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.

Interesting - I am glad they have toned it down a bit, though in ds's school things are still more Christian-based than I would like (eg they didn't cover any other religion in any way in P1 until the last month of the school year).
(At LEAST the Ch of Sc has got a bit 'nicer' in the past couple of generations! If it was still as grimly presbyterian as it was when my parents were at school, I think I'd home-ed.)

So suburbia what do you want the govt to do, and everyone anti faith schools if you could wave a magic wand.

If it's 1 in 3 schools that are faith, they do BTW follow the national curriculum and learn like everyone else, it's not like all day everyday some cultesque type setting, it's to all intents and purposes a normal education, just more religious based assembelies, what do people expect the govt to do right now.

Faih schools do get funding from their religious groups and other fundraising in addition to their state funding, pull the plug on that faith funding WHO is going to make up the shortfall in 1 in 3 schools, considering the govt don't even have enough to keep the ones we have got in a fit state?

Th fact they make up such a huge part of the education system means that it can't just be changed, it would be chaos.

We didn't get DC into our local Faith school as we weren't going to church often enough (1 or 2x a month) which was annoying as our very local school we did get into is utter "crap". It's hard with LO's to get out on a Sunday morning so cut us some slack. I am a BA Christian, sporadic Church attender and wanted a Church school with high morals - is that too much to ask, apparently lol! We then had to go private which although great means we have had to cull having more LO's as can't afford to send anymore.

YANBU

mrsruffalo - If you haven't got time to look at the evidence, why should I take the trouble to explain it to you? I know, it's because I'm nicer than you.

So, in summary, the research shows that faith schools don't produce better results than non-faith schools they just have better pupils. This was done by comparing results for pupils in the same post code (all the post code, so a small, 10 or so block of dwellings, likely to be socially homogenous). The difference between the acheivment of faith and non-faith school pupils were insignificant.

it is not hard with LO's to get out on a Sunday morning. People get them to school for 8.45am on weekdays.

The reason why we have faith schools is that the schools set up the education and also the healthcare systems in this country.

At some point they were nationalised, but basically things like hospitals and schools were historically church assets, not state ones.

emmyloulou - I'd say 'thanks faith groups, would you like to run your schools without the faith element, hand them over to the state or take them private?'

If 1 in 3 state schools are faith based, say 50% are VA rather than VC then that's 15% of schools getting 10% of their funding from the state. So 1.5% of the total budget. I don't think we would even notice that in the other cuts.

It's not all about better results though, is it? Sometimes it's the ethos people are after.

Some people here, I've observed in the education threads, are very concerned about the percentage results for SATS at primary as a major reason for choosing a school. If the faith schools (overall across the country) are little better than non-faith schools for results, then why are people seemingly desperate to get their children in?

I wonder why hospitals were (easily?) taken out of church control, but not schools? Does anyone know?

DandyDan - Because they think that if a school is getting better results that the school is doing something that will lead to their children getting better results. When in fact the faith schools (in general) just have pupils who get better results anyway.

Or to put it another way, it's because the teaching of statistics in this country has been woeful for the last 50 years.

I've thought the 'ethos' was meant to be away of acheiving better results (maybe in a broader sense than just exam results though)

Stick an 'always' in the above post somewhere that it makes sense.

I think we'd notice it a hell of a lot, especially as the govt can't even afford to repair it's current school stock. Ofc it's going to notice faith schools suddenly need more cash.

emmyloulou- "what do you want the govt to do... if you could wave a magic wand."

Interesting q. I don't think the shortfall in funding would be that much of a problem, as said previously on thread, 100% of running costs and 90% of capital costs are provided by state anyway. And most (all?) schools raise extra cash by sponsorship this and PTA that.

I guess

1. open admissions to all catchment area kids

2. Follow national curriculum for RE, teach about other faiths. They could still have their 'daily act of worship', of whatever flavour, with standard opt-out. Oh, also follow national curriculum for sex ed and science.

Oh, yeah; 3) Schools shouldn't be allowed to hire/promote/fire teachers on the basis of their faith, there should be no place for religious discrimination (or stuff like this) in modern Britain.

But you seem to have pointed out (from the LSE research) that faith schools don't actually do any better. Are you saying that it's just people's impression that they are? Because on many of the threads here, people are quoting percentage marks from particular schools (the horrendous chap in the Guardian article the other week did so too) and clearly taking definite results into account.

All faith schools are different too. Many of them are rural schools which take all the children from their catchment regardless. Just a few years ago our local faith school was actually the school the snobby parents avoided, regardless of its good ethos and teaching, simply because it is located in a council estate and the local kids went there.

I'm intruiged many posters mention Catholic schools, the school in question is not Catholic; Romans don't have a monopoly on this behaviour.

troublewithtalk makes a fair point. Yes I'd rather my children went to the faith school (but with a secular education) than the nearest alternative, with the much poorer Ofsted report. Not having to cross a major road on the way is also a factor.

And I agree the competition and pretense of faith is only driven by a faith school being perceived as "good". But surely, every child has the right to a decent school, near their home and the current situation is pretty ludicrous.

"

1. open admissions to all catchment area kids

2. Follow national curriculum for RE, teach about other faiths. They could still have their 'daily act of worship', of whatever flavour, with standard opt-out. Oh, also follow national curriculum for sex ed and science.

Oh, yeah; 3) Schools shouldn't be allowed to hire/promote/fire teachers on the basis of their faith, there should be no place for religious discrimination (or stuff like this) in modern Britain."

C of E schools have to follow 2) and 3) and invariably follow 1) as well

DandyDan - Yes, schools are different. Some Faith schools will be excellent, some will be rubbish. Some will be less selective due to being in an area with less demand so the non-religous criteria kick in.

Some will get excellent results, but what the research shows is that overall, it's not due to a faith element, but due to competition for places at them meaning that they have more able pupils overall. So they get better results, which makes more people want to get in as they think it's due to the school etc, etc.

DandyDan, TCNY, as an agnostic, I would have looked seriously at a faith school if it encouraged good morals, kindness and other good attributes that associated with Christianity. It isn't all about results, at least for me.

Most faith schools are voluntary aided so they're only partly funded by taxes. The rest is paid for by the church which gets its money from the church-goers.

So I would say, if you're going to church and contributing towards the school (whether monetarily or otherwise) then you should be entitled to an education there.

altinkum- so you'd approve of a state funded scientologist school?

Um, not sure what TCNY means, but I think your point is a good one, boiledegg1; as is Changebags'.