To be sick of people slating Faith schools

[Jenga123]

Don't get me wrong I understand why some people may be against them but the negativity I've come across recently is, quite frankly ridiculous. I've been told by friends of friends, family etc that they pay for my dd's to attend their catholic primary and secondary schools and that tax payers that are paying towards these schools should not have to do so if their children can't attend these schools. Well let me just say the average amount of income tax each individual pays, that actually goes towards the upkeep of schools is minuscule, so they aren't in fact paying for them. Myself and the other parents of my dd's schools pay a considerable sum each year to the upkeep of the school and the school contributes 10% towards the costs of running their school and repairs etc.

I also come across animosity at the fact my children are getting a good education and people putting that down to them simply being baptised. But my point is if they feel that their own children are missing out by going to a less desirable school then I'm sure they could have them baptised therefor giving them a higher chance of securing a place at a faith school, and whilst I'm not advocating people pretending to be of the faith, I'm simply saying there are options.

As for my dd's schools like I said they are Catholic and are obviously places were parents of the same faith opt to send their children as they want them to be educated within that faith, and I can't see any problem with this to be honest so why am I hearing nothing but negativity from people?

cannotlogin Why do you think your narrow experience is reflective of what others experience?

Yes, I agree with you. I disagree that all schools ignore the non Catholic quota. Some LEAs are very hot on this. Ours insist on 10%, academies notwithstanding.

I get the 'it's discrimination' stuff. I don't really agree with it. There are plenty of schools I would like to send my children to (including the one I work at but we don't meet criteria so it will never happen) but can't for many different reasons. That's life, surely?

But just because it's shit all over it doesn't make religious privilege right.

Religious belief is something I have little time for, but under UK law I couldn't discriminate about someone I employ being of a certain religion, unless I run a school or a church....

Ha! Okay. Lentil

"How many people have become religious because of attending faith-based assemblies?"
No idea. None I would think.
Why do you ask?

. To the parents who object to faith schools, were most, dependent on area tend to be better schools, would you feel as strongly as you do if those schools weren't rated outstanding or good and instead were requires improvement and were bottom of the league tables? I presume that for most of you the answer would be no.

You presume wrong, on two counts.

First, the 'results' of the schools are misleading and not necessarily representative of what the school actually does. By cherry picking a more well to do demographic of students and parents, any school that selects tends to have an easier time. More support from parents, better attendance, and 'problems' (children with next to no English, children from homes where the parents can barely manage to get the kids to school let alone get on the flower arranging rota at church) are concentrated in other schools.

Second, I place huge importance on the value of a local education. My child is being excluded from all local schools because faith children get preferential treatment.

cannot and how do people ensure they get a good school for their kids, when the choice is religious or sink school? Should my entire local council estate and the houses round it all go and move into the one tiny road that accidentally falls into catchment for a good secondary? Or should everyone magic money from their arses and move? Or perhaps you are aware of a charity that will pay private fees for every child round here?

Because forgetting the moral issue of faking faith, a lot of people have issues like work/ caring/ disability/ transport etc that would stop them going to church regularly even if they were genuinely religious.

what evidence do you have of this? you realise that people who deal with school admissions are administrators and not social workers? that they don't have access to information about individual families when dealing with admissions

On numerous indicators that are common to the most deprived and chaotic homes (although also including many non-chaotic but still disadvantaged or deprived households), schools that select by faith have much lower levels. That includes persistent absence, free school meals, behaviour issues, children from households where no one works.

Those characteristics go back to normal levels for their community for faith schools that aren't oversubscribed and are therefore required to take all comers.

You are crazy. Parents need to take responsibility for their own parenting and ensure that their children get a school place. That is not the responsibility of the Catholic (or any other) Church.

Excellent. Yes, how, absent frank hypocrisy? What if I were a different faith than the surrounding schools? Would you expect me to have my child baptised into a different faith as part of taking responsibility for getting my child into a school?

Church schools (interestingly less so that the central church administration in many cases) are choosing selection criteria that they know skews catchments, and results in far fewer children eligible for free school meals, among other indicators, attending their schools. Why?

Op, you never answered my question: would you be happy for non-faith schools to prioritise children of atheists and children of faiths not represented by a school within a 5-mile radius (varying by population density), and discriminate against (mainly) CofE and Catholc children?

Schools that are funded by all should be open to all.

Schools that are only open to a minority should be funded by that minority only.

It's simple really.

We're paying private fees because the only non failing school in the area is faith. We had the choice of lie, pay twice or fail. It's rubbish.

Lurkedforever just on a side note the genuinely religious would always be able to attend church, as those without transport are collected, this happens with elderly parishioners particularly in our church, anyone unable to attend would receive a home visit. Church community is very close knit and obviously charitable.

To fake a religion is quite an undertaking considering the rites of passages involved, First Holy Communion and Confirmation for example, but i agree it probably does happen

*"There are faith schools which exclude children on religious grounds. Grammar schools which exclude on intelligence/results. Private which exclude on grounds of children's parents wealth.

They're none of them 'fair' to all children. It's only those that exclude on faith reasons which people get hysterical over though. Which I find weird."

1. Nobody is getting hysterical- don't be offensive.
2. If you think people don't object to those other unfairnesses you must live a very sheltered life indeed!*

Spot on. (sigh)

I have this vague theory that religious schools don't particularly want "true believers" - what they want is "religious fakers" - perhaps with vague religious feelings but who would generally only go to church A couple of times a year.

You then only admit parents who are willing to spend the equivalent of nearly three working weeks (hour a week for two years) doing something that they wouldn't do otherwise in order to show their devotion to the school God.

That's the type of parent the average head wants - they will totally do daily reading, support the homework, turn up for the summer fair and donate to the "story sack fund".

On the other hand the family with the mum with the addiction problem, the family with the dad who is violent, the family with the child who has severe special needs and can't sit still for 60 seconds let alone 60 minutes, the family with a sibling who has a horrific genetic disease where all the family's resources are going on keeping him alive - well they don't actually make it to church on a Sunday morning so they go to the school down the road. Who are then marked down by Ofsted for having "unengaged parents".

hels our local CofE does similar. And from a religious pov would try and support someone who missed services regularly from work/ caring responsibilities. Wouldn't make them suddenly able to attend services though, or gain them adequate points from a religious perspective.

I like the French secular system
Religion isn't for school
Some faith schools might be better, and to be honest C of E is wishy washy in terms of religion so I don't think it is really as much of an issue, but why have schools associated with a religion? Makes no logical sense to me.

This thread has to be a wind-up, right? Isn't it obvious why lots of people feel narked about paying for state schools which exclude most neighbourhood kids? You don't get turned away from the NHS because you aren't Sikh/Hindu/Christian/Jedi do you? Its obvious - what is for the public good and is paid for by the public should be open to the public, without discrimination.

To fake a religion is quite an undertaking considering the rites of passages involved, First Holy Communion and Confirmation for example, but i agree it probably does happen

To fake a religion entirely would be difficult. But for someone like me (baptised CofE, attended Sunday School, married in a church, baptised both my children, "sort of" believes in God, prefer to have a lie in on a Sunday than go to church) it would be very very easy. I'd just have to give up my Sunday lie ins for a couple of years.

Actually our nearby CofE secondary school has really weird and complicated admissions criteria (involving going to church on a weekday - taking your kids to family service every Sunday for a decade is no use at all!) that I think they must be after intelligent and committed "religious fakers"! It would almost be rude of me not to put the effort in!

Ocelot - you may be underestimating the effect of a) self interest and b) 'my religion is what my god would want therefore my self-interest is totally justified'.

Gnome i don't think it is as calculating as that, more a case of i'm this particular religion, this religious school exists.

Grammar and Private schools are unfair, it's an imperfect educational system, but if i was offered a scholarship for my children to a private school i would take it.

Mumoftwoyoungkids - you sound quite religious bar going to church regularly

I have friend who's a CofE vicar. She says she knows lots of clergy who positively encourage the 'fakers' - it's bums on pews in a way that refreshes itself each year as the next lot of parents panic.

She says she knows that some of her congregation are only there for the school place, but as they're getting Christian messages while they're there, she can live with it.

She also said that any school she's been involved with, the governors were much more against any change to the admissions criteria than the church itself.

Yabu

I didn't want to send any of my dc to a faith school. I've always believed (from personal experience) that they used religion as a form of control and actually are detrimental to the community they are in (as in a kid who lived across the road may have to travel X miles to go to a non faith school instead).

However there was only one school in the Borough that had the set up my SEN ds needs. The fights I had with these idiots to enact my legal right to withdraw my child from acts of worship have been many and fierce. I won but only after making sure they knew I was going after their (government) funding and my ds is the only child in the school not forced to perform acts of worship. He wastes at least an hour and a half each week sitting in the reception area that he could be spending learning something. The whole faith school system stinks.

The sooner faith schools lose government funding the better. Schools should be for the children in the community where they are situated. Not for the parents and whatever they have decided they want to believe.

Ican'teven
But... non faith schools in the UK are by default Church of England, and teach Protestant Christianity

Except, of course, for the UK schools who aren't in England, for example, all of the Scottish schools.

You just have to look at the results of the most popular non-selective faith schools to realise that they cannot actually be applying their own admissions and exclusion criteria properly. A genuinely comprehensive school could not produce those consistently high levels because it would have to be taking in some children of very low ability and with serious special educational needs. It follows that they are manipulating the admissions criteria to favour more desirable children, which will generally be children from motivated supportive families, and they will certainly be perfectly happy to take the children of parents who have manipulated the system because those will be parents who will do anything to help their children succeed.

I have also in my time worked in helping with appeals against permanent exclusions and children with SEN, and it is certainly my experience that in the past a disproportionate number of children from faith schools who do not achieve academically are eased out either by permanent exclusion or by their parents being leant on to move them. (I say "in the past" because academies are now very clearly following their lead, so faith schools aren't necessarily so far out of kilter as they used to be.) It crossed my mind more than once that their attitude to children likely to mess up their place in the league tables was the reverse of Christian.

I am not religious neither is my dp and certainly not my dc but my dd goes to a Catholic high school, part of the reason is it is the nearest school to our home but the main reason was that it has shit hot support for learning something that my dd needed so much. She has came on so much and I dont regret my choice and the ed psych from her primary school actually helped us get her in there and she is a totally different child and even enjoys the religious classes despite not having a religious ed teacher since starting

Veritat That's really interesting about the exclusions. I have knowledge of something similar at a private school. Family friend was at local private school and was kicked out just before A-levels as he was expected to get really bad results. It seemed particularly cynical as they waited until right before A-levels in order to squeeze the absolute last drop of fees out of his parents. (He'd been at the school or it's connected prep and pre-prep since the age of 3.)

They then boasted in the local paper about how every student there had got at least 3 Bs.

In the school's defence he was a total and utter slacker who did no work whatsoever. Although as he had been at the school for 15 years arguably they did have a small opportunity to improve his work ethic!