to think that you shouldn't fake religion to get a school place?

[Carrierpenguin]

A friend of mine became catholic when she married her husband, then they split up. She hadnt been religious beforehand, but now she's chosen to go to church every week for the last year in order to get her ds into the local catholic school. She's told me that she doesn't believe in all that 'mumbo jumbo' but the church school gets the best results locally. I understand that everyone wants the best for their children, but this seems a bit disingenuous.

I suppose it's open to all - if you're willing to fake religion you can get into the best school, I suspect that the good results are due to parental influence as you have to be very keen to commit to two years of Sundays at church, presumably this filters out parents who don't care about education, whereas the secular schools cater to all.

I'm not against faith schools or the system, if it gets great results then why not I suppose? Aibu to think faking religion is not ethical though?

Hakluyt Well obviously the school wasn't oversubscribed or she wouldn't have got it! The school takes 50% practising Catholic children - leaving 50% of places for non practising Catholics. The only difference between the RC school and the "normal" local Comprehensive schools is that they are required to take RE as a GCSE subject and they have to recite the Lords Prayer every morning at registration.

It may well be different in your area but for posters to criticise and condemn ALL faith schools for being selective is wrong. It is like slating ALL grammar schools for only taking the top 10% achievers or the local comprehensive for only taking the children living closest to the school.

All schools have their chosen criteria. In the case of my dd who attends an RC school the criteria was significantly less than the Comprehensive my eldest attends. In fact, he did not get a place in his chosen Comprehensive school - because we do not live within the chosen area. He has to attend a school further away! Work that one out!

Gabby, I've been pretty clear on this thread why I think faith schools are problematic. Many posters have been very eloquent about the problems they create.

They discriminate against children based on parental religion, they exacerbate house price bias when they select only partially on faith, and they actively benefit disproportionately middle-class children. They also serve to deprive children of a local education by prioritising children who live further from a particular school.

As I've said a number of times on this thread, in my borough there is a shortage of 200 reception places each year. My borough is not particularly unusual for urban areas. My child has not yet started school, but he and his peers will be affected by this shortage of places and the distorting effect faith-based selection has on local school allocation.

My beef is in particular with faith selection, because it's well documented that it not only discriminates based on religion, but also discriminates based on class, and entrenches 'good' and 'bad' schools and denies children an education at their most local school.

I know local parents whose children have been allocated a school more than 30 minutes' drive away in light traffic. Light traffic does not exist much on weekdays, let alone at peak times. Those children don't have any links to the community of the school they have been allocated, but they also have limited ways to make and maintain local friendships - because most friendships are made at school. They have less ability to do out of school activities because of distance and travel time. They will never be able to walk or cycle to school. These are children who have schools within a few hundred metres - but children who live much further away were prioritised. They lose out on an hour every day of time to spend with their families, or on homework, or playing, or doing extra-curricular activities. Simply because a child whose parents went to church, but lived further from the school, got priority for a state-funded education.

Every parent I know has more or less the same discussions. Do you pay (for private education), pay (for more expensive housing) or pray? Or do you cross your fingers and hope that there is a low sibling intake in your year, and yours will be the one year in six where the most local school will take any kids on distance, despite there nominally being 30 places available for non-faith kids?

It may well be different in your area but for posters to criticise and condemn ALL faith schools for being selective is wrong.

Where faith schools discriminate based on religion, the effect is distorting, whether they solely or only partly select based on parental churchgoing.

The statistics around this are pretty stark - when you look at the FSM and pupil premium rates at schools that select based on faith and are oversubscribed, they don't match the nominal catchments. When you look at the socioeconomic profiles of church congregations, the main churches themselves admit they skew to the middle classes. That means that children statistically more likely to be harder to teach - those from more chaotic homes, those with less committed and organised parents - are disproportionately concentrated in other schools, raising the challenge those schools have.

There is every chance your child could have got in to the RC school and the school still be oversubscribed - it just means that they got further down the admissions criteria than at other schools.

I'm slightly confused by the criteria you state - is the second 50% non-Catholics, or Catholics who don't regularly attend church?

In fact, he did not get a place in his chosen Comprehensive school - because we do not live within the chosen area. He has to attend a school further away! Work that one out!

Well, that's rubbish too, for your child. And as I've said previously, there are problems with distance-based selection, particularly at primary but that still exist at secondary. But based on the statistics, schools that select on distance are more likely to have representative demographic intakes, making them fairer overall.

Which is how I think taxpayers' money should be spent - to make things as fair as possible overall, rather than what is advantageous to my child.

Jassy can you provide informed links to back up your argument? In my case lots of children attending my dd's RC school are from Council estates. There are also children who live in higher bracket housing. All are within 30 minutes bus travel to school. All meet up after school and at weekends - within their chosen peer groups.

My dd socialises most evenings, weekends and holiday times with a group of children from the council estate, new build housing estates, plus those who live in terraces. Children are children, wherever they live and whatever their family's ethos. Children are very much encouraged to socialise with those they have most in common with. The social class of yesteryear is very much outdated now.

This evening - as most evenings - my dd was called for by a group of school friends. They all went out, enjoyed each others company and look forward to meeting up at school tomorrow.

I rather think your ideas of social class and inclusion/exclusion are very much outdated!

I am about to post the comparisons from the two schools my children attend, according to Estyn (We are in Wales. Estyn is the equivalent to Ofsted). One school - Y Pant - is a Community Comprehensive School. The other - Cardinal Newman - is a RC School within the same area.

Y Pant Comprehensive School is an English medium 11-18 mixed comprehensive
school, maintained by Rhondda Cynon Taf local authority. It serves the areas of
Pontyclun, Talbot Green, Llantrisant and Llanharry. It has 1,256 pupils on roll, of
whom 231 are in the sixth form. Around 20% of the school’s intake is from primary
schools beyond the traditional Y Pant cluster.
Twelve per cent of pupils are eligible for free school meals, which is lower than the
national average of 17.4%. Nearly 15% of pupils live in the 20% most deprived areas
in Wales.
The school receives pupils from the full range of ability. One per cent of pupils have
a statement of special educational needs, which is below the national average of
2.7%. A further 12% have special educational needs but no statement, which is
below the national average of 17.6%. Very few pupils speak Welsh as a first
language or to an equivalent standard. Very few pupils come from a minority ethnic
background.
The current headteacher was appointed in 2006.
The individual school budget per pupil for Y Pant Comprehensive School in
2011-2012 means that the budget is £3,770 per pupil. The maximum per pupil in the
secondary schools in Rhondda Cynon Taf is £4,511 and the minimum is £3,634.
Y Pant Comprehensive School is 18th out of the 19 secondary schools in Rhondda
Cynon Taf in terms of its school budget per pupil.

Cardinal Newman Catholic Comprehensive school, which is located in Rhondda
Cynon Taf local authority, is an English-medium 11-18 mixed school serving Catholic
and other communities of the central valleys of south-east Wales. It is has a very
wide catchment area that extends from Gilfach Goch on the west to Bargoed on the
east and includes the Rhondda, Cynon, Ely, and much of the Taff and Rhymney
valleys. This area includes 25 Communities First Wards. Twenty-nine per cent of
learners live in the 20% most deprived areas in Wales.
Around 13% of the school’s intake is from primary schools outside the ‘traditional’
Cardinal Newman cluster. The school has 733 learners on roll, of whom 134 are in
the sixth form. At the time of the previous inspection in November 2005, the roll was
766 pupils. Pupils come from a wide range of social backgrounds extending from the
prosperous to the disadvantaged. Nearly 16% of pupils are entitled to free school
meals, which is below the Wales average of 17.4%.
The school receives pupils from the full range of ability. One per cent of pupils have
a statement of special educational needs, which is below the national average of
2.7%. A further 19% have special educational needs but no statement, which is
above the national average of 17.6%. Seven per cent of pupils are from minority
ethnic backgrounds and just over 4% speak English as an additional language. No
pupils speak Welsh as a first language
The headteacher took up his post in April 2011. The deputy headteacher spent
eighteen months as acting headteacher, prior to the arrival of the new headteacher.
In addition to the headteacher and the deputy headteacher, the central leadership
team has three assistant headteachers, a bursar/chaplain and one co-opted member
of staff.
The individual school budget per pupil for Cardinal Newman Catholic Comprehensive
school in 2011-2012 means that the budget is £3,634 per pupil. The maximum per
pupil in the secondary schools in Rhondda Cynon Taf is £4,511 and the minimum is
£3,634. Cardinal Newman Catholic Comprehensive is 19th out of the 19 secondary
schools in Rhondda Cynon Taf in terms of its school budget per pupil.

The Campaign for Fair Admissions website is a good place to start on evidence. I'll dig out more links later. Looking at the two schools you've mentioned, comparing to the national average isn't a great measure of representativeness, you need

I'm not sure where you get the idea that I think kids don't socialise outside their social class. That's a bizarre take on what I wrote. I do think it's difficult for primary kids (ie parent-dependent) to have local friendships if they aren't educated locally, or to have the same friendships with their classmates if they live some distance away meaning they aren't able to socialise out of school hours.

Very quickly, here is a study that looks specifically at RC church attendance, and here is a Tearfund report that shows a skew, though less pronounced (but its measure of 'regular churchgoing' is once a month or more - school admissions generally require more.) The Tearfund study is interesting in that it shows CofE churchgoers (the most faith schools) are less diverse and less likely to attend regularly, RC churchgoers more likely, and other Christian churches even more likely.

And here is a frankly brilliant Sutton Trust study that demonstrates the interplays between class, school selection and school attainment, including the disproportionate number of A/B parents who attend church to get their kids into a school.

Gabby- if there are spare places of course you can get your child into a faith school. But if there is one place left and you live next door to the school and a catholic family lives a mile away, they get the place.

It is like slating ALL grammar schools for only taking the top 10% achievers or the local comprehensive for only taking the children living closest to the school.

No it is not like that. It discriminates against children because of their parent's religion. How about if it were based on uncle's eye colour or even skin color?

If the Christians really insist that discriminating on religious grounds is good then we know how to ease the pressure on public services don't we. Christians should only be allowed on trains, buses and into hospital if there are spaces no one else wants.

We should actually do it for a week. Giving people what they asked for can shock them into seeing what was wrong with their position.

Course it would only work for a bit anyway as all the Christians would start hiding their crosses behind sprigs of holly and claiming to be Pagan

:)

The comparison was not to compare the national average. It was because someone seems to think RC schools only take children from naice middle class homes. Absolute bullshit!

The bottom line is if you are unhappy with admissions into your local school take it up with your LEA. Please don't campaign to abolish schools for children from a particular education sector from all over the country.

My daughter's RC School bears no resemblance to the rantings of school admission policy stated on this thread. To go back to the question posed by OP "To think you shouldn't you fake religion to get a school place". In my dd's case there was no need to fake religion. There was also no exhaustive list of special skills needed. The admission form was a bog standard admission form.

People are complaining that their child does not meet the criteria for a certain school and take the view that because their child does not fit the criteria then nobody else's child should attend either!

As I have already stated I have two children in local Comprehensive and one in RC comprehensive. All 3 are happy with their education. And that is what counts! My son did not get his first choice of school and has to attend a school further away because the local one was oversubscribed. That's life!!

I'm afraid we are campaigning to abolish discrimination in all things and eventually it will come to your area too.

People are complaining that their child does not meet the criteria for a certain school and take the view that because their child does not fit the criteria then nobody else's child should attend either!

Nope that's just not true.

naice middle class homes

That part is just you not understanding what was being said.

The bottom line is if you are unhappy with admissions into your local school take it up with your LEA. Please don't campaign to abolish schools for children from a particular education sector from all over the country.

Some of us think it is downright immoral to select based on religion, and frankly it's us, not people who support faith schools, that are in line with the rest of society.

in absolutely no other area of society can you discriminate based on religion, and this happens if anywhere applicants are asked for their religion and it is used to rank applicants. Employers cannot do this, shop owners cannot do this, banks cannot do this etc. Only schools can do this.

This is different from selecting by ability. Ability is NOT a protected characteristic, and in fact ability is selected for everywhere (jobs etc). I am not arguing that grammar schools are a good thing, I am saying you are making a false equivalence. The two selection criteria are radically different in kind.

"Gabby- if there are spare places of course you can get your child into a faith school. But if there is one place left and you live next door to the school and a catholic family lives a mile away, they get the place."

Could you tell me what you think about this, please?

Hakluyt, this is just simply not true. You have to have showed to participate in the life of the church.

And what do you think of this: I live 0.18 miles to my nearest school which is outstanding but cannot get in because richer people than me have been known to buy flats across the road from the school just in order for their child to get in. Isn't it discriminatory?!

the all English system of school is!

What's no true?

Hakluyt, this is just simply not true. You have to have showed to participate in the life of the church.

which is terrible.

And what do you think of this: I live 0.18 miles to my nearest school which is outstanding but cannot get in because richer people than me have been known to buy flats across the road from the school just in order for their child to get in. Isn't it discriminatory?!

yup, you have identified ANOTHER problem with schooling here, and I agree it's bad. But it's not discriminatory (not EVERYTHING is discriminatory). Furthermore, it's also not by design (people are gaming the system). Also, obviously the WRONG solution to this problem is to allow only religious people a back door to a good school, no?

Frenchjunebug
You have to have showed to participate in the life of the church.
How do you explain the Sikh turbans in the school photo of boys at a Catholic school then?
lh5.ggpht.com/-Q9UYSpBG97I/UJktAlTN0OI/AAAAAAAACy0/a4em053kAg8/s800/IMG_5397.JPG

Talkin they could be siblings of other kids already at the school, or got through on distance.

Written As mentioned before going to church DOESN'T GUARANTEE you a place in a faith school. It give you as tiny bit of an advantage after siblings of kids already in the school, kids with special needs and kids in care.

and you can judge me but will all the schools around me have 300 applicants for 60 places at reception, yes I will be hypocritical and give myself and my DS this small advantage.

They are Sikhs at a Catholic school

the catholic church does not give a monkeys whether or not you pray so long as it has bums on seats

where there are more bums than seats it finds ways to select the most motivated parents as they will produce the kids with the best exam results

they could not give a stuff if you stopped going to church the day you got your last kid through the door

The thing that confuses me about faith schools is that I would have thought they would go out of their way to recruit children from disadvantaged backgrounds, not faith backgrounds.

"The thing that confuses me about faith schools is that I would have thought they would go out of their way to recruit children from disadvantaged backgrounds, not faith backgrounds."

You would have though, yep.

Gabby, I've been pretty clear on this thread why I think faith schools are problematic. Many posters have been very eloquent about the problems they create.

They discriminate against children based on parental religion, they exacerbate house price bias when they select only partially on faith, and they actively benefit disproportionately middle-class children. They also serve to deprive children of a local education by prioritising children who live further from a particular school.

As I've said a number of times on this thread, in my borough there is a shortage of 200 reception places each year. My borough is not particularly unusual for urban areas. My child has not yet started school, but he and his peers will be affected by this shortage of places and the distorting effect faith-based selection has on local school allocation.

My beef is in particular with faith selection, because it's well documented that it not only discriminates based on religion, but also discriminates based on class, and entrenches 'good' and 'bad' schools and denies children an education at their most local school.

I know local parents whose children have been allocated a school more than 30 minutes' drive away in light traffic. Light traffic does not exist much on weekdays, let alone at peak times. Those children don't have any links to the community of the school they have been allocated, but they also have limited ways to make and maintain local friendships - because most friendships are made at school. They have less ability to do out of school activities because of distance and travel time. They will never be able to walk or cycle to school. These are children who have schools within a few hundred metres - but children who live much further away were prioritised. They lose out on an hour every day of time to spend with their families, or on homework, or playing, or doing extra-curricular activities. Simply because a child whose parents went to church, but lived further from the school, got priority for a state-funded education.

Every parent I know has more or less the same discussions. Do you pay (for private education), pay (for more expensive housing) or pray? Or do you cross your fingers and hope that there is a low sibling intake in your year, and yours will be the one year in six where the most local school will take any kids on distance, despite there nominally being 30 places available for non-faith kids?People are complaining that their child does not meet the criteria for a certain school and take the view that because their child does not fit the criteria then nobody else's child should attend either!

Nope that's just not true.

naice middle class homes

That part is just you not understanding what was being said

Sorry I don't have the button to make the text bold.

I say again someone spoke about RC schools discriminating based on race and class - see first post above.. I replied with estyn (Ofsted) report based on the two schools my children attend. Which shows a similar mix of children from all backgrounds.

What is it I don't understand??

I really don't understand the point about kids being denied socialisation opportunities because they have to attend a school further away due to oversubscription in the local school. Surely Faith Schools have children from larger areas, therefore the likelihood is that once your child comes home from school they wont have the social opportunities that their peer group who attend a school with the other local children?

As I have stated one of my sons had to attend a different comprehensive to his primary peer group school because our local school was oversubscribed (Siblings - is that discrimination??) He was not the only one to be denied a place but was the only child in his year 7 class from his Primary school.

However he has more social opportunities than his brother, who attends the local comp. He has friends in the local area, friends in his school, friends from his rugby squad, friends from his karate class. He is out every night with friends from one group or another. You get the picture........

The comparison was not to compare the national average. It was because someone seems to think RC schools only take children from naice middle class homes. Absolute bullshit!

Well, it is, because no one said that. They (and I) said that faith schools have been shown have intakes of deprived children lower than the nominal catchment. I sent you in the direction of national studies and information on that. They show That schools that select on faith have disproportionate numbers of middle-class children, and that church congregations skew to the A/B demographic.

The bottom line is if you are unhappy with admissions into your local school take it up with your LEA. Please don't campaign to abolish schools for children from a particular education sector from all over the country.

I'm all in favour of children from all over the country having schools. What I'd like is that some children aren't discriminated against on the basis of religion, and some aren't given greater choice based on their parents' churchgoing habits. And yes, I'm campaigning for it locally and nationally.

People are complaining that their child does not meet the criteria for a certain school and take the view that because their child does not fit the criteria then nobody else's child should attend either!

Well, at the moment I'm not complaining about my child at all. I'm complaining and campaigning against a system that is discriminatory and divisive. Against children. It's the criteria that are discriminatory and divisive, no matter whose children do and don't get in under them. And if my kid does get into a local faith school, I'll keep campaigning anyway. Because frankly other kids need my voice even more than my more privileged kid does.

As I've said, while I'd rather faith schools weren't state-funded, my position is that state-funded education should be open to all children on the same terms. As things stand, there are schools for 'some children' and schools for 'all children'. What if someone argued that a certain school was going to prioritise white children, because it had been set up by white people? (To take a reasoning often used by proponents of faith selection.)

My son grows up in a better world if people are better integrated across social classes, faiths and with their neighbours. That's my priority. For his schooling, he may get into a local school if we're lucky. I may have to send him private because he can't go to any of the local schools (we have 3 within 500 metres of where we live.) I don't want to have to do that because I think he'll grow up more rounded if he interacts with children from all faiths, and from all backgrounds.

All children benefit from having access to a reasonably local education. This is bigger than my kid and your kid - and in particular it's about the fact that the gap between the most deprived children and their peers actually widens while they are at school.

As I have already stated I have two children in local Comprehensive and one in RC comprehensive. All 3 are happy with their education. And that is what counts! My son did not get his first choice of school and has to attend a school further away because the local one was oversubscribed. That's life!!

And what would have happened if they, or you, weren't happy with their education? What about the people who can't get into a local school at all? Or is it that because you're ok, you don't really worry about anyone else?

French, I think the hosue price thing is problematic but there are some LAs that have alternative arrangements. That said, faith schools with partial non-faith intakes magnify the house price issue even further.

Our posts crossed, Gabby. This seems to be the crux of your issue:

People are complaining that their child does not meet the criteria for a certain school and take the view that because their child does not fit the criteria then nobody else's child should attend either!

False. I think that criteria that are discriminatory and that would be illegal elsewhere should not be allowed.

There is plenty of evidence that this sort of selection entrenches privileges and disadvantages children who already have the least advantages.

I think the criteria should be objective, fair and reasonably consistent; I certainly think they should enable schools that reflect their communities. Faith schools do neither.

You mention social opportunities - as the parent of older children you'll know how different things are for children in primary than in secondary where catchments are much larger.