depends.

The faith school I went to, the land and buildings were donated to the state by the church, and certainly up until recently, the church contributed a significant proportion of the costs of upkeep.

The new science block, recently added was paid for by the friends of the school, working through the church.

How is the church involved in the school you are talking about?

TheCoalition - the state is subsidising it because there's nowhere else for the RC pupils to go if they don't go to the RC school. and if more people want to send their children to that school, then the state will try to accommodate their choice.

MumNWLondon - That seems an unusual set up. In a voluntary aided school (the most autonomous and least funded type of faith school that I am aware of), wiki tells me:-

"Voluntary aided schools are a kind of "maintained school", meaning that they receive all their running costs from central government via the local authority, and do not charge fees to students. In contrast to other types of maintained school, only 90% of the capital costs of a voluntary aided school are met by government. The foundation contributes the rest of the capital costs, owns the school's land and buildings and appoints a majority of the school governors. The governing body runs the school, employs the staff and decides the school's admission arrangements, subject to rules imposed by central government. Pupils follow the National Curriculum, except that faith schools may teach Religious Education according to their own faith.[11][12][13]"

So the state should pay all but 10% of the capital costs and all the running costs - such as salaries.

Are the RS lessons outside core school hours or hours extended to cover them or something?

And 15 hours RS a week

OOH - did Justine misspeak?

Treats - But why should the state allow the Religous instruction to continue? The state could just say, by all means run your school, but you may not include any religon. And if they then say they'll close it, the state says, "Ok, we'll take over then"/

have to say that I think the scenario that MumNWLondon is describing is quite unusual. That's a lot of religious instruction!! We had a couple of hours a week at my school.

Well indeed TheCoalition - why not? Why haven't they done that?

"Requiring all parents to be able to juggle would produce the same effect"
Good point.

Treats - Because of the cargo cult of Faith Schools leading to better results would mean that those without faith who also percieve themselves as getting a benefit from them would protest.

And it's against the interests of the established church to weaken the role of religion in public life, so until we disestablish them we are probably stuck.

YANBU! The British Humanist Association run campaigns on this, in case anyone's interested.

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

And it would contribute much more to the gaity of nations, paisleyleaf!