Priests just handing out School Admissions letters

[Marypoppins19]

I’m prickly about this, but friends who live closer to a school of our choice, but only go to church at Christmas, have still managed to get a church support form. We go weekly, always have. AIBU to think this is unfair and breaking the rules?
AIBU to consider saying this in an appeal?

You could say it as a general point but I wouldn't name them specifically. It's not their fault it's the church's

Are you sure they don't go to a different service to you or something?

Our church support form had weekly, monthly and occasionally written on it. The priest had to tick one.

I understand your frustration though. One of our churches had a new priest and he signed anyone's form. He couldn't have known if they were regular attendees or not.

I absolutely know because they were totally up front about it. Ours is a letter of support not a tick box. It just feels very wrong

I guess the person to talk to about this is the priest.

How ridiculous it is, that access to state education in the 21at century can be affected by whether a priest ticks regular or occasional on a form. Madness!

Apart from anything else, we’ve all heard of people who attend weekly in the run up to getting these letters. It’s completely meaningless.

My experience was the opposite. We were regular attenders, youngest went to church playgroup, middle attended the church Beavers group and as a family we all attended the first communion classes that the priest run over 9 months. Then the first communion, photo taken on the day with the priest. We then were moving house following my husband finding a new job having been made redundant and had to appeal for a school place for eldest at new area church school. Spoke to priest after mass and asked if he would sign the form, explaining our circumstances. Priest said he had never seen us before in his life so could not sign it. He then said he would write a letter to the new school confirming we were Catholic. I thought that may of some support and gave him the address of school we were applying for. At the appeal they had a letter from the priest saying he did not support our application and had not met us before, for me this was totally out of order. He had a right not to sign the form, but writing this letter was spiteful. The appeal were judt as shocked as us that he had written this letter. Fortunately we were successful at appeal

I would be challenging the Priest, verbally and also follow up in writing, copying it to whover is senior in the church for your area.

Do really want your DC’s go to a school system which operates this way?

Will the admissions body not be aware of this?

Only if they are told.....

This nonsense should be stopped. I have no problem with private schools having their own admissions criteria, including church attendance, but not state schools.

Bloody hell - again, for the millionth time, the church should have no place in schools, only teach religious theory, keepmthe priests/vicars etc firmly out of the process and out of the door

Yanbu
Its a Major issue in this borough too

Seems very unfair and unethical in this day and age that this can happen

Send a complaint to admissions and CC governors

YABU & sound a pretty awful friend to consider doing this tbh. Who shops a friend??

Hopefully you'll all get places, but if not, the other family live closer and should be more entitled to a place in my opinion regardless of who attends what and when.

The higher entitlement is church attendance - so they are breaking the rules. It’s fraud and really unfair. Yes a friend. So yes it’s hard and no I won’t mention names

Christ alive, it’s 2019 and we have holy men who believe in ghosts as the gatekeepers to state education

I agree with others. Absolutely horrifying in 2019 that the way to get into education - the supposed sanctuary of facts and scientific learning - is through hoping to catch the eye of the local priest enough.

It is disgusting that churches have a say in state education.

I think it's disgusting that to access certain state schools you need to believe in a certain brand of sky pixie. State schools should be open to all.

It’s appaulling that an institution proven to be incapable of safeguarding children and vulnerable people is paid by the state to educate children. Why anyone would entrust their children to a priest I have no idea.

Our RC church had a similar system - just get a form signed. Multiple priests with different approaches to signing too- one was happy to agree you'd been every week whether he'd seen you or not, one would only sign if you volunteered so he knew your face etc. It all changed after the year the school lost multiple appeals because the system was open to corruption interpretation. They've gone through a number of more robust systems until the current one when you have to sign a register for a year or so before application. Registers come out at the very end of mass only and the signature has to match the one on file.

We had a bit of a scandal in a local C of E school a few years ago when the priest, who was known to be a drinker, started giving out certificates that bore no resemblance to the known facts about attendance. The school knew what was happening perfectly well, but insisted that they could not look beyond the certificates. Eventually for one family he certified that they were regular churchgoers for one child going into the pre-schoo,l but not for the other who was going into Reception, and the school still insisted on taking that at face value. It was only when the family threatened legal proceedings that the school woke up and accepted the reality. After that they decided that certificates should be countersigned by the vergers. They refused to accept that the whole thing was completely artificial anyway.

Except for a handful of new schools from the Blair years, faith schools are essentially church schools (or other place of worship schools) currently operating in co-operation with the state (which does not own them). They are not state-schools-allowed-to-be-religious.

Yes, we couid get rid of them, but it wouid mean buying out the current owners (the state can't just take privately owned property, they have to buy it). I don't think anymore government has felt rich enough to buy that number of schools (25% or so, isn't it?)

The obvious answer to this is if that if they only let in children who go to Church every Sunday, there would be no one in the school!

They have to fill spaces just like everywhere else - if they are struggling to fill them because of exacting criteria then they have to relax them. It's not rocket science.

All the people wailing "not fair!" - has your place been stolen by these once-a-year attenders? If not, so what?

And for the people who complain about Church schools still existing - this is because the first free schools in this country were set up by the Church(es). When the state took over they took over the buildings set up by the Church but the Church got to retain an interest because it had provided the land/building and basically done all the legwork. Before you rant and rave too much, remember the Church was the only organisation who even remotely cared about educating your great-great-great Grandmother and Grandfather, no one else gave a shit.

Madness that this crap decides whether your child can have a place at a state school. Do they take a little register at some churches to check everyone is there to get their "Mark"? What if the priest doesn't like you, does it mean your child can't have a place at school?