To think why moan about sending your child to a faith school?

[farmerswifey33]

We are lucky in that where we live schools are undersubscribed and you have a very good choice of 3 primary schools 2 of which are faith (CofE) and the other isn’t.
We have so many parents at the school who moan about the fact it’s too goddy 🙄 or that there is a nativity play as they don’t believe. Worst thing I think is how they tell their children this who then tell my children they are stupid for believing in god and Jesus!
I just wonder why they would send their children here because they DO have a choice! I don’t get it?

But fundamentally it makes no sense and is not fair that the non religious majority have a much smaller pool of schools to chose from than the religious minority.

Mrs Hathaway my sentiments exactly.

They denigrate believers at every opportunity, and encourage their children to do the same

The same as Mumsnet users do to parents who want their children to continue believing in Father Christmas past the age of 8?

I live in an area where most schools are community schools. In fact, all 5 primary schools, that any child of mine would qualify for on distance criteria, are secular. At the time when I was applying for my dd's secondary school I was practising Anglian but applied to the (much) better performing Catholic school. My local secondary school was a community comprehensive. The school ran a series of meeting for the parents of non Catholic children and spelled out the Catholic ethos of the school and that if you wished your child to attend the school you and your child would be expected to support that ethos and sign a home/school agreement in confirmation. The meetings took place before the deadline for applications.

My dgs attends a Catholic primary. The school is over subscribed but some places did go to non catholics both on sibling and distance criteria. I am somewhat bemused by the amount of religon that is taught but again the school website and prospectus make it abundantly clear that this occurs and will involve all children.

What are you supposed to do if there's no option?

What about doing what most of us have done, thinking about it and organising yourself when you became pregnant? Just a thought

So what, just relocate? What if you live near family and want or need them to be involved? Or if you live in a HA house? Or if you just can't afford to move? What if you do all the preparation and then get made redundant or get relocated by your job?

That hacks me off. My dh is Muslim and obviously we are raising the dcs as Muslim.

I wouldn't say obviously as you the mother are not a Muslim

I'm not religious and don't go to Church. However, looking back, I would have liked my children to go to a faith school if it had been an option. There is one locally which my friends DS goes to, and it seems like there is much more of focus on values, morals and ethics than there seemed to be at the primary school my children went to.

My DD is in an RC school. As most of the best schools around are RC, we had very little choice.
She's not baptised, she's not going to do the Holy Communion, goes to the Church every Friday with the class and has religion at school.
We walked into it with open eyes, we knew what would happen and are totally OK with that. We teach her respect to other religions and if she came home telling us she was laughing at someone's religious beliefs, there'd be hell. This is not how we bring her up.
She was told by a boy in her class that she will go to hell after death as she doesn't believe. I taught her to reply that as she doesn't believe in hell, that's doesn't really scare her but she'd prefer hell over heaven as it's warmer there and you don't have to sing all the time.

Coddi
I think what everyone is suggesting is that schools aren’t subject to any kind of religious, or anything else for that matter, interference - it’s not on, education should be education only - religion isn’t part of education, its about control, and it has no part in schooling - keep religious factors in church don’t let them
Spill into the wider community where your subjected to it whether you agree or not, it’s got no place
So, with that in mind, why the hell should somebody move home because the church has decided to take over the local school and take a controlling religious grip - THATS totally wrong and shouldn’t be allowed in this day and age

Imagine the furore if I said that religious children shouldn't be allowed to attend non-religious schools!

See the double standards? Deciding not to believe in something intangible should be respected as much as the freedom to believe.

Or if the children of religious parents were lower on the admission criteria than the children of atheists for secular schools. Yes that'd go down well.

Yes, or if you said to someone Hindu or Moslem complaining about the amount of God stuff at the local school "you should have thought about that as soon as you got pregnant". I mean, does that really mean what I think it means? If your wee village only has a CofE school, then atheists, Catholics, and people of other religions can either keep quiet or they're not welcome?

"So what, just relocate? What if you live near family and want or need them to be involved? Or if you live in a HA house? Or if you just can't afford to move? What if you do all the preparation and then get made redundant or get relocated by your job?"

No. Not just relocate. No one is suggesting you do it in the next month. But you have got nearly 5 years to make plans.

Even in a HA house, you can change houses, ask for a different area. Does take time, but most people get a different house in a different area eventually.

You may have to make some compromises but it depends what you want. everyone has to compromise on something.

if you really do need to do rely on your family then that's your choice, you could slowly facilitate a new job? put your children in childcare and live off less? but if you don't want to, if you want parents involved, / need them, then you have to compromise on maybe sending your children to the school that is not your first choice.

there's allsorts of ways round it and it depends what you're prepared to do/ how important it is to you/ how much you are prepared to compromise.

If you get made redundant you might have to change jobs or change houses anyway irrespective of children and whether you like their school.

And finally, if you can't do anything at all, you just accept: okay this may not be ideal, but it's okay / it's good enough and I have no other way of changing it. so, that's it and just acceptance.

No that's bollocks. There is no reason to accept and not challenge this. The system stinks and should be challenged. Why should we accept something so manifestly unjust and discriminatory?

I completely agree OP. We send ours to an Independent School, the only one nearby and it's a Catholic School. We're not Catholic, most pupils aren't and a lot follow other religions. However I'd be if anyone complained about the praying or religious teaching. DD (4) has turned into a bit of a bible thumper since starting but TBH I actually think what they teach her makes her a kinder person, she talks to us about the teachings and how she's knows right from wrong etc. I probably wouldn't have picked a religious school if I could help it but TBH I don't care about that aspect, it's the only school we wanted and it's a small 'price' to pay for a very good education.

I have no idea about schools in different areas. In my area my dc’s have 6 secondary schools open to them. 4 all inclusive comprehensive schools, 1 C of E school and 1 Catholic school. I have no idea about schools from other religious denominations....

If anyone doesn’t want their child to attend a school that practises a certain faith then find an alternative school. It really is that simple!

Why would a parent choose a religious school and then complain that religion is taught? That doesn’t make any sense....

Whether or not you send your children to a faith school, there is very little or no choice in schools that do not force religion on pupils. All schools were required under the 1944 Education Act to hold a daily act of worship, reaffirmed in the 1988 Act that ‘all pupils in attendance at a maintained school shall in each school day take part in an act of collective worship’ (though parental rights to withdraw their child are retained). It's nearly always the Christian religion as the UK is still predominantly Christian. Our head of state is also head of the Church. We are far from being a secular society.

From the age of 4 until 18 I was made to attend a Christian act of worship every day at school, although neither me nor my family are were Christian. I tried and failed to get out of it because, I quote, "you can't prove you're atheist because you don't go to any kind of church".

It shocks me that in this day and age the Christian religion is taught in schools as fact while other religions, if discussed at all, are taught as "what some other people believe". I'm not surprised your fellow parents complain that the school is "too goddy" - they nearly all are.

Did you read the thread Darles? Quite often because they have no choice. In many places there aren't enough secular schools for everyone and not everyone can or feels they should have to drive for miles to find one (or would be able to get their kids in if they did).

At the moment, the voluntary aided schools are partially funded (including, but not necessarily limited to, provision of grounds and buildings) by the various religions involved.

Perhaps there should be a campaign to increase taxes to raise education funding in order to afford to purely provide state schools, abolishing the voluntary aided sector completely? I presume everyone objecting to religious teaching in schools partially funded by religions would support paying more money themselves to abolish this system completely?

Technically there are no secular state schools in England, though, that's the problem. There's just varying degrees of Godding.

I'm a churchgoer but I don't see school as a place to teach religion as fact.

Did you read the thread Darles? Quite often because they have no choice. In many places there aren't enough secular schools for everyone and not everyone can or feels they should have to drive for miles to find one (or would be able to get their kids in if they did).

I don’t live in an urban area. In fact we live out in the sticks. Yet my children have the choice of a variety of schools. I really can’t see that urban areas have no choice other than religious schools - Sorry!

No state school should be a faith school. Parents choose schools for all kinds of reasons (when they HAVE a choice, and too many don't, because of faith schools), so it's unsurprising that some of them then moan.

I have a faith, if that makes a difference.

They are lucky!

Usually faith schools are over-subscribed because they tend to be VERY good schools. Obviously they give priority to children within their catchment area who are of faith families, but we have had people registering the grand-parents address as their own, or starting to come to church a month before they apply etc. Then they complain about X, Y and Z (though not usually about Nativity Plays ). It is very annoying.

If people really were SO much against having God in their child's education, why not make the effort to apply to one of the less-good schools within or even without their area - and put the PTA work in to help the school become better?

If people really were SO much against having God in their child's education, why not make the effort to apply to one of the less-good schools within or even without their area - and put the PTA work in to help the school become better?

People of faith at the application stage of applying to faith schools haven't put the PTA work in either, so why should they get first dibs at a local school, just because they share that faith with some existing parents?

thegrinchreaper, was it the crusaders or the Saracens who were the terrorists, or both?