All my friends are suddenly going to church ...

[mclover]

My first child will be going to primary school next year - am I getting this wrong? I'm in two primary catchment areas. School 1 is big, diverse student population, great playground and outdoor space, outstanding ofstead, got a good feel to it. In the 'rougher' side of town.

School 2 is a COE, small, not very diverse, good ofstead and also nice feel to it, posher end of town. Nearly all my friends are desperate to get their kids into the COE and have all started going to the church to get their kids in.

When I ask why, my friends say COE is better, smaller primary schools are better, and the students are better, even though the bigger school has a better ofstead.

Am I doing my DS a disservice by not trying to get him into a COE? WWYD? Please share your experiences and why you chose what you chose.

Ofsted

When they say better they mean middle class. CofE schools use church attendance as a middle class filter. You decide what is best for your child.

We chose DDs primary school because it wasn't a faith school. Selecting children on the basis of their parents' beliefs (or feigned beliefs) is divisive.

Only go to church if you actually want to and would regardless. If that means your child goes to school on the rougher side of town then so be it - faking religious belief is low behaviour IMO. Also, don’t put too much store by Ofsted ratings.

I went to church about the same time and my dd got into best church school in area! Any advantage is an advantage! Just go!

If you like the non faith school and dont want your child to be educated in a faith school then dont go to church to get into the faith school.

This one is bit of a no-brainer. How would you feel if your dd went to faith school and got taught a load of religious stuff? Personally I wanted my dc to have a faith education. It annoys me when atheists send their kids to naice faith school then complain that they are spending time learning about God.

My DCs go to CoE...but we're not CoE (I'm Catholic, my husband atheist and we're allowing children to decide for themselves) with that aside... our children go to this school because we're in a small village and it's the only school...BUT other villages try to gain entry (because it's a very good school) however they don't start attending church...they just put their names down on the waiting list etc until places become available.
The town nearest to us has a fantastic Catholic school...and I know a lot of atheists etc whose children attend but they have never attended a Mass in their life. No schools in our area use a 'faith filter'. The Catholic school gets great results and has a huge waiting list... and a majority of the pupils have no faith preference as the Catholic community in this area is tiny, as is the CoE actually.
As a side note...my children only go to the local school because it's local, if it were a non faith they would still go, as I have no transport to ferry them to a specific school if I were that way inclined.
In my experience my DCs school has incidents of bullying, awkward teaches, pain in the arse parents balanced by a handful of brilliant teaches and a great receptionist.

Most important thing is to go with your gut feel of whether your child will be happy at the school. Ours is at a super diverse outstanding primary (though to be fair quite small) and has been brilliant for her (and seems much better experience than others we know whose kids are at schools with only a very affluent intake)We also chose it as the only one locally where you didn’t have to be a church goer (we aren’t). It is confusingly an Anglican school (we are of no faith /none ) but wears it lightly. So main question is can you imagine your child being happy and learning well at the school.

Have you been to see the schools. On paper they may sound ok but you may strongly feel one will fit your dc better. Also are they thinking ahead to secondary eg does the c of e feed into a good secondary school whereas the other options are dire for example.

what do you mean ' diverse student population' is that a good thing or a bad thing

It's a bit of a myth that superstition schools are invariably 'better'. In some areas, the church school might be full of middle-class white kids with pushy parents ( if that's what you think makes a good school) but not necessarily. I do school admin work on an ad hoc basis and some of the most useless, chaotic schools I have been to have been faith schools. (the Catholic secondary where the police called about once a week to sort out knife fights in the playground springs to mind).
Go and look at the school. Get the feel of it before you decide.
But do bear in mind that a great school can have it's Head get run over by a bus or something and the next Head be either hopelessly ineffectual or a monomaniac.

In some areas, prioritising applications on the basis of church attendance actually increases the percentage of pupil premium group students and diversity.

If you think the school is better and you need to attend church to get in. Then definitely turn up at church for the minimum number of days needed to get into the school (but no more). They are tax payer funded so you are as entitled to a place as everyone else.

You can op out of the religious classes and assemblies etc. The only way to get past the glass ceiling of christian privilege is to break it.

Why should schools follow any particular faith or religious doctrine these days?.

@mclover Why are you so keen on the school being 'diverse?'

In our town there are two ‘good’ primary schools, both well-run and with near identical results.

Yet people fight tooth and nail to get their children into the school they say is ‘better’. And when they say better, they actually mean more middle class because it’s not on a council estate like the other one.

I sent my child to the one on the council estate primarily because I don’t want him sitting next to the children of a bunch of snobs.

I've been observing this and comparing schools in my local area for years now, and I can say without a shadow of doubt, that middle class parents care more about how middle class the pupils and parents are than how good the actual school is.

@crazyasafox What's negative about a diverse school?

We are a mixed ethnicity family so thought a diverse school better for DS as good to have all colours of the rainbow that also reflect him

Are you in Manchester by any chance?

My youngest goes to a diverse school. It's a poor area with a massive ethnic mix. High numbers of low or no English children in early years, some parents with no English too.

I find the academic expectations on the children very low but the integration, social learning, world learning very good.

I find the unengaged attitude of some of the parents a bit shocking and sad for the children - its been an eye opener.

The children at DD's school are encouraged to celebrate their diversity and with that comes greater understanding and inclusion. In DD's class they talk about visiting grandparents in Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Russia, Poland, Spain, Thailand, Phillippines, Estonia. They talk about all sorts of cultural subtleties.

At KS1 and to an extent KS2 they're little sponges and this sort of basic socially diverse respect once learnt stays with them for life. Having a very narrow social exposure at KS1(something that is both school and home life formulated) is hard to rectify in later years. Academic learning we find can be extended at home without too much effort.

I have the opposite issue though in that all my local primaries are church schools. Admission is on distance and the only school we’d get happens to be at the more religious end and I’m not totally happy with that as there are prayers in lessons etc. I don’t have the option to have a secular education and I really disagree with religion in actual lessons (assemblies I can live with). But I have to suck it up as unless we paid for private, we don’t have a choice.

Is this a stirring up things post? It's quite clear why you want the school you want and good for you. Others want differently. Good for them.

I don't see the AIBU.