to think if we fund religious schools through taxes, DD should be considered for a place?

[experiencethis]

I'm not originally from the UK, so maybe I am missing the point here. It puzzles me that whilst some religious schools are (partially) government-funded by taxpayers, they do not treat all as equals when allocating places. Our local state CoE primary is lovely and walking distance from our house. But looking at the local authority's website we'd have to get the local CoE church to validate that we are part of the congregation (which we aren't) and attend service a number of times per quarter (which we don't). DH and I would be happy for DD to attend a religious school, we think exposing her to different faiths and beliefs will make her a well-rounded adult (we have Jewish, Catholics and Buddists in the wider family). She will then be able to decide on any of them or none at all as she pleases. AIBU ?

I am also from another country and find the system strange, but as a Christian found that if a church school is available and it is good, and local, it is an option to consider. We have been going to church as a family for ages so for us it's not an issue. Both my kids go to a CoE school and it is lovely, but I would have been very happy for them to go to a non-faith school, and if the school was bigger (it's only one-form entry) I would be very, very happy for anyone to be accepted. But the fact is, the school does have its own admission criteria, and one of them is to attend church regularly.

I did find it odd to start with, and I still don't understand it as every school can set their own criteria (within the legal rules from each council). And situations vary a lot from borough to borough and between heavily populated areas and rural areas.

We have five very good local primary schools locally. Honnestly, they are all good. All schools in our area are oversubscribed and there is a severe shortage of school places. Some children in my neighbourhood have no local school to go to this coming September, and have been assigned a new Sikh independent school at the other end of the borough, some miles away, with no direct tube link and severe traffic problems.

To me, this is a much, much more serious problem right now.

Blueberry - that's interesting. Are these children who have been assigned a Sikh school not actually themselves from Sikh families? I can see that that might cause all sorts of shenanigans.

Grimma,

My local state school doesn't even give priority to looked-after children. Although it's number one entry criteria is 'Christian looked after children' (backed by evidence from a 'doctor, priest or social worker') standard looked-after children are only 7th in the list of priorities - ranked below baptised applicants.

Some children in my neighbourhood have no local school to go to this coming September, and have been assigned a new Sikh independent school at the other end of the borough, some miles away, with no direct tube link and severe traffic problems.

This is exactly the situation which pertains for many children except that instead of 'Sikh' its CofE and somehow that's supposed to be OK.

Blueberry, the point is that the school will have its running costs funded by the LA, so local taxpayers. Some of whose children will be excluded based on their parents faith. So the fact is the admissions criteria are discriminatory and should be the same as other LA schools.

Cats - yes, I think they have to put 'looked after' first but are still allowed to discriminate religiously. Most of the CofEs I've seen don't, but just about all RCs do. Quite what constitutes a 'catholic child' I'm not sure. Actually, I tend to think this restriction isn't necessarily a bad thing - at least it helps reduce the probability of children in the care of the State being indoctrinated or confused and scared of doctrine they have no familial support to explain.

Grimma yes! Somehow people are shocked by children of Christian parents being educated with another faith. Yet as atheist parents we have to put up with our children being indoctrinated through school BY LAW, since there are no schools in the country that do not have to at least pay lip service to Christianity.

there are no schools in the country that do not have to at least pay lip service to Christianity.

very few - non-dom schools with eg a largely Muslim intake can get special dispensation for their acts of worship to be of Muslim rather than Christian character.

Well, the family I know who has been assigned the Sikh school is Jewish.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that the situation is critical where we live, and almost beyond the debate of faith schools, there are over 40 children in our Borough that don't have a school place at all for this coming September. All schools in the borough have been asked to take on an extra child (through special measures) so most current Reception classes now have 31 children, and the same will happen for the coming September. There are no places, period.

The double standards are breathtaking - muslim children are welcome to attend Christian schools but Christian children shouldn't attend muslim ones.
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2005/sep/27/schools.uk1

I remember watching the interview with Cormac Murphy O'Connor at the time and he looked really uncomfortable when asked about catholics attending muslim schools.

It is clear that many people who support faith schools do so because it protects their faith but don't really think of the wider impact of having substantial amounts of state education selected by way of religious belief.

Blueberry - that's bad, but not really what this thread is about. Except that if religious admissions criteria were done away with and it was mostly sibs and catchment, it would presumably make it easier for the authorities to do their planning.

Chaz - the NSS bloke is spot on. I'm appalled this government is facilitating yet more faith schools.

Blueberry, yep, this is the problem. There's a huge shortfall of places in London - with estimates of up to 18,000 children going without by 2014. The government is not addressing the issue (a whole other thread in itself) and Councils may actually turn round and say to parents 'yep, we have a legal duty to provide a place, but we can't, so tough' I think Enfield did this with secondary places a few years ago.

And just about every one of those children without a school place will be a non-Christian. Because despite Councils funding all those state schools, because they've contracted out some of those services to church providers, religions get to reserve a huge chunk of state school places for Christians. The rest of us have to scrabble around for the remainder and could even be denied a place altogether.

I'll be astonished if there's not some legal challenge to this at some point.

Grimma - the article that Chaz links to is seven years old. The last govt was facilitating more faith schools, but I'm not sure the current govt is.

Yup - I didn't spot the date, the last gov was bad but this lot are worse. Free schools, and ones converted to academies can become faith schools if a set of governors with an agenda so decides, and its very hard to undo that.

it's number one entry criteria is 'Christian looked after children' (backed by evidence from a 'doctor, priest or social worker')

Just how can a Doctor detect a child's religion??? It's not a medical condition FFS!

When there aren't enough places, having some schools practising religious discrimination is even worse.

MrsMicawber: I'm not sure why you're asking the question, but the free schools scheme hasn't been terribly successful so far, ie not many people have been interested in starting them. So of the ones that have been set up (15, from memory), quite a few are faith schools, but they represent only a tiny fraction of school provision as a whole. So if Gove had intended the free school programme as a way of increasing faith school provision, he's been unsuccessful.

MG - I'm wondering if that is a conflation of a fairly standard pair of priorities
This is a typical wording (from a CofE):
1.1 Children in Public Care.
1.2 Children with special medical or social circumstances affecting the child where these needs can only be
met at this College.
(Note: Professional supporting evidence from eg a doctor, psychologist, social worker, is essential if
admission is to be made under the criterion for special medical or social circumstances, and such evidence
must set out the particular reasons why the school in question is the most suitable school and the
difficulties which would be caused if the child had to attend another school.)

1. Parent or child is a regular fortnightly worshipper at a church in membership of Churches Together in

England. Regular fortnightly worship attendance is defined as a minimum of twice per month for a period of no less than 2 years...et etc

Mothership, it was about appropriate professionals supplying additional social, medical and pastoral info.

Mrs Micawber - when the Council failed to offer you a place, even though they had a legal obligation to do so, I assume that they didn't meet any of the costs of private education? My understanding was that when Enfield ran out of places they only offered about 3 hours home-tuition a week as an alternative which was clearly inadequate. If you couldn't afford to go private the attitude was 'tough'.

MrsMicawber: "most of the free schools that have been set up are faith schools"

According to the Humanist Society, of the 24 free schools set up in 2011, 11 were faith schools. Another 70 are are due to open this September, but I haven't been able to find out what proportion of these are faith schools. There's a full list at www.education.gov.uk/b00197715/free-schools-2012 but it's not obvious from the names.

I don't hold any brief for this government, but it isn't clear to me that they are as zealous in their support of faith schools as Blair was. I may be wrong.