To ask if anyone else has converted faith to get into a school?

[JumpingJunipersBatman]

OK. So I know people have but what does it actually entail?

I was raised rc but am atheist. We are looking at getting our agnostic 8 year converted (is that the right word?) to open up school choices but I'm not sure what that would mean in practice.

I'll make an appointment with a preist to discuss but what should I expect and for those who have done exactly this, what did you tell the preist when he asked about your reasons?

I know this may be seen by some as disrespectful or playing the system and it possibly is.

I don't understand those who say they have no option other than a faith school. Your council have to a duty to educate so you must have another option.

There are more than 24,000 schools in England.
There are 2134 Catholic schools in England and 88 Catholic schools in Wales. Catholic schools make up approx 10% of the national total of state funded schools.
The school buildings and land of Catholic schools are owned by the Catholic Church. The Church provides these premises, at no charge. The day to day running costs of Catholic schools are funded by the state in the same way that all schools are funded The Church covers 10% of the capital costs for the maintenance of the premises.
18.8% of pupils at Catholic primary schools live in the most deprived areas compared with 13.5% nationally. 16.5% of pupils at Catholic secondary schools live in the most deprived areas compared with 11.3% nationally.

Most people have the choice for other schools and buy a house knowing the schools in the area...a small minority then seem complain about faith schools.

Why complain if you don't meet the criteria for a "good" school, be it catchment, faith or grammar. It's choice and options and provides variety which is a good thing.

Nakedavenger74 oh you must have missed the bit when I said the school purposely changed their catchment area to totally exclude the council estate, on paper of course it was the councils decision but very powerful parents lobbied for it and got what they wanted and its the same parents who are trying to change the RC school now, parents who want this school to openly reject other pupils because of their parents (perceived) social status and earning power giving poorer pupils even less of a choice and how is that fair?

I personally blame this government for a lot of things but sorry whatever party gets in there will always be entitled people who think their money can buy anything even state education that the low paid also contribute towards through their taxes but wont have a hope in hell of getting into

The system is irrational. I would not judge anyone subverting it. We moved next door to a large non faith community school so I’m alright jack but there are places in oxford where the only schools are faith ones what are atheists (the majority) supposed to do? And their taxes paying for the schools!

MsTSwift - exactly so. It should not be left to chance that parents can find a non-aligned school. It is a geographical lottery.

The simple answer is to abolish the faith alignment of any school that wants state funding. If such a school wants to exist then it should become private.

Non-aligned school do teach about faiths - and rightly so. But each faith is given its due emphasis and none is favoured.

Children do need to learn about the predominant (albeit dwindling) faith of their nation but it needs to be taught as "Some people believe....."

I think people are missing the point somewhat , there are some really, really crap schools and its not fair for any child to have to attend them people "play" the system to get their child into a decent school maybe something should be done about rubbish schools and make the whole educational system fairer?

It’s absolutely disgusting that in this day and age faith schools are funded by taxpayers that aren’t allowed entry purely because of their different beliefs. This needs to change.

You need to check the admissions criteria. One heavily oversubscribed RC all girls school round here has a requirement of baptism by 6 months. Most require weekly attendance for 2 years and a reason for why you haven't if that is not the case.

That is creepy, controlling and wholly unacceptable. How dare a state funded school dictate what parents should believe!!

A friend is doing this with her daughter.. Works on a points system round here. E.g. Being christened is 3 points, attending church weekly is 5 points etc.. Can only miss church 3 times over 12 months or they lose the points. Its ridiculous.
I hate the idea of pretending and also the fact you have to jump through these bloody hoops to have access to a better education for your children.

My understanding was that it saves the state money because the diocese partly funds the school. And that's why the state isn't exactly keen to get rid of them.

Where I live the best local primary school is CofE. You have to attend church regularly to go. Plenty of baptised catholics go and attended the cofe church to get in. The best high school is catholic. They then abandon CofE and become catholics again. Meanwhile the cofE people who didn’t neccesarily get into their CofE school due to numbers/siblings etc get stuck with the worst high school as well. It annoys me no end. A few people have started getting baptised catholic to get their kids into the catholic high school and of course people are up in arms. It works both ways though. I think fair play. You got to do what’s best for your kids first and foremost. Not sure I could bring myself to do that but will see how I feel when my kids are older. And I won’t judge. It’s the system that stinks. Tax funded education should really be secular. They don’t discriminate about the money they take to find it.

Despite the frowning on here it is HUGELY prevalent locally. "The best" secondary is Catholic, and has an admissions policy favouring those who have been both baptised as Catholic and completed the first Holy Communion (or whatever the correct terminology is). So the Catholic church is packed with families with kids from babies to Year 3/4 (can't remember when the first Holy Communion is done) but then very sparse attendance from families with older children.

Likewise, there is an Ofsted Outstanding CofE Primary favouring those with weekly attendance at its linked Church. That church has a huge attendance swell of preschoolers, who then are less keen when the eldest is safely in reception. The CofE High School is pretty average though, so funnily enough people find their desire for a religious education weakens over the years.

We've not gone down either of these routes. But we're fortunate to be in catchment for a decent primary and secondary which offer no priority to particular faith groups. I might feel differently if we were at the other end of the borough.

Check the admissions criteria online.
Eg. Some give priority to baptised child, some are based on attendance.

Faith schools continue to exist, because people want them to. It would seem that only about 25% of all primary children are faith school educated. Those who want a primarily secular system, it would seem we have one. At secondary level it is even less.

I think the opinion that children are indoctrinated in faith schools is false. A few prayers, or a mass or two, and reading the bible is not going to scar your child, in fact it is just as likely that they will get completely turned off by the whole thing.

Perhaps we should be focusing on why parents prefer them, and why in general they have better outcomes for children.

Where a popular RC is very oversubscribed, the criteria can be very strict; in my part of London, I have heard of a church-going RC family who were turned down because the DC's dob indicated that little one was already on the way when parents married. Also, late baptisms are viewed cynically. They are all too well aware of "on your knees to save the fees". C of E can be a bit more relaxed, but the admission criteria for my nearest (very popular) one made my head ache; the definition of the distance from the school smacked of arguing many appeals.

Faith schools continue to exist, because people want them to - I do not agree. They exist because it is a historical anomaly. We live in a mainly secular society and our education system should reflect that. Religion should be taught - all religions - but not taught as fact. It is belief, not fact - to be respected, but not fact and that should be made absolutely clear.

I think faith schools are generally in better areas, “naice” villages, with a higher proportions of high earners. Parents want their kids to go to these school because of the type of children their kids will be going to school with. It doesn’t actually have much to do with the teaching of the faith in the school.
Personally I just wanted my son to go to his local school, which is in a nice village. I wanted to be able to walk him there. Not ferry him out to another village which isn’t exactly good for the environment.

I would just say that you want to be Catholic again to get your little one into the school. What do you have to do. Bare minimum please.

They won’t want to cut off thier nose in spite of thier faith.

I would never use state schools anyway and didn't go to one, but Perhaps I could sell the points! Even over 30 years ago when we looked at our local RC primary schools not only did you need to be baptised early (and by the way within a month or 6 weeks was more common than within 6 months!) and go to mass every week and on holy days which is what we did but also play a big part in the life of the church - as my children's father regularly played the organ that probably would have got us to the top of the list had we not paid fees from age 4 instead.

It depends where are in the country however as the RC school attached ot my mother's church in NE England always struggled to get pupils and a lot were not RC.

The playing a part in the life of the church will have been dropped by now, because it wasn’t legal. Unsurprisingly, once the ability for anybody to report a schools admission criteria to the Schools Adjudicator happened a lot of schools had to change.

The OP might not be obeying the spirit of the law, but she is at least following the letter of it. There’s more than one school on this thread who, if they are in England and the posters haven’t misunderstood, are in breach of the law surrounding school admissions.

We live in a mainly secular society and our education system should reflect that

It does, by 75% to 25%. In an "inclusive" society our taxes go to all sorts of minorities. And I stand by my point, all these schools are massively oversubscribed, and as pp noted, many people are jumping through all sorts of hoops in get in, why? Because they want their kids to go there.

It depends where are in the country however as the RC school attached ot my mother's church in NE England always struggled to get pupils and a lot were not RC

Interesting. I just looked up the stats. Roman Catholics are most prevalent in London and the South East.

And I stand by my point, all these schools are massively oversubscribed, and as pp noted, many people are jumping through all sorts of hoops in get in, why? Because they want their kids to go there.

Catch-22 though. People want their kids to go there because they get good results. Which they get because they’re full of kids with parents who know how to jump through hoops. It’s a form of back door selection. Watch how quickly they become undersubscribed when they get an RI OFSTED report or other local schools get good Ofsted.

I doubt that most people are choosing them because of their faith status.

Maybe you'll all love it. I really enjoyed being RC as a kid. I loved it, my sibs too. Lapsed now.
Maybe it's His way of calling