To ask for your opinion on faith schools?

[Syrinx89]

That's it, really. In this day and age, it seems strange to me.

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude

CofE schools are mandated to take up to 50% non CofE as are RC (although they don't accept this figure) to the best of my knowledge.

Those children from faith backgrounds or not are entitled to an education in safe school buildings. There was an incredible backlog of poor buildings that only really seemed to be addressed with labour and since then primary schools have been moved to secondary sites and have greater play areas and there has been a huge number of new schools built. That the Church schools who educate children in this country get funding for their school sites is not the issue - the issue was the perception that faith schools penalise non faith children. The government's solution was to introduce the free school system so that parents could set up schools they wanted. It was prepared to fund these from scratch. Why put the focus on what faith schools get ? It is still less than the cost of new schools. The concern for me as a teacher is much more about what academies do to our system and how the private system functions in our society.

I just think that people have been duped into attacking the faith system when the elephant in the room is actually pissing itself laughing at how easy it has been to asset strip us off the institutions that worked for the poorest in our society.

But they aren’t selective on the basis of wealth. They are selecting on the basis of Catholicism. And anyone can access Catholicism.

But everyone doesn’t. If you are seriously arguing that people should give up their own faiths, or feign faith, to have equal access to the state education system as Anglicans and Catholics you are more narcissistic than I had thought from your previous posts.

So what we appear to have here is a complaint that a group of people minding their own business and attempting to provide a faith-based education for their own children are doing it so well that it’s not fair on the people who don’t share their faith.

I would have no problem with that. But you aren’t minding your own business, or attempting to provide a faith-based education yourselves. You are demanding state funding to do it - and thus it stops being purely your own business, and becomes something that all of us as citizens have an interest in.

Sour grapes, I’m afraid. If there is something good about a Catholic education, emulate it.

I don’t think there is anything inherently good about Catholic or Anglican education - when not oversubscribed and therefore reflective of their communities they perform no better than other schools.

But leave people of faith alone to continue to do what they do well.

I’d be thrilled to! As long as you stop taking state money and sitting within the state education system, thus creating unequal access to a state service.

Or alternatively, set up a secular school and run it like a boss.

Not currently legal - and actually out of reach for most folk who don’t have the resources of a local authority or world religion, so I assume you’re being tongue in cheek?

However I’d still stand firmly against any school that tried provide preferential access to anybody in a school system - though of course that wouldn’t be possible in a truly secular system.

If families want to teach the children about their parents' faith they can do it with their own money during the latter period not at taxpayer expense during the former

Can faith even be taught though?

Because it's really not about teaching faith, and this is where the lack of understanding in the first place starts...

I think the other point that advocates of faith schools are missing is that many children are forced into faith schools even if they aren’t of that faith, if they are to get a state education.

@JassyRadlett

'You are suggesting that the FSM measure cannot be used to determine relative deprivation in schools because of incomplete take up.

For that to be true, take up rates would have to be inconsistent between Christian and non-Christian communities, with Christian communities having consistently lower FSM take up among those entitled to them. Otherwise the proxy, while unreliable in absolute terms, can still provide population-level indication of relative deprivation between selective and non-selective systems.'

Yes, that is what I am saying.

Is there evidence that this is the case?'

The very people who could provide it don't want to be documented as such - that is the problem.

There is another problem that exists for those people - that if they work (and most of them work) they dont want the Church to know that they are struggling as they feel it might backfire on their children. They are also caught in the situation, in cities like London, where they are paying the bigger expenses such as travel, rent and general costs like Council tax without the support of benefits so that when their bills are paid they actually have less money to spend then someone who is securely within the benefit system (in so far as anyone can be now).

I am talking about the Columbian cleaners in places like the Elephant & Castle. Registered as Spanish else they can't work but don't want to draw attention to themselves and stay within the community. A lot of the older Irish who will never claim benefits even though they are entitled as the stigma is so great. Many young immigrants who won't claim because they want to be seen as hardworking, etc, etc. This is nothing new to those of us who know these communities well but it is not seen for what it is outside of those communities. They are just invisible. I dont think the attitude within the church communities helps here - the emphasis is on getting work when short term support for a longer term gain might be preferable, I dont know.

I disagree with your assertion here 'take up rates would have to be inconsistent between Christian and non-Christian communities, with Christian communities having consistently lower FSM take up among those entitled to them.'

They could be comparable.

JassyRadlett

I think you are blinded by your dislike, Jassy. Catholics aren’t asking for anything others aren’t getting, other than what others don’t need: the right to educate their children as Catholics, and yes, for the same funding as everyone else gets. As are all people who choose faith schools.

I appreciate you don’t like it but “narcissistic” is personal, unfair and incorrect. I am done engaging with you now.

I think you are blinded by your dislike, Jassy. Catholics aren’t asking for anything others aren’t getting, other than what others don’t need: the right to educate their children as Catholics, and yes, for the same funding as everyone else gets. As are all people who choose faith schools.

This is demonstrably false. You are asking for state funding for preferential access to state education according to your belief system.

You can think what you like about my motivation - you’ll notice I don’t single out Catholic education. All faith-based selection (and all selection) is divisive and I am campaigning to change it. This isn’t about you. That seems tough to understand though. It’s about my dislike of a divisive system, not of any particular beneficiary of it.

I appreciate you don’t like it but “narcissistic” is personal, unfair and incorrect. I am done engaging with you now.

That’s fine. I said if you were expecting people of non-Christian faiths to give us their own faith and become Catholic to have equal access to the education system it would be more narcissistic than I’d expected from your other posts, which came across as merely insular.

It is curious, though, that you object to my characterisation of your statements while expressing some fairly horrible ones of mine.

@JassyRadlett

'I think the other point that advocates of faith schools are missing is that many children are forced into faith schools even if they aren’t of that faith, if they are to get a state education.'

But faith school children travel very far to get to their schools sometimes and were criticised for this, too. Isn't it about the parental choice? Isn't that what people wanted?

As a non parent, I would probably support a policy that said veryone gos to their local, nearest school but I can see that that would entrench poverty in poor areas and simply allow wealthier acreas to progress beyomd a common level. It would also increase private school attendance as parents would spend the money they had, or use scholarships to get their children out of what they saw as localk sink schools.

We have seen this happen with the catchment area/house prices issue - more entrenchment for the privileged. I actually think that faith schools are more of a solution to fairness and equality than we realise.

Girl
If you think you know more about education and deprivation than the Sutton Trust, you have a serious God complex

said if you were expecting people of non-Christian faiths to give us their own faith and become Catholic to have equal access to the education system it would be more narcissistic than I’d expected from your other posts, which came across as merely insular...

I am not insular any more than I am narcissistic. I have taught in non-faith schools for ten years. Please don’t be so assumptive.

As I say, we will have to agree to disagree. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with faith schools, which is why we will send our child to one.

If there were enough secular schools to educate all the children whose parents wanted such a school, would people be happy for state funded church schools to still exist?

The very people who could provide it don't want to be documented as such - that is the problem.

Is there evidence - actual evidence - that this is more predominant in Christian rather than Muslim or Hindu communities?

I disagree with your assertion here 'take up rates would have to be inconsistent between Christian and non-Christian communities, with Christian communities having consistently lower FSM take up among those entitled to them.'

They could be comparable.

I would expect them to be - but in that case you would not see such stark relative gaps between Anglican-selective, Catholic-selection, Anglican and Catholic non-selective and community non-selective (with the last three being more or less on a par).

It’s selection that makes the difference in intake, not faith. Where faith schools aren’t able to select, their intakes better match their community.

‘It’s selection that makes the difference in intake, not faith. Where faith schools aren’t able to select, their intakes better match their community.‘

Aren’t they selecting on the basis of faith?

Girlinteruption

From my experience the 50% figure is further skewed by sibling priority which can leave very few places for children from the community.

I went to faith schools my family background is Irish Catholic. However, when I met my Muslim DH and saw the real practical effects of segregation by faith I started to question why the state was supporting it.

If there were enough secular schools to educate all the children whose parents wanted such a school, would people be happy for state funded church schools to still exist?

I wouldn’t, being honest. I don’t think segregating children by faith in a multi-cultural, multi-faith society encourages tolerance or integration.

Having attended a faith school in my own childhood, we were definitely not encouraged to see other faiths as equally valid. Observing my own child at a CofE school, I have no reason to think this has totally changed.

It’s also unarguable that faith schools are almost entirely Christian, which doesn’t reflect the communities of faith in this country - and I have issues with giving any faith special treatment.

and I have issues with giving any faith special treatment.

And you don’t think enforced secularism gives atheists special treatment?

Aren’t they selecting on the basis of faith?

If they aren’t oversubscribed, or are not oversubscribed with children who meet their faith criteria, they are required by law to take all other children, in order of priority according to their non-faith criteria (usually distance).

And you don’t think enforced secularism gives atheists special treatment?

No. Secularism and atheism are totally different things.

@ListeningQuietly

We are on the same side - they know that there is much hidden poverty in London (and elsewhere). The role I think the Church's played in society, is in catering for those who won't or can't acknowledge their circumstances or dont appear in the stats.

And really, do people need to be reminded that for generations in this country need and poverty that was experienced in immigrant groups was not adequately catered for? Are people really that dishonest? You can see the damage it did in the older generations. I've spent the day in Deptford, SE London, an area I know well. Look beyond the new cafes and gentrification and the poverty from neglect back in the 50s, 60s and 70s is still there to see.

mantarays
Nobody is requiring pupils to be secular only the school.

If they are undersubscribed they are not selective.

I assumed that faith schools that choose from a surplus of applicants do so on the basis of the family’s faith.

Is this not the case?

Secularism and atheism are totally different things.

I know. But in the case of secular education, atheists are the ones getting the education they want. People of faith aren’t (in general). How is that reasonable?

@Girlinterruption I don’t think that anyone here is arguing that there is hidden deprivation!

My only argument is that there is a lack of evidence I’ve seen that it is so disproportionately in Catholic or Christian school populations, versus the wider population in those areas.

Particularly given the religious diversity of recent immigrant populations - about whom you are rightly particularly concerned.

Girlinterrupted
My DH is an immigrant, many of his friends are immigrants and it is their children that are now being excluded from state schools because they are not Christian immigrants.

Nobody is requiring pupils to be secular only the school.

That is a contradictory statement. Secularism requires my child to be secular where he/she would otherwise be free to be educated in his/her faith. It’s not freedom.