To up dcs chances in this way

[benetint]

I've always believed in God. I went to a church school and really enjoyed the religious education and found a lot of comfort in my faith. However my parents weren't religious at all so I was never baptised and we didn't attend church. In adult life I gained the confidence to start exploring my faith and I really wanted to start attending church. I considered myself a Christian but had no idea which church to go to. My gran was a devout catholic so I decided to go on the Rcia course which I really enjoyed and I was baptised catholic last Easter. I could have as easily gone down the cofe e route.

Now it's coming to school applications and some of the really good schools around us are catholic and cofe. To get your kids into catholic school they need to be baptised catholic (which they are) but to attend the cofe school it's church attendance that's required.

So basically I wanted to know if it would be really wrong for me to attend a cofe church as a baptised catholic? Like I say I was religious anyway and didn't really mind which side I went down so there would be more to me going than just schools..but it would tick both schools boxes too. I feel guilty even asking...

It's just a matter of school requirements

People spend shed loads hiring houses in catchment areas to get into a better school - that is lying

Following all the requirements
Attending church
Being baptised
Baptising your children
Taking them to church a set amount of times

Is not actually lying. It's following the requirements Of a school (which actually is our local school)

There is a list of requirements
Go to church
Baptism
Etc

Some people are lucky where the non catholic school is just slightly worse, but some the gap is huge (like in my area)

I'm not prepared to let my own doubt (because it is mine - not DDs) stop her going to the best school I can get her in (did you know there is not a single grammar school in the north east?)

So I'll follow the rules, send her to school and let her draw her own conclusions.

Kayano If, like me, you don't believe in god saying you do is a lie!!! A big fat lie, how can you say it isn't?

Because I didn't lie my children (who have no choice or influence in the matter) have a greatly reduced choice of school. Somehow that just doesn't feel like an equitable system to me.

That's exactly it

They are my beliefs
Not my DD's beliefs

And I see no problem with doing what I can with my own limited options (no grammar schools, no money for private education, terrible terrible 2nd options)

My conscience can take it because I tried my best for DD and as I said, she might end up believing.

And once a catholic always a catholic and all that jazz

shrug

I personally don't understand why you would be ok sending your child to a bad school but everyone has different choices.

You've made yours,
I've made mine

Oh well.

You also had the exact same opportunities as me by the way (going to church, baptism etc) so it is equal

It's only our choices for our children that differ

70% a-c doesn't sound like a terrible, terrible option to me.

This is primary, for just getting the standard in maths English science.

This is the basis that secondary education builds on. I am not willing to risk it.

We are from a poor area with a bad reputation and few opportunities, I think she has enough to contend with than me sending her to a much poorest school just for my own uncertainties regarding religion.

70% level 4s doesn't sound like a terrible terrible option to me......

It wouldn't be if the other 30% was Level 5...

Kayano I have no problem with you as a parent choosing to do what you feel is necessary to get your child into a school you feel would benefit her.

I have a massive problem with a state funded education that puts parents in this position!

So I have to lie and compromise my strongly held personal beliefs in order to obtain for my children the same choices as children whose parents are more religious or less honest??? How is that in any way defensible?

You say less honest

I say more practical and beneficial for my family

And I'd rather answer to my family than to 'god' to be honest. I do intend to be fully involved in school activities and volunteer etc.

I come from a massively catholic background (adopted through catholic care, family members priests and canons, had the deacon over for Christmas dinner every year, A* in religion, I can even quote you about 30% of Marks gospel word for word if you like...)

So it's not like I am the biggest liar in the world, I am 'lapsed' if you will...I'm baptised, I AM Catholic and so is dd and we go to church.

Who am I going I answer to? A God I don't believe in? The school? The priest? No... I will answer to DD and my family who are all relieved she isn't going to some sorry arse shit school

I can't get my knickers in a twist about state funding religious schools when there are grammar schools all over the south and not one opportunity like that in the north east

Eh? What on earth is the parallel between grammar schools and faith primaries?

Standards of education, I believe.

It's just the whinging about state funding was annoying, state funding seems to be unfair in a few ways and I don't see the relevance of it in this thread tbh.

We just have comp or die up here

It's absolutely true that the government can't afford to buy out the churches and as such faith schools are the best compromise that can be reached. Abolition of state funded faith schools isn't the issue here, though. It's whether some of the best schools in an area, most of whose current costs are met by a tax paying public the greater proportion of whom are not members of that faith group should be able to exclude those not attending their church from benefitting from the education they provide. The Bishop of Oxford called for 10 per cent of places at most to be church attendance related and I think that would be a step in the right direction and very brave. Some churches with associated high performing schools have congregations largely made up with parents of children in the two years before primary school and have bizarre registers to sign. It's just a strange way to operate.

Having a state funded school that you have to pass an exam to get into is bad enough.

Having a state school that you have to profess belief in a mythical being to get into is just bizarre.

Most CofE schoos are in villages - in that case they serve the community first - very few of the parents are church goers. The problem comes if they are oversubscribed and people from a different area want a place- that is when they are likely to put the church goers first. If it isn't over subscribed there isn't a problem. When DS1 started school I sent him to a church school, it was undersubscribed and so I didn't even have to mention faith, or lack of it. I can't see why it would have helped anyway as we were rejecting our local school, which was also a church school - so they could, quite rightly, have said there was no advantage - we had been allocated the same.
Not all faith schools are good schools!

YANBU. who cares. Do what´s best for your children - as someone else has said you pay the taxes anyway. To those who have commented regarding what she says in church or how she has been baptised etc etc ......

I really doubt she is the first religious person who says one thing on a sunday and does something very different indeed all of the rest of the time.

But then I am a heathen who thinks state funded faith schools should be abolished.

If all the non church schools achieved the same results as the church schools, this wouldn't be an issue. In my humble opinion perhaps if the same energy were spent bringing non church schools up to a better standard there would be no need to have this argument. Instead of closing the church schools, let the church open more where they are oversubscribed because people want the best for their children. Now that would be real inclusivity.

Church schools only get better results in areas where they are oversubscribed and can therefore operate covert selection. In areas where they are undersubscribed their results are the same as non church schools.

So what criteria are they selecting on, Seeker? Church attendance? Why would that affect results? I have my own ideas as to why the results are consistently better; but would be interested to hear yours. Uness you're suggesting that the covert selection process is actually on academic ability, which makes no sense?

Nope. Any school which has any entry criteria at all is going to attract parents are aware/able/literate/interested/motivwted enough to jump through a hoop to get their child into a particular school. Those parents are more likely to continue that involvement in their children's education- so their children will do better. It's not, as they say, rocket science!

Sure, I agree completely. I still don't see what your issue actually is with that, though? That children of parents not willing to have any involvement or show any interest in their kids education don't do as well is a proven fact.

Why should the system be geared towards the one's who don't give a shit?? Why should I send my kids to school with a bunch of couldn't give a fuck losers just to earn my egalitarian brownie badge?

I don't see and more issue with that than with grammar schools shrug

It's not like they don't make it clear what you need to do in either case. I don't see the point in deciding not to do it then whinging about it being unfair.

So, to be clear, you don't have an issue with pretending to have a faith to get your child into a particular school?