To ask for your opinion on faith schools?

[Syrinx89]

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

@mantarays, yes, if they are willing to pay for it. School should be a secular setting where all children are educated in all faiths and none to the same extent. You are making the mistake of seeing your faith as being on one side and no faith as being on the other therefore you think why should no faith win. That’s the same as saying a school only for white children should’ve allowed to exist as much as a school for children of all colours. The prevailing attitude must be that the state pays only for inclusivity.

Educating your child in line with your faith is a fundamental right

Sez who?

You are making the mistake of seeing your faith as being on one side and no faith as being on the other therefore you think why should no faith win. That’s the same as saying a school only for white children should’ve allowed to exist as much as a school for children of all colours. The prevailing attitude must be that the state pays only for inclusivity

It isn’t the same. People who want to educate their children in a secular environment want one thing, and people who don’t want another thing. It isn’t comparable to racism because there is a right to educate your child according to your religious faith, whereas there isn’t a right to educate your child along people of the colour(s) of your choosing.

You have the right to educate your children in your faith but you don’t have a right to get the state to pay for it.

Well there is state muslim girls school.in my town @BadCatDirtyCat

Anyway, much as I disagree with them, it would be prohibitively expensive to ‘buy them out.’ What we do need is a an amendment to the new schools legislation which states that as well as being ‘free schools’ all new schools must also be secular in so much as their admission criteria not not give extra weighting to children of a particular faith. Daily worship should become daily gathering.

@mantarays there is a right to religious freedom. There is no human right for the state to educate your children in the faith of your choice.

@x2boys yes, plenty here too (and they're selective based on faith). It annoys me!

BurneyFanny

I believe the Human Rights Act guarantees this under the right to education. It doesn’t obligate governments to set up institutions of education in line with parental faiths, but I believe it prevents the government from undue interference in faith education.

I'm a practicing Catholic and it would be very important for me, for my children to have a solid catholic education. I was a convert and went to both C of E and a catholic school. The catholic school was much better pastorally.

But it’s only not comparable because the law currently backs you up.
You are seeing a secular education as another form of religion so viewing it in the way you’d view a Jewish education. That’s not the way to look at it. A secular education is not an anti religious education. It’s not a school for atheists. It’s not a school where children are taught that God doesn’t exist. It’s simply a school that does not include religious instruction in its curriculum.

BadCatDirtyCat

But it isn’t the State educating them in this case. The schools already existed and were run by the Catholic Church. The state funds the schools, as was part of the Butler Act compromise. But the schools aren’t state-owned.

It’s simply a school that does not include religious instruction in its curriculum.

Which is what some parents find their consciences dictate. I am not one of them, and it is my right not to have the state interfere in that decision.

I live in a village where there is no choice but a faith school. The next nearest school is another faith school.

In the UK we have legacy of Christian schools for historical reasons, and in many places the parents sending their children to them have no practical choice due either to oversubscription or distance to a secular option.

I really dislike it & feel religious influence should be reduced in schools.

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

And if those schools no longer existed, there wouldn’t be any schools. You wouldn’t automatically have any right to convert them to secular schools, if the government no longer allowed them to operate as faith schools.

And if those schools no longer existed, there wouldn’t be any schools. You wouldn’t automatically have any right to convert them to secular schools, if the government no longer allowed them to operate as faith schools.

But the government would be obliged to provide those local children with an education so they would almost certainly need to open other schools locally to meet local demand.

Neednewwellies

Yes, which for reasons of cost, they won’t do. So instead of people complaining about faith schools discriminating against their children, they should speak to their Government about providing for their needs.

I think they are very problematic

They distort school catchments locally because there is one area where there is a school black spot for people who can’t get into the faith school because they don’t fit the church attendance criteria. The second closest school has a small catchment so they can’t get into that one either

@matarays, your religious freedom does not and should not extend to the state providing your children with a school whose admission criteria discriminates against some other local children based on their lack of faith. At the very least they need to change to being geographically based catchment rather than diocese ones.

I think education should be secular. My children however will be going to a cofe school. All my local catchment schools are church schools so I effectively don’t have a choice. I like the traditions and have no issue with carol concerts etc but I find it uncomfortable that religion will be quite overt at my school - more than I’d ideally be comfortable with. Admission is based on distance first and not religion (although that is criteria 5/6) and mine will be going to our closest school. If I’d have had to, I would have gone to church to get my children in. I don’t care if that makes me a hypocrite. If the system doesn’t want people to do that then church schools shouldn’t do as dominant when the majority of the population are not regular worshipers.

your religious freedom does not and should not extend to the state providing your children with a school whose admission criteria discriminates against some other local children based on their lack of faith.

Nor does it. The Church provides the school. The Government funds the cost of my child’s education, as it does yours.

I think you only need to look to Northern Ireland where the majority of children still attend CoE or Catholic schools to see the damage that segregation of children's education on the basis of parental religion can do to society. In that case it perpetuated ongoing issues, rather than created new ones.

I don't think faith schools should be permitted to replace non-denominational schools.

I think faith schools in rural areas should be required to publish a policy explaining how they effectively include children of other faiths, that goes beyond the parental right to withdraw children from collective worship.

I think all faith schools should be required to take steps to ensure the children mix with children of other faiths during the year.

I don't think existing faith schools should be changed for the sake of change, as they often work well.

Limiting other people's choices because you think something 'strange' is rather authoritarian.

Surely it's the faith schools that limit parents' choices? In some areas, if you don't want a faith school the reality is that your choices are very limited indeed because there are so many faith schools with very exclusive admissions criteria.

Surely it's the faith schools that limit parents' choices?

But the religious institutions that own them aren’t obligated to educate your children. The Government is.

But Churches are communities too and if there is a church adjoined to a school where a child and their siblings have been Baptised there, their parents married there, attended weekly and been involved in the life of the community, have a friendly relationship with the clergy and other parishioners then why should a parent who has no wish for their child to ever belong to that community be prioritised over a child who is?

That would be fine if the church were bearing all the costs of running the school. As they aren't, it is inherently wrong that people get priority simply by turning up at that church on Sundays for a few years.