to propose this brilliant plan to make faith school applications a bit less unfair?

[ArcheryAnnie]

So there's always a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between people who support faith schools giving priority to people of that faith, and people who think it's unfair. How about this for a solution?

Say in a particular borough there are three faith schools and three non-faith schools. Children in families of that faith can apply to all six schools with a fair chance of getting into any of them, and children of no faith (or a different faith) can apply to all of them, but only have a fair chance of getting into the three non-faith schools, and a very low chance of getting into the three faith schools. This obviously means that children in faith families have greater choice than children from non-faith families, which isn't fair.

In order to get into a faith school in a faith place (a priority place) you usually have to fill in something like a clergy form, which bumps you up the list and marks you out as a faith application. You aren't forced to fill in this form and apply for a faith priority place if you don't want to: even if you are of that faith and are applying to a faith school - you can just throw your lot in with the rest of the non-faith applicants and hope for the best.

How about that, if you fill in a clergy form for a faith school in order to get priority over children from non-faith families, you then don't get priority in the non-faith schools? So in the non-faith schools, if there were two applicants for whom other things (distance, siblings, etc) were equal, the one who hadn't applied for a faith place anywhere else would be the one to get priority.

This would level the playing ground, and give all the children an equal chance of a school place of their choice. And faith families would still be a bit better off than the non-faith families, as the faith families could choose to thrown their lot in with everybody equally, or go down the clergy-form, faith priority place route.

Why are we allowing organisations with massive child abuse issues to run schools? - Look at how many children were abused whilst in the care of their local authority, yet LAs still run schools.

Our local Catholic school takes people in from many different races & nationality, because the catholic church is represented in most countries of the world. The only condition is that they are RC. I don't find that to be non-inclusive or racist since the condition is the same for all children, whatever their background. It also does not depend on postcode, there is a massive variance in the affluence of the household depending on the area they come from, but if they are RC they get in, no questions asked. The school has fantastic results, and not just for the children from affluent backgrounds. It may not be the same in all areas but then that is the same for all school, different areas of the country have different experiences with school admissions.

I take your point 're councils. The difference being that senior council execs are not still involved in a massive cover up. The Catholic church should be thoroughly disgusted with itself and still the perpetrators have not been brought to justice. Anyway, why should children brought up in households that are Catholic gain advantage over children of any other religion or none?

Why should children brought up in affluent households that can afford to pay for expensive houses in expensive catchments gain advantage over children of poorer households? Admissions is rarely straight forward and fair.

Sorry, but I have proposed that before here!

This will, however, never work because people of faith, or those that have recently found faith, would lose a whole lot of privilege, and, ironically, people of faith have a lot of trouble letting go of privilege. It's actually quite funny because people of faith would STILL have more privilege than others because they would get a choice.

I don't find that to be non-inclusive or racist since the condition is the same for all children, whatever their background.

You must be joking. It's certainly not racist, but it's definitely not inclusive. There is a reason why in every other aspect of british life you cannot discriminate based on religion. No employer could do what faith schools do everywhere in britain every year.

I should say I was painting people of faith with a broad brush. People of faith on this thread have said they would like to see the current system go.

My choice locally is 2 faith schools and a non faith school. We are not religious at all.

Faith school 1 is catholic, small intake (below 20), HT said good chance of DS getting in, most students are not of faith anymore. No mention of religion as I looked round the school. Only thing I spotted was some kids practicing nativity, and the odd things on the wall. Ofsted good

Faith school 2, C of E, large intake (60). Popular school. Ofsted outstanding. 50/50 chance DS will get in. VERY big on religion. Think prayer corner in each classroom, with bibles, crosses in every classroom. It’s also an academy so not sure how that works. Anyway didn’t like it. Too Forced for me.

Non faith school, large intake (60), popular school, ofsted outstanding, DS would definitely get in. Absolutely loved it when I looked round, welcoming, well behaved children, extracurricular activities, excellent safeguarding etc.

I’d consider us to be very lucky to have the schools we do. Although I am torn on what to put as 1st choice... has anyone looked round a school more than once?