Bishop Gilpin parents - And you call yourselves Christians?? (MERTON SCHOOLS)

[NutellaWithEverything]

Name changed because I need to rant about my DS not having been offered a school place and don't want to be outed. I am in Wimbledon and my nearest school in Bishop Gilpin. My DS has not been accepted to start in Reception this September coming even though it takes us three minutes to get there. Yet, they take in children from the other side of Wimbledon even though they have to drive through town to get there. And why?? Because they go to the right churches. So last November there was a request from the Council to add another Reception class but parents voted against other children from their own community benefiting from attending a good school. They felt it would be in the detriment of their school's community feel!!!!! AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THIS IS SELFISH, SHORT-SIGHTED, UN-GODLY AND JUST PLAIN WRONG?????????????????

Sorry but Im confused about why non faith schools are being considered inferior

cantspel - because the state should not be funding schools segregated by faith at all. All state-funded schools should be faith-neutral and if you want to go to a religious school you pay, like in normal countries.

hogsback I agree with that.

But cantspel - you have a choice. You have decided it is worth your children travelling to get to the faith school. You could have decided to forgo the journey for a local school.

hogsback, like many others, doesn't have a choice. We are all paying taxes to facilitate your choices but not hers. Do you think that's fair?

Oh cantspel.
Where do I begin?

Because ALL children regardless of the faith of their parents(or lack thereof) should have the RIGHT to go to a local state funded school.
Your children should have the RIGHT to go to your local school. You could CHOOSE to drive them to a Catholic school further away if that is what you want, but the local state funded school should be there for the benefit of all the children in the community regardless of the superstitious beliefs of their parents.

Oh, and those saying that faith schools have to take a percentage of other faiths-my local C of E takes those from the Anglican faith first.
If there are any places left (there wernt) then they go to Baptist, Hindu, Muslim etc.
They are under no obligation to accept any percentage of children whose parents are atheists though.

I'm sorry, cantspel, I didn't think of it that way. (Not having any room, I mean.) The only experiences I have are in small Midwestern American schools, so it would obviously be very different. They just see which grades need the most teachers and hire more if need be, but we've got the room to do that. Also all of our state-funded schools are secular so that part doesn't come into it. I realize it's very different here and I'm quite ignorant .

I come from a country where catholic schools are fee paying and was frankly stunned that they are "free" here.

That is your view which you are fully entitled to but i prefer a different view where the state funds what is demanded by the people who it represents. So that would include faith schools along with schools without any faith or religious ethos.

Yes cantspel, but where hester and I live (different places) and where many people live THERE ARE NOT ANY LOCAL NON FAITH SCHOOLS!

CheerfulYank it is part of the joy of living in a small land mass that is vastly over crowded and it is only going to get worse as our boarders are now open to other EU states.

anotheracademic: I don't consider non faith schools inferior. My dd goes to an excellent community school and I did not want her to go to the faith school. But we have been lucky. Actually, strike that. We have been privileged enough to be able to buy our way out of the problem by moving to an area with a number of good community schools. Not everyone can do that.

For those left in a situation where choice is restricted, sometimes the non faith school will be inferior, or further, or an unsatisfactory solution for many reasons. We are not in a situation where parents can choose between two schools - one faith and one community - all equal in every respect, and are clamouring for the faith school! And sometimes, as I explained earlier, you end up in a situation where you get discriminated again by the faith schools on the grounds of faith, and the community schools on the grounds of distance, and your child ends up seriously losing out. The community loses out, too, because there are more cars on the roads, more children on the buses, weaker links between the schools and the community and so more antisocial behaviour by the children on the streets, fewer children having friends in their neighbourhood etc. Everyone loses out.

We all need to stop being defensive about what we've had to do to look after our own, and start honestly examining the wider implications of the system.

Anotheracademic 'Religious schools dont discriminate. They have a policy of admitting a percentage of children not in the faith.'

...that is just not true. Some Church of England schools are Voluntary Controlled and use the same admission criteria as the rest of the local schools (i.e. non-discriminatory). Some schools have a % of 'community places' with open admissions and a % that are limited to church going families.

Many faith schools don't do either of these things, but have a long list of priority criteria, starting with babtised/church going/specific parish and going down through various grades of religious practice till you get down to no.8 'any other faith' and no.9 'local children'. But the thing is if they fill up all their places with families that have applied under the higher priority rules like church going, they never actually consider any admissions under rule 8 etc...

I think all state schools should be non faith (although all are somewhat C of E due to our non separation of Church and State).
If you want something special and different, frigging well pay for it yourselves.

I just think there needs to be a serious think about why, in some areas, the faith schools are the better ones. The school ds goes to is and people do try to baptise for entry due to its reputation.

How pissed off would you be if ,when you broke your leg, your state funded A and E department refused to treat you because you were not,I don't know, a Buddhist?

Thats how I feel.

northerrock where i am there is no local faith schools. I now have 2 sons in secondary school. The oldest is in a sen school which is miles away so he has to go by bus. The other is in a catholic secondary and he travels further to school than my husband travels to work. Infact they often get the same train in the morning and my husband will get home before my son.

I am not complaining as it is my choice and your complaint shouldn't be against the faith schools in your area but your local education authority that is unwilling to spend their money and build a local state school so that you dont need to rely on a school that is owned by the church.

I totally agree that all non denomational schools should be state run and all faith schools should be church run and fee paying

cantspel - so presumably you would support hospitals that discriminate by faith - a Jews-only A&E department?

And what about people who don't want their children to be educated alongside black children - there's lots of people I'm sure who would like to send their kids to white-only schools - would you support that too?

Cantspel: Not everyone has a school of their faith on their doorstep. My children have always had to travel some distance to school as that is where their nearest faith school is.

I'd be interested to know if all the parents choosing faith schools, actually chose the nearest faith school.

ok, x-post with northernrock :)

Mine has to be "bussed" to the school and it is the nearest

Academic I was surprised that they are "free" there too. I don't know how comfortable I'd be with that, but of course it's not what I'm accustomed to, so who knows? :) FWIW I am quite religious and DS will start going to Sunday school next year. DH and I have thought about sending him to a private faith school but decided that we would rather save the money to send him to college when the time comes.

cantspel: "the state funds what is demanded by the peopel who it represents".

On what planet? Kensington and Chelsea has five secondary schools; four are Catholic, one is community. None are CoE, Muslim, Jewish etc. Do you seriously think 80% of that diverse, inner-city borough are practising Catholics? Of course not, but the Catholic Church had the history and the resources to be able to provide land/buildings for those schools, and the other faiths didn't.

The borough I now live in - Richmond - has a tiny minority Catholic population - well under 10% - and huge pressure on all school places. It also has one excellent all-girls state secondary, but no equivalent all-boys state secondary, so our local mixed secondary is dominated by boys and many boys travel out of the borough. To me, the need to provide for the boys of the borough, and for all the children who are currently having to travel long distances across London, far outstrips the need to provide for the tiny Cathoilic minority. Yet the council wants to set up a Catholic secondary, presumably because the Catholic church is able to come in with funds that make the prospect attractive. That will mean more Catholic children travelling in from other boroughs, and more Catholic-in-name-only parents playing the usual silly games, while local children continue to get the bus past their local school, which they're not allowed to go to.

So please, forget the abstract principles about how everybody should have the school of their dreams on their doorstep, and join us in working out how the system could better meet the needs of the many not the few.

cheerful yank we dont have sunday school so all RE is done in school (and home). WWYD if you had no sunday school?

As anyone said this is the fault of the labour govournment who gave people the choice of school?
Children should go to the school nearest them and not one out of catchment just because it is better. Our local infants is always over subscribed because people from out of area want to send their children to it