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?

"Exactly Hakluyt, in the same way that so many non religious people "choose" to send their dc to religious schools by deciding to go to church and so on. It works both ways. Personally I dislike this practise as it is hypocritical IMO."

I do too. I think it's incredibly hypocritical. But you could send your child to a non denominational school without lying or being hypocritical. So it doesn" t work both ways.

Non-denominational means all faiths so you would be 'eligible' Donnie. If a non-denominational school decided to admit on faith then, again, non-faith families would be last in line.

Yanbu.

Separate church from state. Properly

'Encourage' the churches to donate the schools and land back to the state (where did their money come from in the first place??) and stop funding any kind of faith school.

YANBU. We do not need brainwashing paid for by the state.

And there's is nothing nasty or sneering about wondering why a Christian child needs to be in a Christian environment 24 hours a day.

if you go back far enough most institutions have obtained their wealth through means that would not be deemed ethical today. No need to single out the Catholic church!

But those other funders are not still running the schools, and choosing who gets to go to them!

The catholic church as an institution does not set admissions criteria for its schools. That is down to the governors for each school to decide. There is a vast discrepancy between the admissions policies of catholic schools, according to the local conditions. Pope Francis does not sit in the Vatican making declarations on catholic education or schools admissions.

Yes, the bottom line is the church is part of the establishment. For any meaningful change in schools, the church would need to be separated from the state first. Although I have no doubt it will happen at some point, I can't see it happening in my lifetime unfortunately.

All maintained schools - maintained by the local authority, which is most schools not owned by churches - are required to have a daily act of collective worship [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/collective-worship-in-schools] Parents are allowed to withdraw their child from this, but the school isn't required to find somewhere else for the child to wait away from the worshipping. They can stay in the same room and just not join in apparently.

This effectively means there are no secular schools in the UK unless you can afford to pay privately. Parents don't really get a choice.

The established church argument is a red herring. There are plenty of non-CofE state funded schools. And it would be immensely easy for either the state or the individual faiths to mandate admissions criteria for any schools in receipt of state funding.

If the churches were really serious about spreading the word, wouldn't they want to have a broad range of children from outside their faith attending? Or would that get in the way of covert class-based selection?

Although I have no doubt it will happen at some point, I can't see it happening in my lifetime unfortunately

I actually think it might. I think the gay marriage thing might do it.

Well, there's less than 100. There's over 5,000 Christian schools with approx. 2:1 ratio of C of E to Catholic. (According to dp).

Jassy - I agree that restrictive worship based selection criteria give faith schools a lot more leeway for selecting their pupils than other state funded schools. I am not sure that they are class based, however.

From the BHA (primary + secondary)

13,268 non-denom 66.06%
4,598 CofE 22.89%
1,985 Catholic 9.88%
(all other denomination are less than 1% for any single faith)

Yes, the other thing that might sway it is if millions more people truthfully put 'no religion' on their census forms instead of putting C of E in case they are denied access to heaven.

The catholic church as an institution does not set admissions criteria for its schools.

So do Catholic schools not generally prioritise entry for, er, Catholics then?

I agree that restrictive worship based selection criteria give faith schools a lot more leeway for selecting their pupils than other state funded schools. I am not sure that they are class based, however.

The fact that they can select at all gives them an advantage. If the school for whatever reason happens to be even slightly better than neighbouring schools, then motivated parents will feign religiosity to get their kids in, and the cycle perpetuates itself.

Bonsoir, you can look at it from an income rather than pure class base if you'd prefer. The data on proportion of students on FSM at faith schools, compared to the whole school base, was posted up thread. Which is a clear indicator of the impact of selection (both by faith and then house-price self-selection for the few remaining places).

Which doesn't exactly match an ethos of serving the poor, either.

Even though I agree that income base is a better descriptor than class base, I still don't think that the selection is about either factor. It's much more about selecting children from a subset of families with a certain set of values that are then likely to have a positive impact on educational progress.

It's not easy to feign being a practising catholic, you know. You have to do an empty thrumpty preparation course to get baptised, get your won children baptised etc etc. If you are talking about lapsed or lazy catholics who become a bit more sticklery as admissions time approaches - that's easiER but still not easy.

There is a vast discrepancy between the admissions policies of catholic schools, according to the local conditions.

My guess would be that where there are high numbers of Catholics keen to get into a particular Catholic school, then they will have strict criteria about being baptised Catholic etc.

Where there aren't so many Catholics, the schools will be forced to be a bit more flexible in order to get their numbers up, after all, no pupils = no state funding.

The thing about even being able to feign religion is that 'being able to feign' is in itself discriminatory.

I would imagine that it's much harder for a devout Sikh, Hindu or Muslim to pretend to be C of E or Catholic than a lapsed C of E or Catholic person.

Given that they are in receipt of state funding I think any selection criteria that so obviously disadvantage poorer children are nothing short of despicable, whether intentional or not. That's the impact of their selection policies, and as human beings and as religions they should hang their heads in shame.

You are rather charitable about their motives. I am less so. Ask yourself why so many faith schools are 'good' schools - a status they trumpet so triumphantly? Is it because children of faith are inherently brighter? Or is it because the schools are able to play the system to exclude the more challenging children and families, thus increasing the challenging intake other schools have to take rather than spreading it more evenly, and thus further entrenching their status as 'good' schools?

The catholic church as an institution does not set admissions criteria for its schools.

So do Catholic schools not generally prioritise entry for, er, Catholics then?

Yes, they do. But it is not the church as an institution setting that. It is by agreement of all the Governors, not all of whom will necessarily be Catholic. The Governors have to agree the admissions together, and they are all separate, thinking individuals, with different opinions, so actually it is not always that easy to agree. (Suffered many long, governors meetings in my time) So they can and do change admissions criteria. Some Catholic schools can't fill their places with Catholic children so they do admit non Catholics. But it is not the church making the decisions on that.

It's much more about selecting children from a subset of families with a certain set of values that are then likely to have a positive impact on educational progress.

That's rather insulting to the non-religious, or those of a different religion, isn't it? All that is being selected for, on the whole, is the ability and organisation to show up at church.

Bamboo, thanks for pointing out that part of Bonsoir'a comment, which looks curiously like 'selection by class' to me....