to wish that pushy parents would stop pretending to be religious in order to get a place for Lily at the faith school?

[Caroline1852]

If these schools are "better" it is because parents are clamouring for places, thereby artificially raising the standards. Left to their own, the number of faith schools would dwindle dramatically. There are nearly 5,000 C of E schools, most of them oversubscribed, yet bottoms on church pews are falling (save for a lot of red-faced couples and their 10 year olds). I have nothing against faith schools by the way.
Grrrr it's that time of year again!

I think Sunday schools were invented to give parents the opportunity to have sex.

UQD, you would think so wouldnt you! Actually a friend of mine just used to send her hubby down to knock on the priests door, he would stand and lecture him about having to find an hour for the lord etc etc and then sign the form. But thankfully, the bus pass gods must be smiling down on me as free bus travel has now been introduced in this area for under 16s.

Heated - Wouldn't it be easier to let them watch The Wizard of Oz on DVD?

lucyellensmum, heated... i think that is entirely up to you. If you feel you are doing the right thing and not betraying yourself, then it is OK, I wouldn't worry about what that makes me in the eyes of other people.

As for myself, I am not likely to send dd to a catholic school for a couple of reasons, the main one is out of respect for my dh who is non-baptised, agnostic, and has a morbid distrust of religious schools in general and a great "faith" in state education. I don't think that doesn't make me more or less hypocritical, I just don't want any arguments at home caused by that. I want an easy life .

However, I will always defend the right of people to a good education and to decide what a good education is for their children, and that includes religious and non-religious one. I went to a very good religious school and I feel I benefited so much from it. Nothing they taught me there was in conflict, even remotely, with any accepted science or technology (no matter what Dawkins says, that is possible). I feel it complemented academic teaching beautifully. You could argue that I could have done equally well in a state school - I'll never know. All I know is that religious schools are not bad per se and I believe in freedom of education and freedom of belief and the combination of those gives you faith schools. Simple as that.

Nope, attending/suffering through Sunday School is character forming!

I find church services a good time to practise pelvic floors exercises

I had to explain the creation story & who Delilah was to A level lit students -just general knowledge as far as I'm concerned - but the only Delilah they'd heard of was from the Tom Jones song. They have done RE but can only tell me about religious festivals. Concerned about how many other subtle references must be passing them by!

UQD - You might find some of this interesting.
www.suttontrust.com/news.asp#a028
Interesting that over 55% of the top journalists are independently educated and a further 35% are Grammar school educated and the remainder are from comprehensive schools (although attended by 90% of the population). Apparently no journos from the School for Jedi Knights yet. Miss them, I do.

It'd be brilliant go to a Jedi School. Are you going to start one up UQD?

I once managed to get a quotation into a company presentation in which each sdection was headed wiht a worthy quotation (genius is 99% perspiration 1% inspiration, 90% of success is turning up that kind of thing). My section was - "Do, or do not. There is no 'try'" without anyone querying its source.

(yoda of course)

Kewcumber - that is very funny and has made me laugh.......... a lot.

I think I got away with it becuase the company accoutant isnt expected to pull such juvenile stunts

love that, kew