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 can assure you that they do decline children on the basis of religion, Atkinmum. Otherwise dd would be at her local school. But as we couldn't (in all good conscience) procure the necessary signature from the priest it is not an option.

Yes you are confused. They don't have to do that. Shocking isn't it?

Faith schools, nothing a bulldozer can't sort out.

mrsruffalo any school discriminating on the basis of faith is discriminating on the basis of wealth.

the research that shows this is linked to up thread

"For example, catholic children need specific teaching around the sacraments (communion, confirmation mainly). This could not be taught over lunchtime, there wouldn't be enough time."

Sunday school is only a few hours a week, isn't it? Maybe an after-school club would work better than lunchtimes. Or, maybe, the child could just go to Sunday School as normal...

It also raises the question that if it takes up so much time to teach the RC-specific stuff, one wonders how a RC school manages to fit the rest of the National Curriculum around the RC teachings.

Its funny, when I went to school (Catholic) it was rubbish, second bottom in the borough. There was no argument about faith schools then. Now it's the second from top and everyone is moaning about the catholic school only taking catholic children.

I wouldn't leave my child near anyone fucking religious, especially not Catholic priests.

That is ridiculous, GenevieveHawkings. Faith schools are nothing like that at all (have you ever visited one?) They follow the national curriculum like all other state schools. It's not about indoctrination and nonsense, it's about a general morality of doing to others as you would be done by, that kind of thing. They teach children to think for themselves and debate all aspects of various religions and non-belief.

The C of E is a tolerant church, known for its wide interpretation of Christianity. This makes it somewhat "woolly" in some people's eyes but I think that is a good thing. It means it is open-minded and a very long way from the fundamentalist approach you describe.

I would be very much against fundamentalist religious schools (which are likely to be private anyway if they refuse to follow the National Curriculum, for example presenting creationist beliefs as "fact") but normal church schools are not like that at all.

"the parents out there who want their children indocrinated with utter nonsense all day each and every school day"

When I did Primary supply teaching a few years ago the best schools were the small Church schools whether RC or CoE.They were best academically,best for discipline and most of all best for the happiness of pupils,staff and parents.This was in and around Bradford and Keighley.My dd has now enrolled dgs in a tiny CoE school in the Shropshire countryside with no lip service needed.It is always worth a try to get them in.Present your lack of hypocrisy alongside your admiration for the ethos of the school and you may be pleasantly surprised.

A small minority!! Hahahahahahaha the Catholic hierarchy is a fucking paedophile ring...thousands and thousands of kids raped, and they still are...fucking hell.

Just for balance im sure the other religions are rape camps as well...a small minority ffs...

Lovely post, pranma :)

"Present your lack of hypocrisy alongside your admiration for the ethos of the school and you may be pleasantly surprised."

ozmetric - if that is what faith schools are about, presumably they would have no problem with an entirely secular curriculum. As morality is the exclusive property of religon, they could teach "a general morality of doing to others as you would be done by" without any reference to god, Jesus or any of that stuff.

There wouldn't be a problem if people sent their child to the nearest school, faith school's excepted, though would there?

That's a lovely story pranma, but believe me I have researched this issue in some detail and it's not like that at all here. Unless three quarters of the RC population of SW London are suddenly wiped out in some freak plague, nobody else's children are getting in.

Bigot? At least I'm not an apologist for thousands of child rapes by a clique of sick men...

Our DD is going to a C of E faith primary school which is not the closest school, but a small village school with a strong community, great parental support, very horizontal structure and less than 100 pupils aged 4-11. I have to drive 4 miles each way to get her there and back which is a sacrifice we are only too happy to make.

This was my dream type of school and I am so grateful DD got a place and have my fingers crossed that DD2 gets a place too. Wish there were more schools like this.

Coolfonz - I think I've picked up that you are a socialist and an athiest (correct me if I'm wrong). Does that make you an apologist for Stalin's purges, the Khmer Rouge, the invention of suicide bombing and anything else done in the name of socialism and atheism?

MrsVidic - if the number of faith school places reflected the population, and less than 3% of the population are church attenders, we'd better close most of them today

OP I have the opposite problem, where we live there are only faith schools. They don't expect religious adherence but we are unprepared to send our children to a faith school as we are secularists (and frankly we'd prefer them to go to school to learn useful things rather than learning to see evolution as a theory etc.)

There is no place in modern education for such factionalism.
How am I to tell my children they should respect the teacher if that teacher is regularly talking bollocks to them? Yes DC, that's right, she is right on the maths stuff but just nod politely during the god bits, it's just a fairy story.

YANBU and what's more, I'm taking on the LEA on this point. We're in for a fight I know, but I want my children to go to the next school along (which we are out of the catchment area for) which is a community school.