To think the children of parents who fake religion to get in faith schools deserve their children to lose their places

[ReallyTired]

I am very anti faith schools inspite of being a christian. I am sure that Jesus would be lived at the way that so called faith schools select kids. I feel faith schools break up communities and results in lots of children being bussed long journeys.

Parents often find "faith" to get their child into a church school then promptly stop attending when their child starts the school. Selecting on "faith" favours the middle classes and often those who have English as a first language. It is might hard to attend church with a child who has behavioural problems.

If we allow school to select on faith should the school insist that the parents attend at least one a month inorder to keep the place. (If the place was award on the basis of church attendence.)

There are very harsh penalties for people who fake an address for admissions purposes. Surely people who fake religion should also have their children lose their place if they do not attend church once a month for their child's entire time at the school and the place be given to a child on the waiting list. (If the child on the waiting list fits the faith criteria better or lives closer.)

You can't prove a faked religion though. People can "lose" and "find" religion perfectly legitimately all the time.

No, there just shouldn't be church attendance as an admission criteria in the first place.

Im not that fussed about faith schools, but I think that they should only be allowed to use faith to admit a small percentage of pupils. The rest should be done on siblings/distance/LAC the same as every non faith school.

YABU. It's the selection process that's at fault, not the parents who just want the best for their children.

Do you have to attend church to have faith though?

Yabu because that would be punishing the child. It wasn't the Childs decision to lie.

I don't think it would be fair for the children to loose their places, it's not their fault. Maybe stiffer penalties or fines for the parents. I don't know how easy it would be to prove though.

*lose

We just shouldn't have faith schools at all, and definitely not state funded ones.

Can you imagine the uproar if taxpayers money went to fund Fairy Worship establishments? Can't see any discernible difference tbh.

Disagree 100% with faith schools but they exist and, should the parents be found to be fakers, removing the child is punishing them for the actions of the parents.

However there should be stricter admittance criteria and penalties to be paid by those who are basically fibbing to get their child into the school of their choosing.

Surely part of being a Christian is ensuring that as many people as possible hear the 'message', therefore logically it is precisely those children of charlatans who need to attend church schools.

My kids all went to the local c of e school, I went to church to get them in and then stopped, and I was upfront about it. The admissions requirement was that I was a frequent church attendee. I fulfilled the criteria. Even though my DC' s left years ago I still help out voluntarily.

Did I deny a church going family a place? Maybe I did. Is it on my conscience? Nope.

i think it just shows we shouldn´t have state funded faith schools

YABU.
It's ridiculous in this secular age that the state funds faith schools at all and I have a sneaking admiration for parents who manage to circumvent this to get the best free education that they can for their child.

Good on ya mayaswell.

Oh, from a Scottish pov, RC schools were established to protect and nourish minority faith. Okay, so if you fund it statewise for one, then every minority faith should be entitled to their own schools.

That isn't likely - where is the equality?

Meh

The churches wouldn't like it
Around here their congregations would go through the floor and that would not make them happy

I do agree but what would be much better is not to have faith schools at all.

Exactly sardine our vicar loves the bums on seats! And the four elderly ladies who make up the rest of the congregation like a load of preschoolers to fuss over.

The state could easily tell faith schools which operate on state-owned land and out of state owned buildings that they may no longer use religious criteria.

The snag is where the state owns neither land nor buildings. Where could the money the found to buy out the current Church ownership (which may be vested in a charity)?

I do not think Jesus ever expressed a view on school admissions - though of course all his schooling was in a faith institution, in a religiously owned building.

But I suspect the whole issue would fall under "render unto Caesar" ie do not meddle with state-arranged things. And the state created the relationship with the older church-owned schools (could never have afforded to have state education with that massive support), and successive governments have done nothing to change it (and indeed New Labour increased the numbers of faith schools).

I expect they'll go to hell (which doesn't exist and they obviously don't believe in it anyway so pfffft)

If there weren't state funded faith schools there might be enough decent secular school places to go round and people wouldn't have to go through this ridiculous charade.

YABU. It's the fault of the system. Many of my neighbours have had to do this in order to get a place in the village school - otherwise because of the overprovision of faith schools in our area they'd have been allocated places in faith schools in other villages - unwalkable and I don't think there's public transport. I'm not going to don my judgey cap - I was able to pay to escape this farce, maybe they couldn't or that was even more against their principles.

Your first OP para was entirely reasonable. And the second sentence of the second was spot on. Note that a genuine christian with a child with behavioural problems might find attendance difficult. (the stats I've seen here do indeed indicate less children with SEN at oversubscribed faith schools.)

Yabu. We need to get rid of the schools themselves before penalising parents. In many places there is really not a lot of choice.

I'm sure god is hoisting up his judgey pants.

YABU - how would you enable the appeals tribunal to see inside people's hearts?
Admissions requirements are not allowed to enquire into people's souls, merely their actions. If you turn up and sign the register then you get the place, even if you sacrifice goats to Satan on the village green every Friday night.

who are you to decide who has faith and who hasn't?
and who is to say that attending church to get their children into particular schools isn't helping them into faith?
butt out, would be my opinion, i think.

I now have to confess I am involved in the GB and sit in the Admissions Committee. It breaks my heart when we receive application forms from families who say they'd like to come but they didn't feel able to attend the specific church linked with our school as they feel it would be hypocritical. Their application goes to the bottom of the pile.
You're not rewarded for honesty and openness.