to ask - if your DC go to a church school, then -

[nomdemere]

• if entry was based on church attendance, then how does your vicar know how often you go?

I'm not sure my vicar actually knows who I am, let alone notices me in the congregation every time.

Our CofE secondary has a points system based on frequency of attendance (monthly, fortnightly, 'most weeks', 'every week'). The vicar has to countersign I just can't see how our vicar will know which category I am in. He's not there every week himself!

How does it work where you are? I feel slightly embarrassed about actually asking him, it will sound rather pushy.

I am baffled by non Christians who "play the game" to get their kids into church schools. It is incredibly hard faced and hypocritical

comments like this make me think of citizens all turning on each other and reporting each other and snitching on each other in communist china, and North Korea.

Why not direct your ire at the governments and our crap schools and crap school system?

I read threads like this and think its diabolical that educating your child in the UK has come to this.

It annoyed me that our local catchment schools were CofE so we had no real choice

About time this ridiculous church school system for any religion is banned.

Kids need education and knowledge not brainwashing and perpetrating mysogynistic clap trap

I made a habit of ensuring the Rector saw me. "Lovely service, Rector" every Sunday for six months was enough to get us into the church school

Could've written your last post nomdemere

Agreed, Thebodyloveschocolateandwine

It a bad message to all really but then that's what religion is all about

Power and control over people while raking in cash.

It's all fucked up.

ARGH totally agree.

Choosing your child's school by how clever they are, or by how rich you are is apparently fine. But choosing a school based on your faith is apparently not? OKaaaaay.

You can choose a school for your child by whatever criteria you think important - it's nothing to do with me. What I do object to is a school choosing to bar other children who live just as close - or closer - than yours, just because of the accident of their parent's faith. If the school is a state school and is paid for (as the faith schools near me are) by the taxpayer, then they should allow entry to all children seeking a state education.

Actually faith schools are subsidised by the church, and also by the parents themselves.

Schools bar pupils for all sorts of reasons as I have already said; the child's educational attainment, the parents' wealth.

Surely you can see though that qhen churches do subsidise education within their schools they have to guve preference to thise who do attend church and therefore contribute ?

I throw some £ on the collection plate. Tis fine.

Actually faith schools are subsidised by the church, and also by the parents themselves.

Maybe where you are. but not around here. And it means the whole system is skewed because there is deemed to be adequate local state provision, but that provision has kids with faith parents being driven from across town to go to the schools here, while local kids living a few yards away from the school gates have to travel to another sodding borough for their education.

Plus, of course, it means Catholic kids are only growing up, learning and socialising with other Catholic kids, Muslim kids with other Muslim kids, Evangelical kids with other Evangelical kids, CofE kids only with other CofE kids, and so on. And then when kids grow up into adults who are intolerant of other beliefs then we are all shocked and surprised, and have to throw more money at the problem to fix it.

If you think that all is a perfectly fine system, then there's no hope for you.

I total agree that religion and education should be kept separate.

As I say in this rural area all the schools are CofE and DD lost a good friend because her parents decided to send her to RC primary.

It makes no sense to travel a long distance to school, when you can walk to one, unless you have a very reason.

IMO religion is not a good reason.

I agree with everything ArcheryAnnie has said.

Why not look out for a non-superstitious local school instead? Your kids might at least get a decent sex education and you wouldn't have to waste all your Sundays.
If you nave superstition-free schools that are 'not as good' you would be better served by putting the energy and effort into joining a local school's governing body and/or PTA and working on improving the school.

Thank you, both!

But of course it is fine for rich kids to only socialise with other rich kids and clever kids to only socialise with other clever kids.

My kids have plenty of non C of E friends who they see out of school. My DS's long term girlfriend is a Sihk. They are hardly growing up in some intolerant little bubble, that is a ridiculous assumption.

And they receive decent sex education as well, why wouldn't they?

Well at the Catholic school I attended, the sex education left a lot to be desired. Abstinence was your only option. We were also told that you couldn't fall pregnant if you were raped because god wouldn't allow it. I'm 27 so we're not talking about decades ago!

This explains so much. At church yesterday the bloke sitting next to me was messing around on his phone the entire time. I was thinking wtf are you even here? But he had 2 dc with him so maybe it was an attendance thing. It's all so ridiculous, isn't it?

Really you people are strange. Some very odd comments on here. I hope you at least encourage your children to be more tolerant and respectful of religions than you are.

But of course it is fine for rich kids to only socialise with other rich kids and clever kids to only socialise with other clever kids.

Yeah! We can't fix everything, so let's fix none of it! Yeah!

(This is a thread about faith schools. Start a thread about private schools or the grammar system, and I'll be delighted to give you the benefit of my wisdom on these subjects.)

And I hope you encourage your children to be more welcoming and inclusive than you are!

If that's to me, flipflops, I have an active faith, and most of my family has a (different) active faith, and most of my DS's friends have very active faiths (different to his, but mostly the same as each other).

I have no problem with faith at all. I have every problem with faith practices of adults being used to determine children's access to a decent, local education with other local children, regardless of their faith or lack of it.

Ah, flipflops, realised just now that your comment was probably directed towards rocketjam.

And rocketjam: this isn't about being disrespectful of religion - this is about being opposed to discrimination.