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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder why non-believers send their doc to faith schools

208 replies

Latetothematch · 29/10/2013 10:09

Not a thread about a thread but thought whilst reading a thread when reading 'dc goes to a faith school and comes home with questions but we don't believe'.

Why send your child to a school where you do not believe what it is teaching?

OP posts:
thebody · 29/10/2013 16:12

both our first and middle schools in catchment are faith schools.

it's annoying as we arnt religious and so our choice for a secular education is denied.

no choice.

wimblehorse · 29/10/2013 16:15

ds doesn't. And so rather than attend the school 2 minutes walk from our house, we now have a 55 minute round trip school run to negotiate twice a day. Poor boy's clothes are hanging off him as he hasn't upped his food intake to compensate for the extra exercise...

overmydeadbody · 29/10/2013 16:17

Of the four teachers DS hashad through his schooling in a Cof E school, none of them, as far as I am aware, were serious Christians, and certainly none of them brought Christian beliefs into normal lessons.

I quizzed him once they started learning about evolution (mostly animals adapting to different environments) and God wasn't mentioned once.

MothershipG · 29/10/2013 16:42

Where I live in West London there is tremendous pressure on Primary places so if you live on some streets you get the ridiculous situation that the children of non-religious parents can't get into their local non-religious school because it's over subscribed and can't get into the local religious school and have to travel halfway across the borough to find a place.

This situation would be greatly eased if the state funded church schools only got to select a proportion of their intake. If they contribute 10% of funds they should get to choose 10% of intake, not 100%.

DottyboutDots · 29/10/2013 16:43

Exam results may be better?

thehorridestmumintheworld · 29/10/2013 16:50

I am christian but I must say I know very few people who are in rl. It is a very secular society we live in. Yet even dds school which is not a special faith school has a lot of religious things going on, they even say grace before dinner. So it is a bit strange in that it does not seem to match up with the general beliefs of the community the school serves.

moldingsunbeams · 29/10/2013 16:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

DescribeTheRuckus · 29/10/2013 17:03

DH and I are atheist, and the CofE school is in catchment, and it's the best of the ones around here. My DCs are 7 and 6, and for the moment, they are believers, which I am fine with. They are also baptised Catholic, because my family is practising. The school's worship appears to be about sharing in the community and caring for one another, being kind and truthful and good to family and friends. All things that we are trying to instill, anyway! I am not opposed to my dcs being part of one faith...if they do decide when they are older that they want to be a bigger part of it, maybe it will bring them comfort someday when they really need it.

I am not a fan of fundamentalism from any perspective...religious or not. Atheist fundamentalism is just as bad as religious fundamentalism.

SuburbanRhonda · 29/10/2013 17:11

Describe - that's called pragmatism, isn't it? Wink

hettienne · 29/10/2013 17:16

Our closest school is a faith school - it's also a good school and we are likely to get a place so we will be applying there. We are atheists so would rather DS go to a non-denominational school a bit further away but he might not get a place.

SuburbanRhonda · 29/10/2013 17:17

Pachacuti, excellent point well made. There would be even more clutching of pearls if the school was, say, Marxist Grin.

Endoplasmic, if my DCs had been served up creationist theory as fact in a science lesson, I would be onto the governors before you could say, "Intelligent Design".

SuburbanRhonda · 29/10/2013 17:18

Sorry, I meant "creationist stories", not theory. Duh!

debbs77 · 29/10/2013 17:20

My children specifically go to a non religious school, yet it is still expected of them, which really annoys me!

MrsAMerrick · 29/10/2013 17:22

My children went to a CofE primary school, because it was in the next road, all the local children went there, and the next nearest school is 3 miles away. In rural areas you often don't have a choice, lots of rural primaries are CofE. I am a Christian but don't agree with faith schools. Having said that, the christianity bit wasn't stressed too much, mostly because the Head is an atheist.

BackOnlyBriefly · 29/10/2013 17:24

What on earth is Atheist fundamentalism If you don't believe in gods that's as far as you can go in that direction.

It must be something really awful if you're equating it with blowing up railways stations and mutilating children to please the lord.

SuburbanRhonda · 29/10/2013 17:24

How do you know the HT is an atheist, MrsA?

Not being provocative, just wondering.

SuburbanRhonda · 29/10/2013 17:25

Couldn't agree more, back.

And that from an atheist Confused

MrsAMerrick · 29/10/2013 17:37

Because she was quite up front about it in conversations (not in front of the children). Suburban. It was a VC school, rather than a VA . (it's now an academy, so don't know where that leaves its CofE status).

Caitlin17 · 29/10/2013 17:40

It's less of an issue in Scotland. There are a small number of state supported RC primaries and a smaller number of state supported RC secondaries ( which the RC hold on to with a vengeance)but the overwhelming majority of schools in the state and private sector are non denominational. Most of them will have a weekly school assembly with prayers and hymns but obviously there is no question of it being compulsory and it's not an issue for children to skip it.

If my son's private school is anything to go by,RE is compulsory only in the early years of secondary and even then it is more of a general aspects of society ".this is what some people believe".way and covering all main relgions. If anyone wanted to pursue it as a formal exam course that. would be up to the child.

The Church of Scotland isn't an established church and doesn't provide schools.

It would annoy me intensely if I were a tax payer and a Council tax payer in England if the nearest/best local state school was a religious school which I couldn't send my child to.

VivaLeBeaver · 29/10/2013 17:42

No choice here at primary. Mvillage school is a church school. Nearest non church school is eight miles away.

howrudeforme · 29/10/2013 17:52

With mothership - all the way. We in barnet and the proportion of selective schools (two great countrywide catchment grammars and loads of faith) is bonkers.

I want my kid educated locally - aka my community - not my ethnic community but my geographical one. Not that my ethnic community is in anyway represented in this borough - eg - we slip through the net of 100% of the religious schools we have - and there are loads.
I'm disgusted for my son.

AnnieJanuary · 29/10/2013 17:59

All schools have mandatory worship. It's unavoidable. And should be banned.

Now, lying about being a Christian to get your kid in a faithier-than-faith school, that's crap. Faux baptisms. Attending church. Ew.

But just attending? There's no choice in a lot of places. There's only one school out of 8 in this area that's non-faith, and 6 of the the remaining 7 demand weekly church attendance for two years. Oh, and how some parents do suddenly find God - and then lose him once the place is secured.

Coupon · 29/10/2013 18:16

The church worked hard to create many schools for children from social classes where the state had not made any effort to provide them. Hence the large number of church schools today.

Quotes taken from here:

"Before the early 19th Century it was largely only children from the upper classes who had any formal education."

"By 1851 the Church had established 17,000 schools. Nearly sixty years later the 1870 Education Act brought state provision of public education into being and this Act produced the partnership over education between the state and the church that still exists today."

"At the beginning of the Second World War, seventy years after the introduction of state provision, the Church still provided schooling for nearly one-third of school-age children."

Isawitchcackling · 29/10/2013 18:25

I am an athiest, but it doesn't mean my dd will be and exposing her to the idea of God will let her make an informed decision about what she wishes to believe herself. While I don't subscribe to a belief in God I do think the values and traditions of the Christian faith are worthwhile. Also it is the nearest school so makes the most sense an school don't select based on faith anyway.

ivykaty44 · 29/10/2013 18:28

becasue I had not choice of a secular school - if you had given me a secular school I would have sent both dd's to one.

I had the choice of a church of england school or a church of england school or a church of england school

so dd's went to a church of england school