to think faith schools should be banned?

[fluffymouse]

Not just because they aren't inclusive or diverse, but also because of the local impact.

My nearest school is a faith school. Every day when I drive to work, I see dozens of cars parked along the street of the school with parents dropping off children. They park everywhere on a very narrow street including double yellow lines and the zig zag lines outside the school. It seems like nobody walks to this school, as it quite simply does not serve the local community.

Local people have no chance of sending their children to this school unless they are off the faith, and they have very strict criteria for this. Meanwhile locals also have a lot of congestion to put up with. There is obviously also a big environmental impact.

Aibu to think that state schools should be inclusive, and not exclusive based on faith grounds, as all tax payers are contributing towards their running costs?

But what do you think causes those results, and that popularity?

Changing schools' religious status wouldn't stop them being good schools.

They are good schools because they are selective. Not because they are faith schools. And before anyone says they are!'t selective- yes they are. They "select" by making parents jump through a hoop. It doesn't matter what the hoop is- the very presence of a hoop means that you get more parents who understand how the system works and who are interested and involved in their children's education. Under subscribed faith schools do no better than any other school with a similar catchment.

MaidOfStars, after 1945 the C of E passed most of its secondary schools over to the State. Those schools are now indistinguishable from the schools around them. The Catholic church, on the other hand, held on to its. Those schools are now generally better and more popular than the surrounding schools - as are the remaining C of E secondaries.

If Catholic and C of E primary schools had to become non-faith schools, I think the same thing would happen.

If you remove the ability of schools to select their pupils, those schools tend to become less good. Selection (on whatever criteria) helps school performance.

Indeed. So by cherry picking the 'easier' students through selection, church schools are able to entrench the idea that church schools are better, concentrating more challenging pupils on non-faith schools, particularly with the aforementioned knock-on impact to hyper local house prices.

So rather than having school populations than are representative of their local demographics, it is wildly skewed.

To summarise from Bonsoir's point: these schools are not 'good' because of exceptional teaching, or because they are intrinsically better than other schools. They are 'good' because they select a school population who are more likely to do well.

If you remove the ability of schools to select their pupils, those schools tend to become less good Selection (on whatever criteria) helps school performance
And buggers up the chances who for whatever reason fail the selection criteria god, gonads, genome-
whereas a non selective school may do worse in headline figures because it takes all comers, but does better with the kids the segregated schools pretend do not exist

Not all faith schools are outstanding schools. Some of them are far from it.

School headline performance is not a measure of value-added.

Here in Paris there are some frighteningly selective schools that do a lot of marketing that have good headline performance - but not much better than schools that are only reasonably selective and much quieter... ho hum...

JassyRadlett, no doubt selection is some of the story. I don't know the figures on undersubscribed faith schools (are there many?). I would think that

• a more caring atmosphere than average (related to Christian values of love and service)
• better discipline (the teachers are not afraid to think they should be in authority)
• and God working through prayer

also make a difference.

My oldest DC is at a Catholic secondary where some of the intake is well rough. It's still one of the best schools in the city.

Bonsoir
are those schools private as in selective by BCBG for naice people
or state in which case they deserve to be exposed

Cheesecake
the nearest school to me is run by an evangelical Academy chain
it has 400 empty places out of 900
their other local school has over 300 empty places

Cheesecakefan You think God directly intervenes to make sure faith-school students get better results????

I would agree with your first two points. Whether those two points lead to better grades is another matter.

Neither, TalkinPeace. You are projecting English culture on France!

All lycées, (post-15 education) both state and private, are selective. They select mostly on academic criteria.

Bonsoir
So what happens to those who miss the cut at 15? Which Lycee takes them?

Cheesecake, I find the idea that you need to be Christian to have a caring ethos massively offensive - particularly given how much they demonstrate that 'care' in their selection procedures.

And the selection processes make a total mockery of the value of service. Any school that practises faith-based selection should be utterly ashamed and are betraying the tenets if their faith.

And yes, I know enough about the majority faith to say that with conviction.

MaidOfStars, I think he answers the prayers of the staff and governors, e g to help them do a good job and take wise decisions.

Order in the classroom has to help grades. I think better treated, happier children should help too.

Cheesecake
Odd that he's not stopped my local school staying constantly in the bottom 100 in the UK despite Christian sponsors and all kids being given bibles and a £20 million new building (that is half empty)

I'll take my RE opt out comp that gets great results ANY DAY

What is the data on the faith of staff in church schools?

And what is the correlation (outside income/class disparities and behaviour - of course your behaviour will be better if you exclude children from chaotic families) between faith and discipline?

Lol at cheesecake! I like to think the teachers in my dds' school are good because of their planning, behaviour management and lesson delivery. I don't like the thought of them relying on prayer.

The Exclusive Brethren schools only use non believers as women teachers because they do not believe in their own girls working ......

Who said you had to be Christian to have a caring ethos? I said Christian schools were more likely to have a caring ethos than non-Christian schools, because of the Christian emphasis on love and service. That's not the same thing.

I don't see why you think faith schools which practise faith-based selection are betraying the tenets of their faith?

Cheesecake don't you think it's a bit mean of 'God' to not care as much about the poor little heathens.

I'm an athiest but if I were to believe in a 'God' I would like him/her/it to be fair, compassionate and not to want to exclude people. Shouldn't the principal of 'love your nieghbour' come in here or is it a matter of 'love your nieghbour' but not quite as much as your exclusive choosen group.

I have nothing against religeon but I find these discriminatory ways of thinking archaic and not very nice

What is the data on the faith of staff in church schools?

At my school, it was strictly "good Catholic". A teacher who got divorced was sacked for not upholding the ethos. She was an ace teacher as well.

wonders if the fact that my school was/is a pretty shit one is to do with the sacking of good teachers for not upholding the religious ethos....which kind of compromises their promise to teach children as best they can, doesn't it?