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?

The sort of thing I've seen is 'up to 10% other faiths' - followed by a list of half a dozen or so major faiths. 'Up to' - and no provision at all for 'none of the above'.

The faith state schools near me have no reserved % at all for other faiths or for non-faiths.

They simply have a priority order. The top priority category is children whose parents both attend the tied church regularly. Then it's children with one parent who attends regularly. Then it's children whose parents attend a different church (but of the same faith) regularly. Then it's children whose parents attend less regularly. And so on. There are about 6 different "grades" of church attenders to get through before you get anywhere near anyone of a different or of no faith.

Needless to say, all the places are taken up by category 1 anyway.

Unless they also paid this subsidy to atheist parents it should never have existed in the first place.

Removal of a subsidy for something isn't a tax.

There is no 'human right' that says the state should fund access to a faith school.

at their use of the word discriminatory. Shows either an astonishing lack of awareness or appalling hypocrisy. I just don't know how they get away with it.

ZD - well, increasingly they aren't getting away with it, and obviously they don't like it.

Mind you, I don't think that LEAs which have subsidised transport for any type of school in the past should abruptly withdraw it from current pupils - could make life hard for kids, they shouldn't suffer for their parents choices. But certainly no subsidies from here on in for new pupils.

No but they are certainly still getting away with their own discrimination on admissions

YANBU. and this issue drives me crazy too.

To the people who are saying that the faithful "also pay taxes", my response is this. Why are their taxes worth more than mine? Simply put, the faithful have access to both community schools and faith schools, yet I don't. We all pay taxes, yet people of faith have more choice.

To those who say that some faith schools have students of many faiths, this is not true of oversubscribed schools (read: good schools). well, I say no thanks to equal access to only the mediocre faith schools.

Apparently, 35% of schools are faith schools, and no doubt a larger portion of the good schools are faith schools. While I pay 100% of my taxes, my school choice OF TAXPAYER FUNDED SCHOOLS is significantly smaller than a Christian's. My child will be denied entry into schools based on MY faith (or lack of). I can't see how anyone can defend such a blatantly discriminatory system.

The only way that faith schools are ever 'defended' is as in the article by pleading 'discrimination' against them.

I've never heard a reasonable argument to justify their discrimination against non-faith families.

my kids go to a faith school and are not followers of the religion. its a great school with solid ethics

Faith schools get funding for secular teachers just like regular schools but no funding for faith teaching and 90% of building costs.

The school has to find other funding for 10% of building costs plus all the faith teaching. The parental contributions are voluntary but we are expected to cough up £1200 per child per term.

The school does well in SATS but honestly can't see why anyone not of the faith (its a jewish school) would even want to attend:

a) 40% of time dedicated to faith based teaching
b) parents have to do security rota as jewish schools are security risks
c) restrictions on what food can be brought into school in lunchboxes etc
d) adherence to dress code ie girls can't wear trousers, boys wear skullcaps and tzitzit.
e) constant requests for money

I

funding for secular teachers just like regular schools but no funding for faith teaching

I would have thought they'd be paid per child not per teacher.

Forever - your school sounds unusual.

I don't think most faith schools have any distinction between 'secular' and 'faith' teachers. AFAIK most just have fully-funded teachers - any 'faith' stuff is either extra or as an alternative to normal parts of the national curriculum (variants to SACRE for RE, for example).

If a school wants to spend 40% of its time on one non-curriculum subject, quite right it shouldn't be subsidised for that. At that level, it really should be an independent school, I'd have thought.

Getting 90% of costs paid by the state for a property not owned by the state is a pretty good deal in most people's book, TBH. Especially if its only being used 60% of the time for the education required by the state.

I'm genuinely shocked by some of the stories and experiences on here.

I've never had a problem with faith schools before reading this because I've never known them present a problem for anyone before.

I went to a C of E school. So did everybody else in its catchment. I think there were 2 church families in my year group of 32. It was an averagely performing school in an aveage area.

I did teaching practice in an RC school. It was attended by children in the catchment or close enough to walk to it only. Probably about 10-20% practising catholic (reflective on the urban NE area). It was a poorly performing school in a very deprived area.

I live opposite a C of E school now which is attended by every child in the village and the 2 surrounding ones except those who attend the private school also in the village. There is no other state school available so nobody is left out of it. I can't imagine many there are Christian as the local church scene is very small. It is a very highly performing school in a good area.

I'm wondering whether most of the posters in this thread are from London? I just can't fathom such discrimination elsewhere. I'm also surprised by how many Christians/pretend Christians there must be to fill these schools up!

I'm in Lancs. All the village schools round me (bar one tiny) are CofE or RC. Some excellent, some less so. The way the discrimination works is that to get your choice you have to play the bums on pews game. If you really don't want your child to have to go to a faith school then tough.

@manicinsomniac: I am in London.

But it isn't that London schools like to discriminate more than others for the fun of it (or at least I don't think that is the reason), it's that there seems to be a real disparity in the quality of education even between schools in close proximity. So, one street over and you get handed a school you don't want. I think this leads to heavy over subscription in the better schools, and that is when the faith criteria kicks in. Of course, no school that isn't oversubscribed will turn away children of other faiths (my understanding is that this is illegal - if they have space, they have to admit the students).

As someone said above, you can go to the council websites (most, if not all, have glossy pamphlets you can download that tell you all these wonderful stats) and see which faith schools admitted students based mainly on distance criteria. There aren't very many of them amongst the good schools.

Having been denied a choice because you are not religious if you then end up in a religious school anyway (because they all are in your area) they can teach your kids that baby Jesus made the world. If you complain about that on here someone always posts "well you shouldn't have sent them to that school then" like you had a choice.

Onagar - I actually had the 'maybe you should have moved house' response recently!!! (we were able to take the far less disruptive alternative of going private, but most people aren't so lucky)

manic I'm in London. There are very few good state schools and they are all massively oversubscribed. So it is a real problem that some are allowed to prioritise religious families when handing out places. Yes in theory they allow non religious children in but only once they have run out of religious children. They are so oversubscribed that that never happens.

So basically religious families in my area are getting a massive advantage over non religious ones in getting their children into the best performing state schools. I cannot believe this is even legal never mind an established element of the state education system.

Thing is onagar there is really much less difference between faith and state schools nowadays in how they teach about faith. I've never come across a faith school teaching children that 'the baby Jesus made the world' and would be surprised if that did happen; in fact if they did teach in such a way they would be flouting the local agreed syllabus for RE.

Most CofE schools are just as fluffy and nice as state schools, ie sing nice songs about the pretty birds and say thankyou (to a nameless anything) for our food and clothes and the Harvest and all that. Generally teaching about Christianity is from the same standpoint as teaching about other faiths - as something some people believe in. I've not come across a CofE school that is more than nominally Christian, and I've worked in a few and had experience of a few more. I can't speak for Catholic schools though.

I do agree with you that it must be annoying to be told 'you should move' or 'why send her there'. It's hardly that easy and I can appreciate for some it feels like you're being forced to send your dc somewhere you feel uncomfortable with. CofE schools aren't going to indoctrinate your dc, in general. There will always be the occasional member of staff who takes it into their head to tell faith as fact, you get that in any school and they should be dealt with on an individual basis. Generally though it's not really that toxic

madhair - surely you've read umpteen MN threads where a teacher has presented faith as fact to a small child?

My DDs best friend entered the local CofE in yr3 - they had a space at that point so she was in despite no religious credentials. She used to get harangued by the head for not attending church.

Yes Grimma you know I have which is why I did mention that there will always be the occasional teacher - however it would not be a school policy. Shame that so many MNers have had negative experiences of such though.

That's pretty crap re your friend's dd. Not on. Where do these heads/teachers come from?

Where do these heads/teachers come from?

same place as the rest, but as faith schools are allowed to apply religious discrimination when recruiting teachers, presumably you get clusters.