To not want to move and attend church?

[UsernameABC]

I live on the outskirts of the city. The two best primary schools (assuming that goes on ofsted outstanding rating? ) are a Catholic and Church of England school and they are in the centre of town. I live outside the catchment area of these two schools. All the rest of the schools in my city are rated good or need improvement by ofsted. I don't want to convert to Catholicism (was christened church of England but I'm an atheist), so that only leaves the Church of England school in my city thats an outstanding school. But I would have to move (which is expensive) and attend church which I don't want to do as I'm an atheist. Also 160 people applied for 30 places last year so the chances are slim even if we move and attend church right? AIBU to not want to move and attend church every Sunday? How important is an ofsted rated outstanding primary school? Does it make me a bad mother to just try for one of the good ofsted rated schools?

I wouldn't send my children to a faith school of any denomination. I would rather use the money I would waste moving on tutors as they got to secondary school

Just checked it received its outstanding rating 8 years ago in 2011! Has had no inspection since then. Before that it received a good rating in 2007

Completely agree with pp that the system is unfair on atheists and minority religions.

And it's not dishonest to play the game and go to church to get a place in the school of your choice. I did this as an atheist- the admissions requirements were for attendance not faking belief. So i showed up, i was respectful, helped out and at no point declared a belief in any supernatural beings.

I even quite enjoyed some aspects of it, but I do resent that I had to do it in order to get my children into the local tax payer funded school that best suited their needs.

I've been doing a project at work that involves getting some information about schools. The best place for getting this information has been the Ofsted page for the school on the gov.uk site, and the numbers that appear to have been rated Outstanding, and which subsequently got downgraded has been noticeable.

I wouldn't set too much store in the rating.

I am a teacher so know how pointless Ofsted inspections are. They spend most of their time with the senior teachers and re-write what they have been told into a report. If the systems look good on paper you are good or outstanding depending on their mood at the time. I'm not bitter my department was rated outstanding and got a special mention in our last Ofsted report. They simply took everything I said at face value. I have sent both my children to a primary school rated requires improvement and they are both very happy and progressing brilliantly. I visited it on a normal day to get a proper feel for the place. Don't judge based on open events either - they are equally pointless.

We have an outstanding Catholic primary at the end of our street, 30 houses away, DF was raised catholic, no longer practices, but has good friends in the church community who've implied they could 'help' if we have DS baptised. We won't be applying to that school. We are lucky that there are another two outstanding primaries near us and a very well loved good one, which is actually my preference for DS. I've had dealings with each school for professional reasons and you see behind the scenes so to speak.

Bigvig, the new OFSTED framework is much more child centred. They look at the plan for a child on paper then follow through how that works in practice. They now spend very little time with SLT and far more with middle leaders. They will choose a handful of depts to "deep dive"and actually observe very few lessons. Much harder for SLT to "talk a good game"

Our local 'outstanding' school hasn't been inspected for 11 years! None of the same teachers are there now so the inspection report is meaningless. I looked round and hated it. It's very much a business & PR exercise and they mention their outstanding rating with every breath...

My dc go to the 'good' rated school that we are in the designated area for. I love it. The kids are happy, well taught and truly nurtured as individuals by people who really know them. It was inspected very recently, so the report relates to the teachers that are there, and the only stated reasons for not being outstanding were some families taking term time holidays and other minor areas for improvement.

I think that rating schools and encouraging 'choice' and comparison is generally fairly damaging. In the main, I believe you should go to you closest school and do everything you can to support it.

My (much beloved) MIL told me that I should always aim for 'the best' for my ds. The best for her meant private education or failing that a grammar school.

She'd sent DH to the most driven prep school in the country where he boarded from 8. He'd then gone to a grammar school after that. Hed been utterly miserable at both though the grammar was worse as he was horrifically bullied.

Always, always make your own decisions about your dc's education. Listen to others, of course, but you make your own decisions because the only people who have to live with them are your DC and you.

Either good or outstanding means the same to me. I’d focus more on their academic results and how they obtain them (eg learning through having fun etc), as well as the general vibe when looking round.

You need to attend church at least twice a month for three years for the school DD goes to in order to apply because of faith and it still doesn’t necessarily guarantee those who are outside of the catchment area a place (or even in catchment for that matter).

My dd’s school has been inspected twice in the 4 years I’ve lived here and both times rated as Outstanding.
Can’t believe some schools have such long gaps

Another ‘good’ school
It was my third choice and I only put as a risk factor . And so far so good

Don’t buy into the church school stress and hype as it causes so much angst

So some non ofsted research on the more local ones

I taught in an Ofsted "Outstanding" school. Wouldn't send my child there even if hell froze over. It was the least nurturing place imaginable and was entirely focused on paperwork and manipulating data.

As mentioned as a ‘church goer’ I didn’t actually send my children to the local church of England school because of its positive description to church goers. I live in London and the school lacked diversity because of it. So my children go to a secular school and then attend Sunday school.