To think secular groups should be allowed to object to faith school admissions?

[RockUnit]

The education secretary, Nicky Morgan, wants to ban organisations from objecting to faith school admission procedures, to “stop vexatious complaints against faith schools by secularist campaign groups”.

link here

According to the article linked to above, the government will carry out a public consultation on the proposed changes.

[bananafish81]

That makes sense, thanks for clarifying

[samG76]

bananafish - religious instruction is paid for privately. Hence the high voluntary contributions at most Jewish schools. And Jewish schools seems to get on fine academically "despite" the time devoted to kodesh....

[bananafish81]

And their religious instruction doesn't include comparative religions. They don't know anything about Christianity. I think comparative religions study is great. This is not that. They're being schooled in the following of Jewish law.

[bananafish81]

The Hebrew lessons aren't linguistic though. They can't speak it at all. It's study of Bible passages and Jewish scripture

It's religious instruction not a language lesson

[chilipepper20]

Boils my piss. Hebrew lessons should be paid for privately or organised via the synagogue. It's not the taxpayers job to fund specialist religious instruction during school time. What lessons are being sacrificed to accommodate this within the school timetable?!

this wouldn't bother me at all. Learning another language is incredibly useful, even if the language itself is somewhat useless (let's face, hebrew isn't going to give you the edge that spanish or mandarin will). And learning (key word: learning, not practising) about religion is also useful. if faith schools were places where history and RE had an emphasis (emphasis, not exclusion to all others) on a particular religion, I wouldn't mind that at all. It's the preaching that I object to. It's telling children they X religion. it's the selection.

[chilipepper20]

My theory is because these problems apply in different measure in different places, and of course in many places neither is problematic.

we deliberately chose to live in a part of London that has very few faith schools. We did, however, get bit by distance. We are near a very sought after school, and would have gotten in any year before the year we applied and did not get in. That was 3 years ago, and I am still pretty bitter, mainly because of all the "talk" of parents cheating to get their DCs in. A school, which have a tiny areas where distance kicks in, have hordes of children being dropped off by car. Makes my blood boil. So, I get that distance sucks.

But that doesn't have anything to do with the faith criteria. It is as clear cut as it sounds. Just because it isn't a problem in most of the country doesn't make it ok. if tescos had a christian first policy in hiring and they said that it only ever kicks in in in 3 stores in one part of London out of their 2000 (or whatever) stores across the country, there would be outrage.

And that's before you start into the areas of the law on property ownership.

that is a concern, but not a reason not to try. If the CofE does withdraw their buildings from the state system, they will have to find money to upkeep them. they will be in a difficult situation.

[bananafish81]

It is simply not fair that a colleague was in the situation where out of 4 primary schools in her area, 3 were faith schools - therefore giving her a choice of one (failing) school. 

She pays her taxes and yet her access to state funded schools is massively restricted 

Stupid question from me. If a faith school does not teach outside the non faith based national curriculum, what exactly makes it a faith school?

I ask this as someone from a Jewish background, but consider myself atheist. I have family members whose children attend Jewish state schools and I find it absolutely abhorrent. They have Hebrew lessons in school and apparently do not teach comparative religions (she didn't know what the Christmas story actually was, and they sent a letter home to her parents to ask them not to celebrate Christmas in any way as the kids needed to know they were Jewish)

Boils my piss. Hebrew lessons should be paid for privately or organised via the synagogue. It's not the taxpayers job to fund specialist religious instruction during school time. What lessons are being sacrificed to accommodate this within the school timetable?!

So what makes a Catholic school a Catholic school in terms of the school environment if it's not within the lessons itself? And why can this not be taught in Sunday school? Genuine question. 

[UnmentionedElephantDildo]

Another big confounder: funding

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35726883

[BertrandRussell]

Sorry- didn't copy properly

source

[meditrina]

Does that include PRUs?

Also, noting that it's from 2013, did you get it from The Guardian?

[BertrandRussell]

Ok. To start with, here is some Government data about all schools completing faith and non faith. It shows that faith schools overall have slightly lower levels or children with deprivation markers and low ability, and slightly higher exam results. This is all schools, so gives the lie to the "faith schools are better because faith" line. More stats to follow after the school run.
Summary of GCSE results by religious character of school, 2013
Mainstream comprehensive schools in England
Faith Non-faith All
Pupil intake
Average Key Stage 2
points score 28.0
% of pupils by prior attainment band
Low 13% Medium 53% High 34%
% of pupils eligble for free
school meals or looked after
by their local authority 26%
% of pupils with a statement of
SEN or at School Action Plus 8%
27.6 27.7
16% 15% 54% 54% 30% 30%
28% 27% 8% 8%
inc. English and Maths 7% 7% 57% 58% 94% 94% 60% 60%
Attainment and progress measures
% of pupils achieving 5+ grades A*-C Low attainers
Medium attainers
Higher attainers
All
or equivalent 9%
60% 95% 64%
% of pupils making at least the expected progress between KS2 and KS4 English 73% 70% 71% Maths 74% 70% 71%

[meditrina]

Schools stats - annual census includes onwards links if required.

One further confounder I forgot to mention is whether, in using the data you include PRUs and special schools. Because if you average them in to 'community' figures it changes the apparent baseline, as they are (typically) at about 30-40% whereas the national figure is around 16-18% (and falling).

It's also harder to make year on year comparisons since the rollout of UFSM.

[meditrina]

OK. Ccosses fingers on finding it again, but yes it definitely exists. I'm afraid IIRC it doesn't show level of oversubscription. Then again oversubscribed community schools usually do not have typical level of markers of deprivation either. So again, terms of the debate matter.

Of course the utility of all comparative data is a bit limited because the number of faith schools is large enough to be formative of the norm.

You do sound a bit sceptical though. Do you have data showing something different? In which case, could you link that?

[BertrandRussell]

"Or the basics of the demographics, which show time and time again that also though there are some Christian faith schools which are leafy/affluent, they are more likely than the national norm to have schools with high levels of pupils with markers for deprivation."

Please could you link to data that shows that oversubscribed faith schools have higher levels of pupils with markers for deprivation than other school in similar areas.

[meditrina]

"I don't know why these threads on faith schools always have the introduction of the distance criteria. They are different problems."

My theory is because these problems apply in different measure in different places, and of course in many places neither is problematic. Presenting faith criteria as somehow invariably a problem simply doesn't chime with individuals' experience of what the problems are. And distance, just after an admissions round where some people are not getting any of their choices, and are missing the schools they want by a matter of metres is very much on people's minds.

Also, look at the thread about the MNetters desperate to avoid the faith school she was allocated (nearest school with space) to give the lie to the assertion that all are desirable.

Or consider our locale, where the two schools people are desperate to get in to are both converter academies which use LEA community criteria, and around which the house price has rocketed to about 1/3 more than streets at the iffy edge of the distance offers reach (the CofE school just up the hill being groaned at). And their FSM proportion isn't typical of their borough.

Or the basics of the demographics, which show time and time again that also though there are some Christian faith schools which are leafy/affluent, they are more likely than the national norm to have schools with high levels of pupils with markers for deprivation. Especially as Catholic schools are some of the most diverse in the country; they have always been fairly 'international' in cities and have become very much so again with newly arrived migrants (parents find out a lot about how English systems from their church community).

So I think people want to show that it's not as clear cut as sometimes portrayed. And that's before you start into the areas of the law on property ownership.

[Astrophe]

Thanks meditrina.
It sounds very complicated.

When I live, every address falls in the zone of one school (occasionally two, a single sex and a co-ed), entry to one of which is guaranteed.

[chilipepper20]

if faith criteria are unfair, what,if anything, is fairer

distance is fairer. it's not perfect, but it's fairer.

[maydancer]

I think it is because the debate always follows the same road- if faith criteria are unfair, what,if anything, is fairer

[chilipepper20]

The trouble with distance criteria is that if you live in a village 10 miles from a town with 6 schools, you are going to be bottom of the list for each and every one.

I don't know why these threads on faith schools always have the introduction of the distance criteria. They are different problems.

[meditrina]

apostrophe

This is about England only.

School places (in the main admissions rounds) are allocated by the LA on behalf of all the admissions authorities (LA itself, or VA and academy/free schools themselves). Parents are asked to express their preferences when they apply for a place. Each admissions authority receives a list of applicants (ie parents who have listed them as one of their preferences), and they then rank them according to how well they fit the admissions criteria of that school. The lists are returned to the LA, who then turn the ranked lists into a single offer for each applicant at the highest-preference school they qualify for. If they qualify for none, then the LA will offer the closest school with a vacancy.

Some schools have been on their sites for centuries, and are no longer where people actually live. Some parts of the country have population densities among the highest in the world. These lead to uneven pressure on school places (which is why comparisons on this issue cannot really be made at national level). So in cities in particular it is possible to fall into a black hole where you qualify for none of your nearest schools. And of course, how the school performs in league tables and local reputation will also be a factor on how many apply where.

All schools have over-subscription criteria (ie how they sort out who gets an offer if there are more applicants than places). Permissible criteria are governed by the Admissions Code (which has the force of law).

Does that make it any clearer?

[maydancer]

The trouble with distance criteria is that if you live in a village 10 miles from a town with 6 schools, you are going to be bottom of the list for each and every one.

[SueLawleyandNicholasWitchell]

There are not enough years left in my life to start explaining that. Let's say it depends on county to county and each school has its own code.

[Astrophe]

I'm not in the uk. Could someone explain the admissions system to me? I see friends' FB posts at certain times of the year, with people celebrating their admission or sad to be allocated a school 45 minutes drive away. What gives? It sounds bizarre.

[ForalltheSaints]

Vexatious complaints are a part of life, not just about school admissions. Ask any shop worker, anyone working in a government department. Stopping them from groups will only mean that individuals will complain instead.

There should be grounds for complaints, if a school's admissions policy is not followed properly, if it is unworkable, or if it requires evidence that cannot be supported. Personally I don't like the people who 'rediscover' their faith so as to get their child into what is considered a good school (and is a faith school), and then lapse about two or three months after the child starts at the school, or even sooner. Impossible to prove, but to me it is akin to obtaining something by deception, and could not be a grounds for complaint.