to start going to church and praying that DS gets a place at this school?

[ThoughtCriminal]

DS is only 2 but we have already decided which primary school we want him to go to. It is the best school around and although we live only 0.8 mile from the school we are outside the catchment area.

If the school is oversubscribed he will stand a better chance of getting in if a parent worships in a church in membership of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

I guess I'd better make a start and get him baptised! I have not attended church since Remembrance Sunday 2 years ago!

Has anyone else ever had to do this to get their DCs into a better school? How did it work out?

No, ItWasABoojum. The priest made the wrong decision. If I had been welcomed with open arms and given a date for my son's baptism I could have attended church more regular. The few times I did attend I found the members of the congregation to be lovely. It was the attitude of the Priest that made me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome so I gave it up.

Your last post gives several good reasons why this is laughable. You admit straight off that you can't fit it into your schedule for the next 5 weeks. Then you say you started going but couldn't keep it up.

Newsflash. No priest or vicar is going to be particularly welcoming to someone who they can spot a mile off as trying (and failing miserably) to play a game.

A lifelong commitment to God does not mean a lifelong commitment to go to church every Sunday and become part of the flower arranging group.

If someone wants to be baptised, they should be able to get baptised. It is not a vicars place to make judgements on someone elses faith or their relationship with God.

I fucking hate people that just go to church for this reason

sorry OP!!!! but I do.

But I am fairly OK for schools so I suppose easy to say, and deespite being religious myself I can see its a bit of a shit situation. But rather than flame christians, why not make the other schools better

but still think YABu

But what did he say that implied you weren't welcome? He asked you to come back regularly. He invited you to become a member of his congregation. And had you done so, he'd presumably have been happy to baptise your child.

A lifelong commitment to God does not mean a lifelong commitment to go to church every Sunday and become part of the flower arranging group

Unfortunately it does. Any why is that? Oh yeah, because of all the people pretending to be religious when they're not, just to get into the faith schools.

We're practising Catholic, always have been, long before we had DD. Yet we have to jump through the same hoops as all the fairweather Catholics with an eye on a school place and risk not getting in.

You can have whatever faith you like privately, but people like the OP have made it so that you have to prove it where schools are concerned. It's entirely of their own making.

But rather than flame christians, why not make the other schools better

Yes, because OP has the power to single handedly make all other local schools better with less effort than it would take to go to church for a couple of hours each week

And it's not flaming Christians, OP is a Christian!

People that attend church for a school place probably wouldn't do it if they didn't have to. It can be the only way that some parents can get a good education for their child in a nice school. I don't see how anyone can criticise a parent for just trying to do their best for their child.

"No, ItWasABoojum. The priest made the wrong decision. If I had been welcomed with open arms and given a date for my son's baptism I could have attended church more regular. The few times I did attend I found the members of the congregation to be lovely. It was the attitude of the Priest that made me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome so I gave it up."

So giving you a date for your ds's baptism would have made it possible for you to attend Church regularly?

ItWasABoojum - After attending church regular for a few weeks I was rostered to work weekends for a whole month. I told the Priest about my job but he just said there is the option of Mass on Saturday evenings. I work shifts! I felt like he was trying to make me jump through hoops and change my work plans. I didn't find his attitude to a young baby as welcoming as I had expected. Now I'm not sure what to expect from another church.

Vicars are aware that people are going to church for the schools. They're not that naive. They get full congregations (and lots of donations) so they don't really have anything to complain about. I think they also hope that some people might start to become genuinely interested if they listen to enough services.

You have to do it for a long time and become properly involved. You can't just turn up for a few weeks before the applications are due and expect to get the vicar's signature.

I'm that you can say this situation is a problem of the parent's making!

It is the unfair admissions system that has done this, not parents who just want their child to go to a good school!

My dc are at a CofE school, thankfully one that does not have such ridiculous admissions criteria. It serves the children living in the villiage it is in, not just the ones whose parents choose to spend their Sundays going to church.

I give up most of my Sundays to a charity which enables disabled people to access a sport that they wouldn't be able to participate in if it weren't for people giving up their Sundays for free to train and support them. Do you really think God would think that someone elses child is more worthy of a good education than my child because they choose to go to Church on a Sunday instead of doing something that actually helps other people? I could be doing my thing and then going home and reading teh bible to my children for two hours for all anyone else knows about it!

It is wrong that people fake religion to get a school place, but it is even more wrong that parents feel that is their only option.

If you dont find the church's attitude welcoming then WHY DO YOU WANT YOUR DS TO GO TO A FAITH SCHOOL?

I agree with havingkittens, I think it's a bit crazy that state schools are allowed to select students based on their religion.

Before we moved, we had 2 options for state primaries. One was literally on our street, a 2 minute walk, rated Outstanding. But because we weren't willing or able to go to Mass every Sunday for four years, there was no way DS would be accepted. Instead he would have to go to a school much farther away, rated poorly.

Where I'm from originally, all state schools are non-religious and acceptance is based purely on geography. All religious schools are private and take students from anywhere. Isn't that much more fair?

It may not be ethical, what the OP is considering, but I think the system itself is not really fair either.

But by your own admission, if he'd offered then and there to baptise your DS you'd have continued going - so what put you off going back was the fact that he didn't agree to it straight away. No priest worth the name is going to doubt your commitment if you genuinely make an effort to do what you can, but from your previous posts you haven't given the impression that that's the case.

Incidentally, although I'm a Christian I don't believe in water Baptism, so I'm very much on board with the idea that faith is personal, individual, and none of anyone else's business. But if you turn up and ask about Baptism before showing that you've made the effort to understand how important it is, people are going to ask questions.

but they arent always taking "empty" spaces. Often times parents who fake religion are taking places from students who are actually religious, you know the ones who the schools were set up for and who the spaces are mean't to be for.

If it was a case of the school had room so I faked it then I see no harm no foul. But when the children who the schools were started for are denied entry, but someone faking a faith gets a place, then its not fair.

Crap schools/shit admission systems aside, you can't tell me that is right.

There's some odd admissions criteria going on here. I attended catholic school, my children attend catholic school. That's because we're catholic. I"ll admit to sporadic church attendance but none of the schools criteria have ever stated how often we must attend mass, that we arrange flowers in the church, take part in readings during mass, or bake cakes for the parish priest. The norm is that your child is baptised into the faith. The point of a faith school is that the whole ethos of the school is based on that faith so if it's not something you feel you can continue with then would it not be best to look at all the local schools and find one that fits your own beliefs and attitudes best? With regard to athiests etc being entitled to a good education, I agree completely. Perhaps though we need to start looking what faith schools are doing that tends to make them perform more highly rather than attempting to destroy the concept all together?

Personally, I take issue with a church that provides 10 per cent funding holding all the cards over admissions. Once that's said, I then take issue with a school that is Christian taking its own first. I am pretty sure that Jesus would do differently although I wouldn't like to second guess him. And then I take issue with social selection by the back door since those who will either develop or fake religious conviction for the sake of a school place, morals aside, show a certain commitment to their child's education. And as for those who develop a commitment to the church this way? Smacks of being bought to me and I am thoroughly against Evangelism where the opportunity to evangelise is "bought" in some way-school place, box of toys? Wrong on all counts. As to you op, you may find yourself stuck in a rotten system and you must do what you think best for your child. Many of my friends have and I don't think they deserve criticism. However I applaud the guy from the church of England education board who proposed the idea that a max of 10 per cent of places at ce va schools should be allocated according to church commitment/faith. So yanbu personally, op but the system stinks.

Oh and fwiw, the system of church schools has a thoroughly right and wholesome start. They were pretty much the only schools providing an education for, ironically, the poorest children. Almost everyone then was nominally if not actually Christian. So they weren't set up to educate a small section of the community who were worshippers, but were much more inclusive. I don't hold by the idea that faith schools should be just or primarily for people of that faith. So those who are complaining that people with christian faith are being turned away, i think yabu.

Some churches are strict about who they baptise, mainly due to the amount of people who get children christened just for the party or for school admission. That's not what baptism should be about.

Final piece before I disappear-I speak pretty much about c of e schools. Know very little about rc or any others.

Generally speaking Catholic schools are much harder to gain entry to if you aren't practising catholic

I think it is grossly unfair that people who believe in fairy tales are, in some locations, entitled to a better education than more rational thinkers.

Personally I wouldn't want my ds to be indoctrinated in a church shool but think it is a very unfair system and religion has no place in a school.
That's what churches are for.

I was looking around churches (to join myself) and at 2 was asked if I was interested in the church or the local, and very good, faith school. They didn't sound angry when they asked - just kind of sad.

I was able to honestly say that I was looking for a church to get involved with heart and soul.

The school I went to had the children going to church once a week and we all sang hymns in assembly. Quite a lot of religious lessons too. They were super strict on who they let in - interviews, IQ tests, the lot!

Priority is given to applicants who were baptised with 6 months of birth (3 months for the ultra strict ones) to weed out the likes of yourself, op!
You're already too late.

"But rather than flame christians, why not make the other schools better"

The learning environment isn't just created by the teachers. It's created by the children and parents.

Where you have a situation that all the children from (often) affluent, two parent, professional families are all clustered together in a small number of schools which are not accessible to the more deprived majority, you create a situation of educational inequality.

And that's what church schools do.

It's wrong. I bitterly resent the fact that despite paying as much tax as my Catholic and CofE neighbors, when it comes to choosing a secondary school I have a much, much narrower choice of options.