Faith Schools - state funding

[pearlym]

am I being unreasonable to think that it is unfair that faith schools get 85% plus funding frmo the state but that they are effectively closed to children not of their faith?

A school with the sort of values that a faith ought to uphold would have a bit more time for helping the kids in the social deprivation and whose parents don't value education so much rather than excluding them and only wanting easier kids.

and to be fair, some of them do. Unfortunately, many don't.

Of course, minipie and GrimmaTheNome, those who believe in faiths are not the only people to have positive values. There are lots of positive values. The difference is that those at faith schools share the same set of positive values. They are - literally or otherwise - singing from the same hymn sheet. Which makes the whole process easier and quicker - they are all starting from the same place.

The percentage of regular churchgoers is massively lower than the percentage of state schools run by the church.

That's actually not correct

The latest stats I could find on church attendance (tearfund 2007) found 15% attend church regularly (once a month or more) and 10% on a less frequent basis (presumably the Christmas/Easter/etc types)

In terms of pupil places at primary (as faith schools are only a very small percentage of secondary places)
CofE = 19%
RC = 9%
(and a handful of "other faiths" schools of approx 1% places)

About half the CofE schools are VC (ie used same admissions criteria as community schools), so at most about 19% of schools use "religious" admissions criteria (as not all VA schools do, or only do for a percentage of places)

Lizzie, the points other posters are making are a bit more complex than that.

It's about having access to something that your and everyone else's taxes fund denied on religious grounds.

My particular objection if the CofE (please note, I said CofE, not Christians or Christianity). It's the largest land owner in the country and absolutely rolling in it, yet still leeches off the state.

bread, I don't think people are saying that they want their kids to go to faith schools. It's more that they'd like access to the decent school around the corner which their taxes fund.

yellow - yes. I'd have liked my DD to be able to go to our village school, or failing that the one in the next village...or the next beyond that... or... (etc) - but they are all faith schools. We did not want her to go to a faith school.

My other particular objection (I'm off to do some work after this one ), is that it's actually way, way more than 85% that the state funds.

The state funds all the teacher/TA training, pays all the salaries (teaching and auxillary staff) and, I believe, has to contribute capital costs to maintaining a building which actually belongs to the largest land owner in the country.

Can you imagine if schools discriminated against faith ie atheists first in the admission criteria, then people who got married in church but haven't been in one since, then people who go to midnight mass, then people who go regularly etc. This is clearly as objectionable as the current system.

also you have to ask yourself what would be achieved by dismantling these schools. Mediocre schools which drag students down.

I take your point Minnie about the wrong kind of church. My dd probably wouldn't have got in to the C of E secondary 'cos we went to the wrong church but then some other kids from our church have now got in.

You could argue that it takes committment to attend the Anglican Church for 5 years'. No one is stopping anyone from doing this. Also this school definitely takes a variety of students not white middle class. Some Anglicans are black or Asian anyway.

Also remember the deprived kids will probably get free funding for university which the middle class kids won't.

also you have to ask yourself what would be achieved by dismantling these schools. Mediocre schools which drag students down.

I don't think many people are asking for them to be dismantled. Merely not to discriminate against children based on what their parents believe/pretend to believe. If the standards fell because they were no longer effectively selecting - well, presumably other schools would correspondingly benefit.

You could argue that it takes committment to attend the Anglican Church for 5 years'. No one is stopping anyone from doing this.
Apart from a parents ethical values which may prevent it. I don't blame parents who do it if its the best way of helping their kid, but personally, nope. Not on. Or, for a parent from a different culture, of course there may be people stopping them!

I can't attend an Anglican Church for 5 years - that would be dishonest. Also whenever I set foot in churches Carmina Burana starts playing & the stained glass implodes, so the vicar's asked me nicely to refrain...

If anyone fancies hiving off some state money for a school for which parents are required to paint their bum purple & display it weekly in the town square for 5 years, I'd be up for that - & I'm quietly confident that it'd perform just as well as any faith school.

The single most influential issue in giving any school an advantage over its neighbours is selecting for parental commitment - cold hard cash works in the private sector, but so does commitment in terms of time served doing something mildly inconvenient on a regular basis.

Of course, it'd be easy for any faith school to disprove that. All they'd need to do is bring their admission policies in line with the LA; if their ethos & teaching are genuinely superior, it shouldn't make much difference.

Absolutely right on all counts, ravenAK

Of course, it'd be easy for any faith school to disprove that. All they'd need to do is bring their admission policies in line with the LA; if their ethos & teaching are genuinely superior, it shouldn't make much difference.

I was searching to see if I could find stats on the performance of VC (who have no "religious" entry crtieria) vs VA schools as we could answer that question now with that data (couldn't find any though)

However I did find this study from 2007 which demonstrated that faith schools perform better even when levelled for factors relating to the background of the pupils etc.

"The result of the multilevel modelling analysis that control for all the contextual background factors at pupil, school and postcode label show that faith schools are positively related to key stage 2 performance.
The analysis confirmed that all faith schools, in particular Roman Catholic and Church of England schools, made slightly more progress with their pupils than non-faith schools. It also showed that pupils with SEN attending faith schools performed better in key stage 2 than pupils with SEN in non-faith schools"

Haven't had time to read it in detail yet though to see if I can spot any flaws in the study, but it has presumably been peer-reviewed?

Or alternatively see here.

From the conclusion:

"Any benefit of attending a faith primary school is linked
to the more autonomous governance arrangements that
characterise ?voluntary aided? schools (such as control
over admissions procedures). Pupils in religiously
affiliated schools that broadly fall under the control of
the local education authority ? that is, ?voluntary
controlled? schools ? do not progress faster than pupils
in secular primary schools."

But I'm not arguing that faith schools necessarily have different intakes in terms of FSM, other socio-economic factors or ethnicity - although often they do.

What they do have is parents (from whatever background) who either have a strong commitment to the church or are prepared to fake one - either requires a fairly high level of 'eyes on the prize' discipline which usually translates into hands on interaction between home & school.

To put it crudely, you're filtering out the 'CBA' contingent of parents, & those whose lives are too chaotic to get it together to turn up to church weekly.

GrimmaTheNome - you won't like this, but maybe you should be prepared to move if the village school isn't suitable on faith grounds?

After all, it's what I had to do, as there was no suitable faith school for my dcs anywhere near where we lived - we moved a v long way to ensure my dc could be brought up in our faith.

The reality is that small places ie villages can't cater for everyone. So either be prepared to travel or move. As those who choose faith schools usually have to do.

But why can't the default be that schools are respectful to, & intelligently interested in, all faiths (& the option of not having one), but serve the whole community?

If you want your dc to be 'brought up in your faith', doesn't that come under the aegis of parenting, not education - I want my dcs' school to teach them, not bring them up!

I bring my children up in my faith, but choose for them to attend their local non-faith school. I have no beef with Catholic schools as schools (mine were excellent), but disagree with them in principle. And, of course, it is my principles and beliefs (religious and otherwise) in which I am guiding my DC.

B&B - someone always comes out with that line! Soooo... theres a sizeable chunk of Lancashire I shouldn't live in? That we shouldn't work in?

Don't worry, we were fortunate enough to be able to send DD to a private junior school, but most people can't do that, any more than they can just move when they realise every school around is a faith school. Too right I don't like it!

If you are fanatical keen enough to move to ensure your child gets indoctrinated in schooltime, that's your choice but surely you can perfectly well raise a child in your faith by what you do at home, without imposing it on the whole population?

My story.

I live in West London. DS is nearly 14. I have no religion but when he was small panicked a lot slightly because I heard that all the state schools were shite. So, decided if my DS was going to have a good education, this was the route I surely had to take. Was introduced to a catholic church but disagreed with what they stood for (man standing on pulpit demonising women who had abortions) so not for me. Then went the c of e route, got baptised, DS was baptised etc. etc. and landed a place in a junior school. Fantastic childminder couldn't take DS to the school as had others going to a non-religious school so decided to send DS to same school as wanted to keep childminder.

No hope of getting into a secondary c of e school so opted for state school just round the corner which went down awfully (was nearly closed). The school is now one of the best in the borough and DS is thriving.

Irish catholic friend sent her son to catholic school, he left with no qualifications.

C of E friend sent her children to their school. My son gets better grades.

Moral of the story is if they are happy they will learn. If their home life is stable they will do well. It's really not about "The" school.

bread, no you didn't have to move to ensure that your children were educated/brought up in your faith. You would have all evenings, weekends and holidays to teach your children about your faith.

Yanbu. makes my blood boil.

I'm surprised that nobody has taken the government to the European court and sue them for discrimination or made community schools secular by getting rid of Christian assemblies etc.

YANBU. It's outrageous that state funded discriminations continues to exist. Our local secondary which takes so much funding it's unbelievable takes CofE and jewish faith (WTF?) and has no catchment. It is over subscribed to the point that no one not of that faith (exception of children in care) gets in. Children of those 'chosen' faiths are being bussed to it from way outside the area while the few other local secondaries are full to bursting and don't even have sixth form provision. You couldn't make it up.

Surely faith is a private or family matter adn should be explored and learnt at home and at church? Why should any taxpayers' money be used for it at all? By all means teach comparative religion etc, but why should taxpayers be paying at all for the children of other people to have their faith reinforced?

I think what people are referring to is that families of other faiths who would like their child to receive a faith based education are higher up the admission critieria than non-faith families. I agree with you that this entrance criteria is rarely used.