To think it is time to secularise all state-funded education?

[fideline]

Just that really.

Delphinium - the faith school is not necessarily better, it might just be the closest school, or the one that hasn't been compelled to sell off its sports field.

My own argument isn't that faith schools should have to let in the children of all those pesky taxpaying parents who happen not to have the required superstitious beliefs — it's that state funded faith schools should not exist at all. We are cutting state services all over the place but the state can fund hobby- based education.

Nonno - and the problem with getting rid of the queen is...?

Fid Jesus probably wouldn't bother about apostrophes, to be fair. Gove, on the other hand, would be apoplectic and use it to bring a plague of morale-eating cuts and pestilence upon all teachers.

We have a superb state secondary close to us, a faith one too. If the faith one goes downhill, I'm quite sure all the Christian parents will see fit to move to the state secondary but the other way around the atheist parent are stuck. What do I see is special about the faith school? The parents are so dedicated to their child's education that they have to go to church for 3 years before making a successful application - that kind of dedication is what makes that school successful - middle class, sharp elbowed, interested parents.
All school would be successful if we have parents who were willing to go to such lengths - it's selection bias not better schooling that makes most faith school successful.

Of course not, but it is the better ones that people want places in!
In rural areas there is no choice and no problem , they all get in.

^Would they be the top state secondaries if they were not Catholic?
I can't help thinking that if you removed that then you have a different school, one that may quickly slide down the league table.^

That is irrelevant. Does that make it OK to discriminate on the basis of religion? The state should not be funding discrimination.

As I say, if parents want a discriminatory faith based education for their child, they should pay for it.

Private schools as far as I am aware - if you want a religious education for your child, pay for it.

Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable with sending DC to one, even if we could afford it (and DH is an atheist who would be VERY unhappy about it).

And the Quakers have schools.

Are they state funded? Are they only open to Quaker families? If so, then they are as wrong as any other faith school.

I know that faith based education was specifically excluded from discrimination laws, but I wonder, hypothetically, if this would stand up to a legal challenge?

All those wanting to get rid of religion in schools and in the life of the country realise that we would also have to get rid of the queen?

That's a totally fallacious argument. Even disestablishment doesn't equate to republicanism. The Queen is/has been Head of State of Scotland and various Commonwealth countries without being also head of an established church there.

Owlcapone - they are all private to my knowledge and are open to all who want to pay.

I would much prefer a state, secular education for my DC as I think it is up to them to find their own way. I also think that the whole private school ethos is incongruent with a commitment to social justice and diversity. But at least they aren't taking state money in order to support religious discrimination.

I agree completely with the OP. Religious worship has no place in schools. France has this right.

Does the state fund any faith schools of non-Christian religions?

What about State Jewish schools? There are quite a few where I am, and they are far more religious than church based schools, and state Muslim schools. I believe there are also a handful of state Hindu schools in London.

Yes owl it does

Then they also wrong and have no place being state funded.

Would they be the top state secondaries if they were not Catholic?

When I look at league tables for my county, there are faith schools all throughout the list from top to bottom. The low performing ones will doubtless contain a mix of children with parents of different faiths as they can't discriminate for unfilled places. Many of those are in deprived neighbourhoods. The supposed 'ethos' seems to do little there.

But at the top end - ah well there a succcessful, oversubscribed school can discriminate on the basis of church attendance/baptism. So the motivated parents can take advantage of this - lo and behold, a miracle, the school gets better still! The studies of free school meals percentages are revealing of what's really going on.

So what happens in an area like mine where there are too many faith schools (as a % of provision versus genuine church attendance) is that the religious people and those willing and able to play the bums on pews game can pick and choose; the others get less choice and may well find that their kid ends up by default in a lower performing faith school.

Why is a majority of this thread having a rant about Chfistian schools? Other religions have state funded schools

I dont thonk the state wouldn't need to buy schools. If it was decided that any school that gets state funding must have an entirely secular curriculum then the churches could choose to deliver the new secular curriculum or run schools without any state funding or relinquish any vlsim to the school building.

My area has faith schools at the top and bottom of the league tables too, so it is not religious discrimination alone that makes the top ones good schools.

Why is a majority of this thread having a rant about Chfistian schools? Other religions have state funded schools

Because the vast majority of faith based state schools are Christian. Other religions make up only a small minority so most people's experience of this bias is down to Christian schools.

Quaker schools are all independent.
Not state funded.

• unless you count Breckenborough which as an indie special school has all its students paid for by local authorities - but being a Quaker school informs the ethos, it does not result in Quakers getting preference, nor extra/different RE. It was founded because Quakers saw a need which was not being met.

'We can't have secular schools because the church won't let us' not a good argument. We can still come to the conclusion that it's the right thing even if we are prevented from doing it.

Also I think we could work something out.

We could make a gradual change. No new faith schools and replace one existing one per year for example.

Also if we stop paying the church all that money for for our kids to go to their school they will be losing too. They can't simply sell the land as it would be worth little without planning permission.

There's another approach too. We can change the rules any time we please and prevent all discrimination by schools, no matter who owns the land it's on. That would be a start.

Why is a majority of this thread having a rant about Chfistian schools? Other religions have state funded schools

Which is just as big a problem. Here in London, it worries me to now see Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim children filing into segregated schools from the age of 4.

Most religious schools in the UK are Christian though, which cause their own problems.

When I lived in the country, the fact that the village school was CofE and so were the schools in the surrounding villages, looked like a worrying lack of choice to me. thankfully we left before it affected us.

For many Christian schools in London, church-attendance acts as a way of selecting the MC children of sharp-elbowed and ethically supple MC parents.

PPs have outlined many other concerns.

1. Atheism and secularism are two completely different things.

1. Religious education and the practice of religion are completely different things.

1. Any school which is oversubscribed and therefore requires parents to jump through a hoop to get their children is is going, almost by definition, to do better than an undersubscribed school. This is because one of the most important things for a school are committed involved parents. The requirement to jump through a hoop guarantees a base of committed involved parents. Undersubscribed faith schools do no better than undersubscribed non faith schools. There is nothing magic about faith schools. Replace the faith requirement with a "learning to juggle" admissions criterion and you will produce a good school.(with thanks to a poster whose name I forget for the analogy)

I dont thonk the state wouldn't need to buy schools. If it was decided that any school that gets state funding must have an entirely secular curriculum then the churches could choose to deliver the new secular curriculum or run schools without any state funding or relinquish any vlsim to the school building.

Yes - and also of course abolish the ability to discriminate against children on the basis of their parents' religion. The CofE might well be open to this idea (it should be, as the 'state church' it should serve everyone) - see here, some new CofE schools are admitting fairly!. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic church would be strongly resistant - they even object to the 50% cap on discriminatory places in Free schools (see here) . (they and some other faith groups are therefore not applying to set up more - good!)