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.

Dds friend goes to a school with a one class intake. Dd goes to one bursting at the seams with two classes. Both non faith and very good schools but dds is definitely better organised. What I do know is that dds friend struggles with friendships as there aren’t many girls, which has resulted in terrible cliques and competitiveness as they’ve got older. Her mum despairs and much prefers dds friends to the ones dd is friends with. For example dd isn’t invited to her dds parties as the mum doesn’t want dd to be potentially bullied. Less isn’t always more and I know others have a very different experience. I also like that the school has some diversity. Not as much as the city adjacent to our village.

I can imagine a mega primary with a large number of classes per year group wouldn't be good for all 4 year olds.

We are at a COE infant school. We are not religious, it’s our catchment school and we wouldn’t have got in anywhere else. It’s in massively high demand because it’s very good (also in nice postcode area) and lots of people do go to church to get a place. Here you have to go to church at least once a month for two years for that to be considered, they have changed the criteria because so many people are doing this with church schools here. I am really pleased we are in catchment and that we got a place but I wouldn’t have gone to church just to get a place as I think that’s hypocritical when I do not believe in God. The school itself does not seem to be overly preachy in any of their religious endeavours and they are covering lots of faiths and cultures in their learning. So I am happy with that. DD can make her own mind up in the same way my parents let me make my own mind up.

I guess it differs where you live but around here, the good schools really are good and the failing schools really aren’t, it’s not down to parental snobbery or middle class aspiration. I wish all schools were equal but unfortunately they aren’t. I wouldn’t send my children to a failing school with poor management and known behavioural problems and that’s what you get here with the schools that aren’t doing well.

OP, I honestly don't see the problem here. You prefer the first school, and it sounds like that is the school you're more likely to get. Others make a different choice - that's fine too. There's nothing wrong with preferring a smaller school, and my personal experience of faith schools is positive. I don't really approve of going to church just to get your child into a certain school, but it's not a massive deal. Just carry on as you are and stop worrying about other peoples' choices.

We had a choice between our non faith catchment school and a COE school, both 1 intake of 30 kids.

Both 'good' Ofsted, but when I looked around them both, I felt the non faith school had much better facilities. Also the COE consistently wasn't getting any higher achievers in Y6 SATs, where as the non faith did. COE has had some recent disruption in management/some teachers leaving too.

With a couple of very good reports from neighbours about the non faith school, we discounted the COE for first choice.

You need to tour both schools and see what you think. COE isn't always better but agree with others, in some areas it gets you away from the plebs/multicultural intake.

We are church going practicing CofE. My husband training to be a vicar and our son is going to our non religious primary school. To those who are complaining you really cannot complain if you opt to send your child to a faith based school and they learn about religion and prayer. Bit hypocritical.

Note, I'm not suggesting I agree with getting away from plebs/multicultural intake! But this is a concern to some parents!

I used to live in a big city where religious selection was the norm. I met other parents who started attending church in the year proceeding the applications. One of my sons friends was baptized 14 days before the school selection cut off. Despite being 300m from an outstanding catholic school we didn’t apply as they hadn’t taken an unbaptized child in at least 5 years. So we applied and got the huge 4 class entry primary school a little further away. Despite starting primary school with 120 other children he loved it and so did we. It wasn’t simply ethically and economically diverse it had a far higher rate of children with additional needs. Apparently the two catholic schools had a fairly aggressive policy about informing parents that they simply ‘could not’ meet the needs of the children. So even if children did start they were pushed out. Whereas the school my son went to celebrated diversity and inclusion. My son is pretty able and he was always stretched and supported.

I still feel angry about religious selection. I believe you can only religious select if the Church owns the land but the money to fund the places overwhelming comes from the government. The NHS wouldn’t be able to open a children’s hospital and tell the Muslim children to wait outside until they had seen all the CoE children. So how on earth is this okay in deciding eligibility for school places? Ultimately, as a family we decided that lying about our religious beliefs set a pretty shocking example to our children.

superstition schools
Love this.

As a committed churchgoer and a teacher, I it really pisses me off when people start pitching up at church just to get their kids into the church school. (The school is not the one I teach in.) I wouldn’t mind so much if they vaguely pretended to be interested or respectful of my faith, but they treat the service as a coffee morning.

Maybe she doesn't want her DC to be the only non-white face in the class? That was part of the reason we chose DSs nursery, in the other one we saw every single DC we saw was white (plus you had to bring packed lunches)

Re the religious schools and diversity, sometimes the Catholic ones are more diverse than the other local ones. We live very near 2 good primary school, the 'normal' one is very English, the Catholic one has a good handful of Europeans and Indian families.

Stinkycatbreath- what if the local schools are faith schools so you don't have a choice?

(that was to the pp who asked why someone would want their dc to go to a diverse school)

Read the Ofsted reports and actuall6 decide if the points mentioned are important to you. For example, the nursery I chose is only rated "Good" and there is a closer one rated "Outstanding". The one I chose is rated lower because of some boxes they didn't tick in relation to staff development. They're all qualified and happy, and some have been there over 15 years. It's lively and fun and I got the feeling there. The other nursery is better, according to Ofsted, but the children looked bored and the staff were playing on their phones.

So do your research and make your own decision.

Please share your experiences and why you chose what you chose you sound like a journo!!

@Walkingdeadfangirl did you mean to sound racist?

How small is small? IMHO, living in an area where a big school is 200-300 pupils and small is 60-120, the bigger schools offer a wider variety of experiences and are better resourced which certainly helps with additional needs provision. This is anecdotal but I've know a number of kids that were moved around the village school before settling at the larger more diverse market town schools. IME also the small schools have had more 'school gate' issues between parents (more cliqueyness). And everyone seemed to know your business... I didn't enjoy that. Also, if a school only has 3-4 teachers, then a change of one staff member has a big impact - nearest school went from outstanding to everyone pulling kids out in a very short time.

Having done small school preschool we opted for market town primary and were on the whole very happy. Small schools had annual intakes of around 10 per year, which has an impact on finding friends with common interests. Not necessarily solved at bigger school, but more options.

Funnily enough our larger schools are all CofE or Methodist.... but they don't apply church attendance as a criterion. It's the village schools that are not church schools. No Catholic schools or any other faith outside of the cities here (somewhere in the Midlands).

It sounds as if your friends want a school filled with 'people like us'. I do understand that mindset, having had, due to circumstances, dc in schools which were very much not filled with 'people like us', but I don't necessarily agree with it. We are in an ethnically very homogeneous area and I miss diversity.

Really, a great deal depends on the culture of the school. You seem, from your OP, more drawn to School 1. I'd go with that.

I don't believe faith should have a place in school admissions, and I say that as a practising Christian. Where I am, faith schools are open to children of all faiths and none (they are also semi-private but fees are entirely income-dependent and very nominal for those with low incomes). Faith plays an insignificant role in admissions - not none at all, but they look primarily at the fit child/school. Faith as an admissions criterion shuts down the school to 'the world', which is exactly what Christians are not supposed to do.

We have 3 schools in walking distance. At the time we applied all were rates Good by Ofsted.

I wanted DD to attend the Catholic school. At some point in her year there were 3 Spanish kids, two Polish, 3 Romanians. Kids of different races too. None of the parents are middle class.

I have now personal knowledge of the other 2 schools as well. And while they're ok, I'm even more convinced that the school we picked was the best choice and fit for DD and she absolutely loves it.However,that doesn't mean it suits every single child.

Sometimes diverse is used as a euphemism for a school where a lot of children have extra needs and may not speak English, tho they soon learn. If the school is well rescourced with good leadership and staff, this can be an immense positive. I would only be cautious if my own child had special needs and might get left behind.
Children who read at home and whose parents take an interest (as many BME families do) will do well in any school. This middle class obsession with putting their children at a perceived advantage is very unpleasant, and they may find lots of attitudes they don't like.

I would look at both, few things to consider;

-ofsted 'outstanding' largely decided by performance data - if larger school has more kids from low income families they get 'value added' which bumps up their data
-have you looked round both? If not you should
-I went to a catholic school, as did dh, I don't think this has a huge bearing on a child experience or education- saying that, if there were good catholics schools in my area, I would send DC there

Our friends think we are mad as we have a 'good' CoE school less then 1 mile away, but have chosen to send DS to an outstanding school 11 miles away where my DH works. DH's school is massively oversubscribed and has unique ethos - very academic focused, not pastoral at all -my DH said he'd never send DC there! BUT knowing our DS we changed our minds because we feel he needs that structure and focus to achieve, a different child might do better in a more creative pastoral environment. We also know our DS is outgoing and will be fine in large/busy school.

Look at both schools and match to needs/ personality of your child.

I know at least four couples of parents at the primary school DS used to attend who are atheist and bring their children up as such. We also had a few Muslim children, and one Sikh (small country town so not that much diversity). I would imagine there were other religions represented too but I know the parents of the Muslim and Sikh children. Going to church won't make a lot of difference unless you're on the church register - our Vicar doesn't know everyone in his congregation apart from by sight and I doubt he's had the names of all the kids applying to the school so he can confirm them.

My son goes to a very nice little school which is linked to the church.

Hoards of people started going to church every week and getting their piece of paper signed.

We didn't go once (not especially religious) and put it as our second choice and he got in.

I do think it's ridiculous that people start rocking up on a Sunday just to guarantee a place and then never go again.

When I had to change my foster children’s school to a more local one I had a choice of about 4. We were slap bang in the middle of 2 schools in ‘rough’ areas and 2 schools in ‘nice’ areas. I chose one of the ‘rough’ ones as it had a very good name and I thought it might be better for the kids as it was more used to dealing with traumatised children. On the whole it has been good. The teachers are mainly lovely, it has good resources, they go on lots of trips etc. But, a lot of the families are quite honestly horrid. And so a lot of the children are horrid. This is masked a bit in the younger years but by the time they get to about the age of 9 some of them are extremely unpleasant. I’ve been called a ‘fucking mug’ in the street by a 9 year old when I asked him to stop calling my 7 year old names as we walked home. My kids have been hurt quite a few times but it’s brushed under the carpet as the kids involved ‘have issues.’ One of mine is going to secondary this year and I have thought long and hard about moving my younger one for the last year but I think with all the upheaval he’s had it could cause more harm than good. But I wouldn’t send another child there.

You do have the right to remove your child from RE lessons as well as assemblies.