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 ?

So, the definition of elitist too, Edgar, thanks.

your rather banal point about reading being just reading merely illustrates you lack of understanding of distinctive philosophy of education in the Catholic sector.

But how is Catholic education different from non-Catholic education in the state sector? Serious question. I assumed that the RE element in a Catholic school would obviously focus on Catholicism more than other religions, and the extra curricular activities would be Christian in focus eg, carol concerts. But how do you teach maths, geography or chemistry in a distinctively Catholic way as opposed to an Anglican, or secular way?

But to reiterate it's not about teaching methods, it's about Christian parents having first dibs at the majority local school places, and people of other faiths getting the leftovers.

I cannot how an admissions policy that selects based on parental actions e.g christening, baptism and church attendence is anything but discriminatory? No one has satisfactorily explained this. This is fine for a fee paying school but not one funded by the LA.

Presumably a C of E school has to take a proportion of kids from the local community as well as via the faith route? That's what our local ones are like.

blinkblink Fri 22-Jun-12 17:19:44

MothershipG - your rather banal point about reading being just reading merely illustrates you lack of understanding of distinctive philosophy of education in the Catholic sector.
Please could you explain to me how reading is taught in such a fundamentally different way in RC schools??? Having been taught to read in a RC primary I can't see how the distinctive philosophy of education made it very different to the experience of my DC in a non-religious school.

Generally, what people seem to be saying is (i) that you don't "believe" in faith schools - it is not a question of belief but fact; (ii) eg PrincessTamTam says "if I got my way" I'd ban them. Hopefully you won't get your way anytime soon.
So may I repeat - I could see a compromise in allowing the school to select the percentage they contribute. So a 10% contribution means they can select 10% of pupils. Wouldn't that be fairer? But also if people had taken that attitude about slavery (it's a fact so why bother trying to change it) would it still be ok to practice it today?

Repeating nonsense like faith schools are selective, elitist and discriminatory (legally and practically they are not of course) is clearly not supported by the facts but hey why let some facts and realities get in the way of a strongly held phobia?
It's not nonsense and several posters have included links to support this. Do you have anything to support your belief that it is nonsense or are we all just supposed to have faith in your opinion?

blinkblink on the last point as noted by Mothership, on repeating nonsence.... Merely asserting that anyone disagreeing with you has a strong phobia is not a strong argument, just mildly insulting.

It is also to misunderstand what a phobia is. A phobia normally involves phobic avoidance, which means that the subject spends time and energy doing things to avoid the target thing. We are asking to be considered for the schools on the same footing as other people. The opposite of a phobia in fact.

HTH

Blinkblink - I could take exception to your post. But I shall turn the other cheek, and merely state that I am entitled to my opinion even if it differs to yours. And I repeat, faith schools are divisive and discriminatory IMHO. I haven't yet seen an argument to sway me from this opinion.

I am a product of a catholic education primary and secondary and I don't remember being taught special catholic maths, english, physics etc. The distinctive catholic pedagogy was solely related to religious worship etc outside of the classroom context because catholics need to learn the same curriculum as everyone else in order to sit the same exams as everyone else.

This could easily have been covered outside of a school context and most certainly has not informed my life beyond school.

The only really beneficial element of the catholic pedagogy was the school chaplain who was one of the most humble considerate thoughful person I have ever met. Shame more non-catholic kids didn't get to meet him as he was truely inspirational as a human being.

gah! people not person in the last line

Repeating nonsense like faith schools are selective, elitist and discriminatory (legally and practically they are not of course) is clearly not supported by the facts

There's all sorts of statistics (which if you'd read various links in the threads you'd know) which shows the selectivity and elitism which the faith school admission allows. The league table data now also includes information on the pupil intake, comparing pairs of schools in your local area shows the same effect.

As to discriminatory - legally and practically they are discriminatory.How on earth can you deny this? Many of the children of people on this thread have been discriminated against. . Not only are they allowed to discriminate against pupils on the basis of their parents professed religion but they can also discriminate on religious grounds when hiring teachers. This would be illegal in any othe state institution, but it is not illegal for faith schools.

What I find difficult here is that we are talking about an institution which is discriminating on the basis of religion. But faith schools are here, they exist, so what do people who are against faith schools want? No faith schools altogether? No faith ethos in any schools at all? Or faith schools where there would be no admission criteria based on the faith of the families or attendence to church etc? (ie same admission criteria as all other schools)?

My own opinion: In an ideal world there would be no faith based education at all. No faith schools would be part of that. Completely remove it from the education system apart from RE ie no compulsory daily worship etc.

Next best would be to keep the schools just as they are but remove all discriminatory admissions. So a school declares itself a faith school but everyone is allowed to apply and normal admissions criteria (siblings, distance) apply - like a VC school.

ITA. VC schools presumably work OK without discriminating.

yep, normal and consistent non-discriminatory admissions procedures across state schools.

In your use of the term then, community schools discriminate on the basis of proximity. No, they apply objective criteria - consistent with a code of practice - to the allocation of places at oversubscribed schools. Church schools apply - as the law explicitly allows them to do - to objectively rank applicants based on membership and/or practice of a faith. It is not discrimination in the sense you mean it.

Selective? Well yes faith state Grammar schools are but most state faith schools are not academically selective.

Elitist? Yes unequivocally (many of them at least). I'll give you that: they try to be the best based on a view of education that is not simply about passing a load of exams but on developing the whole person. The results suggest these schools are most in demand from parents - why would you want to turn off the supply of the very places that are in demand?

Finds brick wall, slams head against it. Still doesn't help.

Can you change your user name and add "ered" on the end?

It is discriminatory as many posters ad nauseum have posted and explained, you refuse to see it or adequately explain it.

Faith schools with a very deprived intake and poor academic results are NOT in demand by parents I think you'll find.

And if you don't mind me saying Blink - saying that it's just as reasonable to select on the basis of proximity as it is to select on the grounds of parental faith... Well where do you begin to challenge such a stupid point? I've yet to meet a single person who thinks its reasonable to expect children to make long journeys to school. Schools are an important part of the community and local communities should be from where they draw their children.

Blueberry I think that schools should not have a religious aspect at all, they manage that in France, the USA and many other countries. I concede that that would be very difficult to achieve here now on a practical basis so I think religious schools should not be allowed to pick and choose pupils on the basis of parental religion. If a faith school accepts state funding it should agree to educate all children.

blinkblink No system is perfect or perfectly fair but that doesn't mean we should address the worst of the injustice, which is what selecting by faith is.

Selective? Well yes faith state Grammar schools are but most state faith schools are not academically selective.
No one has said that they are.

Elitist? Yes unequivocally (many of them at least). I'll give you that: they try to be the best based on a view of education that is not simply about passing a load of exams but on developing the whole person. The results suggest these schools are most in demand from parents - why would you want to turn off the supply of the very places that are in demand?
But they get such good results and are consequently perceived as desirable because their selection process means that they screen out the most disadvantaged children who might struggle most to achieve good grades. Consequently this group is concentrated in the other schools who then cannot hope to match the results of the church schools so motivated parents lie and cheat to get their kids into the faith schools...and the negative cycle continues.

Shagmundfreud and Mothership - you can't have it both ways, bad schools so undersubscribed or good schools but discriminatory.

No, on average they they cater for a similar intake to community schools (FSM a bit lower in Catholic schools but many plausible non discriminatory explainations for that but higher ethnic mix) but generally get better results.

What is it that exercises you so much? Jealously? Fear? Why no moral outrage about private schools, or schools that "discriminate" by aptitude or (God forbid) schools that fail their pupils (coasting grammars, dull community schools and failing faith schools). We won't agree on the former but could we not on the latter?

you can't have it both ways, bad schools so undersubscribed or good schools but discriminatory.
Sure you can. The mechanism for this is entirely obvious if you bother to think about it.

There are plenty of threads on MN exercising moral outrage at other inequities in the school system. This happens to be one about faith school admissions criteria so that's what we're talking about.

Elitist? Yes unequivocally (many of them at least). I'll give you that: they try to be the best based on a view of education that is not simply about passing a load of exams but on developing the whole person.

That's not 'elitism'. Elitism is about the input not the output.

head desk

A lot of schools - in some areas the vast majority - treat Christians preferentially and at the remainder they are at worst treated equally which means an inferior and narrower service for non-Christians

Look, you have a locale with a mix of faith and non-faith state schools. (Lets assume for the sake of argument that they have the same Ofsted rating).

Christian parents can apply to all schools. In the non-faith schools their application is treated equally with applications from those of other faiths and none. Their chance of getting in is as good as anyone else. The faith schools - the majority in that area - reserve all their places exclusively for Christian children. If they run out of local Christians, they can (and often do ) choose to accept applications from outside the local area, rather than accept a non-Christian child.

So the current system demands that everyone pay the same tax under the law (Mr J Carr excepted), and aren't discriminated against in the provision of services - until it comes to state-funded education when Christians are given preference over everyone else in terms of numbers and choice.

The rest of us are expected to scrabble around for what's left, and at best have access to certain schools only after applicants of the Christian faith have been exhausted.

Grimathenome - children are not inputs and education is not a black box - at least the better Catholic schools are not.

But if you are saying that children attending Catholic schools are different from those attending other schools then you clearly have a point: first one would hope that they are Catholic (ie that they meet the admissions criteria), that they come from Catholic families - many will be two-parent but by no means all (I don't know if this is different from the wider community); many will be immigrants or second generation immigrants etc.

I agree that you have a perfect right to call for abolition of faith schools. That is an honest position. What you can't claim the moral high ground for is that the resulting UK education system will, on average, be better for children. Closing down the schools that are in demand will impoverish Uk education, particularly for the poor kids in inner city B'ham, London etc that go to Catholic schools.

I don't think anyone is advocating closing down faith schools, simply that schools that are funded by the LA, this includes VA schools that provide a minimal contribution to running costs do not discriminate against local children in their selection criteria.

No one (or the majority on this thread) is asking for the schools to be closed down, simply that they do not disciminate against local children. Not sure how this would impoverish UK education. If a school wants to be a faith school and select on that basis it should be fully fee paying, i.e. not my taxes funding a school that my children could not attend.

Grimma was not equating children to inputs, simply stating what elitism is.

No-one said anything about closing down schools.
I should probably have said 'intake' not 'input' - that's what I meant.