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?

Christian schools were more likely to have a caring ethos
Yeah right. Have my first ever

It's a ridiculous and baseless thing to say - particularly given the track record of Christian establishments in even fairly recent history.

Suggestions Christians are more caring than non-Christians flies in the face of logic and evidence, including the evidence that faith schools would prefer to care only about children of their own faith, please and thank you.

I prefer the service ethos of a teacher in a school serving the disproportionately disadvantaged and deprived classrooms who have been rejected by faith schools.

You wouldn't be able to discriminate on faith grounds when employing teachers would you?

TalkinPeace, maybe a difference in intake is one reason for that?

"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."

No it doesn't. It helps the headline figures, not the actual performance. A selective school will have pushing 100% A*-C. And so it bloody should- it's selected out all the kids who aren't going to get those grades.

Cheesecake, I missed your question. By knowingly selecting children from better-off homes and disproportionately A/B socioeconomic groups (per the church's own data), the school is failing in a very basic way to serve its local community in the most effective way it can.

Instead, it's 'let's select the ones who are like us. It's ok, we'll do a food drive for the others'.

Possibly a naive question but why is good school performance (rather than good individual performance) being touted as the ideal?

If a selective school has 1000 pupils getting As, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy and little to do with the quality of schooling, no? And if a non-selective school has 500 pupils getting As and 500 pupils getting Ds, but each pupil achieves maximally, it's unfair that such a school is labelled as poor compared to the selective school.

MaidofStars- because many people do not want their child to be in the same building as a D student in case they catch thick. Thick is very infectious- can be caught from lavatory seats, and even by brushing past a thick person in the lunch queue. And sadly, being clever and motivated and being in the top sets with other clever and motivated people confers no immunity at all. Just one exposure to thick can completely decimate a top set. It's tragic.

I agree maid, much better to judge on pupil progress rather than end result

Frankly Cheesecake, I now don't know whether I should be finding your posts more offensive as a non-Christian parent or as a non-Christian teacher.

Since it's Friday night, I shall endeavour to turn the other cheek, though.

TalkinPeace - there are different types of less academic schools (also called lycées) that don't lead to the baccalauréat général (and prépa/university entrance)

MaidofStars- because many people do not want their child to be in the same building as a D student in case they catch thick. Thick is very infectious- can be caught from lavatory seats, and even by brushing past a thick person in the lunch queue.

Yep. I'm pretty sure they don't want to catch poor.

raven, it's ok, God's looking out for those schools.

Only if they've got a nice, well-behaved, aspirational intake, though. Otherwise God doesn't care so much.

Cheesecakefan
Where was God at Beslan?

well, I totally don't expect God to look out for those who aren't faith school attenders, obviously.

But if he's got the time (what with being all omniwhatsit...) he could maybe drop in occasionally to make up for the manifest deficiencies of their parents & teachers.

That'd be quite caringly Christian of him.

A service ethos, or something like that. I'm sure I've heard that mentioned somewhere.

I hope that I have brought my children up to understand right and wrong and good manners WITHOUT needing to feel watched by a beardie weirdie on a cloud

Its a shame that religious parents do not feel that they have enough control over their children to get good manners WITHOUT threats of eternal damnation

It's a shame these discussions always degenerate to people being plain rude about other people's beliefs. It is possible to disagree and argue a case without being derogatory.

The thing that those in favour of religious schools like to forget is that being religious does not make you a better person.
It just implies a higher level of parental motivation and a reduced propensity to question everything.
Ideal characteristics for getting on well at school.
THAT is why religious schools in the UK do better : the parents give a shit. Those parents who do not give a shit tend not to get their kids in.

No four year old has their own "faith"
But if their parents bust a gut to get them into a "faith" school, hopefully their education will be supported
although I have my doubts about some Moslem girls

I hope that I have brought my children up to understand right and wrong and good manners WITHOUT needing to feel watched by a beardie weirdie on a cloud

Do you seriously not see the irony in that comment?

OYB, it was all going quite well until it was suggested that non- Christians were less caring and less good teachers.

My DD (half atheist-Anglican, half atheist-Jew) has been at a secular French private school for 7 years. She will start her eighth year, and the final year of primary school, in September and so my mind is very focused on secondary school. Where I am now, I am focused on getting a place at one of two Catholic schools. Fortunately in France faith schools are not all hung up on the religion of a child's family, even though religious instruction and some degree of worship are compulsory.

I'm quite looking forward to her going to a faith school with a stronger moral framework. Her current school is somewhat unreliable in its judgements.

YABVU, ignorant and paranoid.

Regardless of the school there will always be people who park like inconsiderate prats.

Faith schools aren't inclusive or diverse - really, what tosh. Some faith schools take a mix of faith and non-faith students. Even those that don't are multicultural since we live in a tolerant, inclusive country. The majority of christian faith school parents are also married or in relationships with people of different faiths or no faith. Can't speak for the other faiths.

Does not serve the local community - yes it does, or there wouldn't be a need for the school. The faith school is no doubt within the catchment of the parish of the church/synagogue/mosque.

Local people have no chance of sending their children to this school - no more or less so than the state high school near me that you can only go to if you go to a feeder school regardless if you live across the road from it. Two of the feeder schools to the high school in question are no where need the school, whilst there are two other state/faith primaries closer. So locals putting up with a lot of congestion and the 'big environmental impact' are not restricted to faith schools. This is also the case for many private schools too.

You presume the people driving don't live locally. Maybe they do but are on the way to work and don't have the time to walk their children to school and return home to pick up the car and get to work again? We don't know so don't judge.

People of faith pay taxes too!!!

^Therefore the evidence shows that actually by taking children from a wide catchment and being sited near a station, faith schools are an ecological benefit. Fact.

I can only assume you are joking.^

Of course I was joking! The nearest outstanding school to me was a faith school, therefore I went to church for 3 years to get DD in. Not a problem, not hypocritical, not 'pointy-elbowed'. If the entrance criteria had said I had to learn Spanish every Sunday morning or volunteer in a nursing home, I would have done that.

However, this school is not outstanding because of its 'Christian ethos', it's outstanding because every single parent (bar a few that live on the doorstep) has had to commit to three years of regular attendance at church. That rules out:

Any more 'chaotic' family (not likely to think 3 years in advance about high school for kids as more important stuff to worry about)

Most shift workers - really tricky being out with the DCs at 9.30am on a Sunday if you didn't get in until 3am in the morning

Lots of families where children go to non-resident parent for the weekends

Parents who are less disciplined - the kids don't want to go to church, you have to pull rank and make them.

Families in unstable housing - you have to be able to track your weekly attendance

Some SEN children - parents likely to be more anxious about sending them out to Sunday school if they have behavioural issues and they have to be quiet during the sermon otherwise.

None of this is a criticism of any of these families , but the fact is it's much harder for any one with these issues to get to church every week. Some do, but most won't last the 3 years - so they don't get in.

You're left with enough relatively privileged families to skew the intake.

Harrie, the evidence does not support the idea that faith schools that practise faith-based selection are either inclusive or diverse - lots of data on this thread about that point.