To think faith schools are great and it’s only the admission cheats that make them unfair?

[Wondermule]

My second controversial post in a few days. I don’t need a hard hat at this point, I need a bunker and full ghillie suit. But here goes.

Inspired by a thread, where a poster happily shared that they lied about going to church to get their kids into a Catholic school, before denouncing the admission system as deeply unfair...

I would like to put to the good people of mumsnet that actually, admission by religion is a really good idea. And it is only the people that cheat the admission system that keep it unfair for others.

Religion is a great criteria for school admissions. It doesn’t indicate intelligence; it isn’t an indicator of wealth; it would keep sibling groups together; and the ethos and PSHE would be generally in keeping with the parents’ beliefs.

The reason why faith schools are ‘better’ are because of non-religious people with intelligent kids cheating the system to get their kids a place. This then perpetuates the cycle - the kids perform well, the school becomes more desirable, so more people cheat to get their kids in.

So aside from depriving genuine applicants of school places, they are contributing to a system that they denounce as unfair. Whereas if they stopped playing the system, schools would actually be more mixed in terms of demographics, more equal, and there wouldn’t a stampede for just a few of them.

Phew! Thoughts please?!

I'm in the minority that agrees with you. I went to faith schools myself. My primary school was terrible but my secondary was amazing and gave me a great start in life. My parents didn't have the money for a house in a nicer area, let alone private so without the faith school I'd have gone to a much worse school. Importantly for me though, the ethos of the school was brilliant and despite lots of challenges, or ACEs in my teenage years I got through it because of a good environment, it was a refuge and far enough from home (had to get a bus) that it helped.

My kids go to Catholic school and compared to the school up the road with a 500m catchment area, I love that they go to school with a more diverse, ethnically diverse, linguistically diverse and financially diverse group of kids.

You need half a million for a house in the catchment for the school at the top of the hill, not many people have that. Many parents are rude and same for the kids.

I think it's important that schools teach religion, theres an awful lot of ignorance out there and it's only where religion is concerned that people think lack of knowledge is positive..it's crazy. I'd rather my kids grew up to be atheists but to be able to explain why based on their knowledge, than to do so based on their lack of knowledge.

In a world that is mostly religious, being able to engage sensibly with people who have faith makes sense. I think the same for politics, economics etc. It's all important.

From a faith point of view I think it helps my children think about their actions in relation to others, forgiveness and big questions. I think kids are dying to ask these things and I'm not saying religion is the only answer but it's less of a focus on 'me' and more on your community and less superficial things. It's no coincidence I don't think that most food banks have a religious connection. So I think it's a very good environment for children. That comes from knowledge, not guessing what faith schools are like.

If you can replicate it elsewhere then fine, our whole education system is terrible. But faith schools do offer opportunities for families that are otherwise not offered much by the system. For what it's worth I've never experienced the kind where you have to fill in a church register etc, I think they're far in the minority of faith schools.

@turquoisewaters - please note I talk about Catholic schools below, because the OP framed this around the intelligence of the Catholic population, but it can be applied to other faiths.

Some Catholic children/families will struggle to meet the criteria used to define practising Catholic. For all of the reasons noted by other posters above (single parent families, young carers, shift workers, chaotic home lives). They aren't a random selection of children from all social groups, more will fit with definitions of deprivation than average.

Some Catholic schools require baptism by a particular age. Same problem for them.

Assuming Catholic schools provide an educational advantage, some Catholic parents will still not choose to send their children to Catholic schools. Those parents won't be a random selection of parents. They may be the ones who can't afford the £100s a year for school transport, if it isn't their local school. Or they may not value perceived quality of education over things like ease of getting to school. Again - not a random selection.

Highly desirable schools may set stricter definitions of practicing as they have the choice either to select between those of the faith by distance or by harder to meet faith definitions. So they may require attendance at a particular church for a period of time. This discriminates against those who have moved around (for example due to homelessness or being on short tenancies).

So a Catholic school may not have a pupil body representing the diversity of the local Catholic population.

@lockandtees

I agree. But the OP has made an argument based on:
The members of a faith will represent the diversity of society. So if faith schools don't reflect society (which they don't, see stats above on things like FSM and SEND) then that must be due to the cheats who fake faith to get in.

There's no evidence presented to demonstrate that it's the cheats who are the problem, just a bit of twisted logic ignoring known social issues.

Thanks for clarifying @Justajot

[quote turquoisewaters]what other ideological activism is targeted at children

I've mentioned this example up thread (and again, I'm not negatively judging this specific school or its head teacher), just illustrating that secular doesn't always guarantee neutrality

www.thesun.co.uk/news/14118543/woke-headmaster-ditches-national-heroes/[/quote]
That article is terrible.

That article is terrible.

Agree. It's from the Sun FFS. Is that really the best you can do to argue that there are worse things than teaching religious beliefs as facts?

I actually don't see what's wrong with celebrating people who are having a positive impact on the world we live in.

So many of the state schools around here are faith schools, that children who aren't of a particular faith are horribly disadvantaged.

Case in point: when my DS was small, he wasn't even allowed to apply for the state primary school right next door to my block of flats because I wasn't the right religion. I ended up with a 40 minute walk (each way) with 4 year old DS to a primary school in another borough, because the non-faith schools were oversubscribed as a result. Meanwhile, children were coming to the state primary next door to me from out of borough, right across London. (This doesn't help with traffic congestion, either, sending kids back and forth across London.)

Faith state schools should not be allowed to discriminate while still receiving public money. If you want to send your child to a discriminatory faith school, you should go private.

Am interested in what criteria/test the op thinks an atheist school would use in selection? How is it possible to select for a non belief? Do they think a science/logic test would be acceptable?

Selection by wealth already occurs, as does selection by religion. Surely the least worst option is selection by aptitude. So schools that select by Math, Football, Music, Biology etc would be a million times better than religion.

Parents can 'coach' their children in subjects like religion. But the fair divider is that only clever children can be good at maths, only sporting children can be good at sports etc

Stop the discrimination.

@newstart1337 you can't say stop the discrimination but say selection based on aptitude is the least bad.

Aptitude isn't accurate, people that do well like to think it is, but it does discriminate against those that are brighter but might have disadvantaged background, difficult home lives or confidence issues because of how they've been treated at school.

The only real way to do it is by lottery, but people wouldn't like that. Often they like their schools to be bubbles that favour children 'like theirs'

The existence of your faith school and it’s discriminatory entry system ensures that that is the case for thousands of other unfortunate kids

The solution is to improve the schools that are not doing well, not to 'abolish' faith or other schools that are

@turquoisewaters

The existence of your faith school and it’s discriminatory entry system ensures that that is the case for thousands of other unfortunate kids

The solution is to improve the schools that are not doing well, not to 'abolish' faith or other schools that are

Why is that the solution? There is no reason for faith to be involved in schools. At all. We don't need to improve the percentage of school's that are NOT religious, it is a problem in itself that so many schools ARE religious, and a problem in principle that any are. Why are you incapable of understanding that many on here simply don't agree that school's teaching faith to children is ever appropriate.

I can't get worked up about faith schools but I would like top performing schools to have to reserve a certain number of places for children who live in deprived areas.

If we had money, I would have bought a house where my sister lives because all the schools near her are outstanding.

They are selective on the basis that people have to be wealthy to live there, so the children in catchment tend to be those with intelligent, high earning parents, who went to university and can afford extra curricular and tutors.

We live in a deprived area because it's what we can afford. Our local secondary 'needs improvement' and has a higher than average number of deprived children. My son is bright and hard-working but disadvantaged because of his parents.

I would love for him to have the same life chances as his cousins.

@MrsBobDylan

I can't get worked up about faith schools but I would like top performing schools to have to reserve a certain number of places for children who live in deprived areas.

If we had money, I would have bought a house where my sister lives because all the schools near her are outstanding.

They are selective on the basis that people have to be wealthy to live there, so the children in catchment tend to be those with intelligent, high earning parents, who went to university and can afford extra curricular and tutors.

We live in a deprived area because it's what we can afford. Our local secondary 'needs improvement' and has a higher than average number of deprived children. My son is bright and hard-working but disadvantaged because of his parents.

I would love for him to have the same life chances as his cousins.

So grammar schools, basically? Because if they let in loads of kids from derived background that were a mix of abilities, they would fall down the league tables, wouldn’t they?

God, yes, Lockandtees. Not having local friends was an issue all the way through Primary - really disadvantaged him. i had to work really, really hard to make sure he had the chance to socialise outside school with other kids.

And the state school he wasn't even allowed to apply for (the secretary said "don't bother" when I asked) was literally only the other side of a brick garden wall from where we lived.

It's absolutely ridiculous, and an absolute disgrace. The idea that it's perfectly OK to discriminate against children because of their parents' religion is something that should have no place in a modern democracy.

@ArcheryAnnie

God, yes, Lockandtees. Not having local friends was an issue all the way through Primary - really disadvantaged him. i had to work really, really hard to make sure he had the chance to socialise outside school with other kids.

And the state school he wasn't even allowed to apply for (the secretary said "don't bother" when I asked) was literally only the other side of a brick garden wall from where we lived.

It's absolutely ridiculous, and an absolute disgrace. The idea that it's perfectly OK to discriminate against children because of their parents' religion is something that should have no place in a modern democracy.

What should we discriminate by then? That would produce a fair result?

Wondermule I don't know, but we can't let the current mess continue. Even discriminating by religion isn't where the local schools stop - eg a lot are Catholic, and require that your DC are baptised by the time they are 6 months. But a large part of the local population (the children and grandchildren of immigrants) comes from a Catholic tradition where children are baptised much older, so they don't get a sniff, either. But on the whole this population is much more church-going, so you have the equally ridiculous situation where you have parents who are only nominally Catholic, and who have just jumped through the minimum number of hoops required to land their kids the school places, who are prioritised over Catholics who actually believe, and practice.

Possibly the thing to do is to have all state schools within a certain radius (so for city schools this would be, say, reasonable walking or bus distance) and kids would be randomly allocated one of these schools - so you would be guaranteed a local school, but not necessarily the nearest school. It would get around the "expensive houses in cachement areas" problem, and leave kids with social groups that they would reasonably access outside school hours.

a lot are Catholic, and require that your DC are baptised by the time they are 6 months

Perhaps they do this to discourage the cheats?

I can understand in some countries Catholic baptisms occur when children are 1, maybe 2 years old. But much older is really uncommon (and I'm sure that if such exception occurred and parents were able to offer a reasonable explanation, school authorities would listen)

The modern Catholic church is much less rigid and much more pragmatic than people believe. There can be exceptions obviously

Possibly the thing to do is to have all state schools within a certain radius (so for city schools this would be, say, reasonable walking or bus distance)

I insist that the problem with these random systems suggested is that the focus continues to be on children being fairly disadvantaged

Whereas the effort should be placed in making sure every child should have access to good quality education. All schools should be Outstanding, that should be the goal

Your only argument for faith schools seems to come down to the fact that it is not correlated with income (though this is arguable). If that is what you want, why not just have a lottery within an area of a sensible travelling distance? And maintain the benefits of mixing with people of other faiths.

@turquoisewaters

a lot are Catholic, and require that your DC are baptised by the time they are 6 months

Perhaps they do this to discourage the cheats?

I can understand in some countries Catholic baptisms occur when children are 1, maybe 2 years old. But much older is really uncommon (and I'm sure that if such exception occurred and parents were able to offer a reasonable explanation, school authorities would listen)

If the schools demand baptism by six months, and your tradition is a year or 2 years, then that's it - you are not in the running. (And actual lol at the idea that if you "offer a reasonable expectation, school authorities would listen". Not in this world, or the next.)

The "cheats" in this scenarios are people who are nominally Catholic (ie they were brought up Catholic, can reasonably fake it) and who do the minimum to satisfy the system, by attending church, baptising their children, and all the rest of it, but who don't actually believe. They are doing nothing at all legally wrong, but if you are really banging the drum for a faith education to be about faith, then it's a bit dodgy to have believers bumped to the curb and non-believers who can play by the rules ushered in.

But the reality is that discrimination against children by their religion is just plain wrong. The only halfway equitable answer is to have children allocated to reasonably local schools by need, not on what their parents profess to believe.

If that is what you want, why not just have a lottery within an area of a sensible travelling distance?

irregularegular yes, this is what I think (as mentioned above)! I haven't seen a sensible argument against it, here.