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?!

@ArcheryAnnie

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.

Exactly. I cannot fathom how anyone could genuinely argue that it is necessary, or even the lesser of two evils, to discriminate against children based on their religion in order to avoid other forms of discrimination.

the people arguing for it are the people who benefit from it

The fact is that religious schools were founded years ago by religious people.

What would be your proposed solution? That all those schools are closed down and that there weren't enough school places to go round and thousands of children missed out on education completely (maybe remaining illiterate)?

How would that be fairer?

@turquoisewaters

the people arguing for it are the people who benefit from it

The fact is that religious schools were founded years ago by religious people.

What would be your proposed solution? That all those schools are closed down and that there weren't enough school places to go round and thousands of children missed out on education completely (maybe remaining illiterate)?

How would that be fairer?

Obviously not. If religious schools didn't exist there would be more demand for schools to replace them, and those schools would be accessible to all. As they should be.

If religious schools didn't exist

But they do exist and there are a lot of religious people who pay tax and are happy going there. So what do we do, burn them down? Why? We need to be pragmatic.

The real issue is why some secular schools are not doing well and hence some people want to avoid them. We should be focusing our attention on that.

And some are not as open minded and tolerant as they would like you to believe, especially when making sweeping generalisations about people with differing opinions.
From Catholic Schools U.K. data ( the census is published yearly and viewable online)-

• Catholic schools are currently running at close to 60 % Catholic children in their cohorts so there is not a problem with Catholics being refused entry based on date of baptism although obviously there may be individual instances.
• They have smaller percentages of British white children and double the percentages of black children compared to secular schools. They are clearly not favouring the white middle class as some are suggesting.

@turquoisewaters

If religious schools didn't exist

But they do exist and there are a lot of religious people who pay tax and are happy going there. So what do we do, burn them down? Why? We need to be pragmatic.

The real issue is why some secular schools are not doing well and hence some people want to avoid them. We should be focusing our attention on that.

Because, as already mentioned, religion should not be enforced by schools, regardless of whether religious people want it to be. I pay taxes and have loads of values I would LIKE to see enforced in schools, but that doesn't make it appropriate.

They are clogging up the system and making it appear that there are enough school places to go around, all you have to do is conform, and allow your child to be taught in a certain faith, but that is just plain wrong. There is a seperate institution for teaching faith, it really isn't appropriate to continue making it a part of schools.

@ArcheryAnnie

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.

Well obviously I can't speak for the entire nation, but in many rural and semi rural areas a lottery system would be expensive, bad for the environment and quite possibly reduce the number of children getting into the school that they actually want to go to. It's an idea that might work in a city where you have a high population density with people from different socioeconomic groups living physically very close to each other, but that just isn't the case in a lot of the country. To achieve anything approaching the same kind of mix here you'd need to be moving children to schools 20 - 30 miles apart rather than 2- 3miles in a big city. Lots more children would be having long journeys to school, the number of school buses needed would rocket and someone - either the LEA or parents I guess - would have to foot the bill for all that additional transport. Unless the schools in the group covered a huge area, you would still get some villages that had all the "better" schools in their lottery group and others that had none, so housing prices would climb even further in the already sought after villages. If anything, it would exacerbate inequalities rather than reduce them here.

What would be your proposed solution? That all those schools are closed down and that there weren't enough school places to go round and thousands of children missed out on education completely (maybe remaining illiterate)?

turquoisewaters don't be so utterly ludicrous - nobody is proposing that we close down schools.

All we are asking is that state schools, which receive public money, are not allowed to discriminate against any child on the basis of their parents' religion. It's not hard.

MrsAvocet what part of "sensible travelling distance" did you fail to comprehend?

@Beseigedbykillersquirrels

I don't agree with faith schools at all. Every school should be secular and reach the same agreed RE syllabus.

This, 100%. Religion is a private matter and has no place in publicly-funded schools imo.

If parents want a religious education for their children, they can get it at Sunday school or its non-Christian equivalents.

I do have the impression that C of E schools function less as faith schools and more as social segregators ( but that may well be my own prejudice). I’m happy to be corrected.
I would probably would have agreed with many of you a few years ago. Working in a Catholic school did change my mind. I am not a religious person but really enjoyed teaching the RE curriculum. The focus was big questions and the debate was lively. The main difference though was the unrelenting focus on development of core values of personal responsibility, full effort and finding your personal gifts and using them in service to others and your community. Removing the faith status from schools such as this won’t improve the surrounding schools as it also removes the things they are doing differently. There has been a lot more open discussion in The States about the impact of Catholic schools in inner cities and there have been attempts to recreate some of the ethos in a secular setting. This open discussion seems a more productive way forward as some communities clearly feel these schools serve their needs and the needs of their children better. Having worked in one, I agree.
Before accusations fly of discriminatory entrance practices, these schools are undersubscribed despite very good academic results, mainly used by Christian children but also by Muslim and secular families .

@ArcheryAnnie

MrsAvocet what part of "sensible travelling distance" did you fail to comprehend?

Sensible travelling distance varies greatly from area to area though. Saying "you will be randomly allocated any secondary school within a 5 mile radius of your home" would change very little here apart from it being a bit tricky for those who have no schools so close. The better off kids would still get the best schools and the less well off would still get the poorer schools, there would just be a bit less choice over the specifics. The only way to ensure significant mixing of socioeconomic groups would be to move many children further or in different directions to currently.There would be significant attendant economic and environmental costs. Either way, it would not improve matters in areas of low population density. It might work very well in big cities, but would be unworkable as a national policy.

Going back to the point of some Catholic schools requiring children to be baptised at 6 months as entry criteria and a PP being concerned that religious kids were left out.

Could it be that some schools in the UK are finding the cheating aspect problematic in general and this is why they have been forced to be more restrictive?

Practising Catholics will go to great lengths to baptise their babies as early as possible as they would not want the child to die unexpectedly without having received this fundamental first sacrament. Baptising a baby at around 12 months would be roughly the norm in countries with a majority of Catholic population (e.g. in South America). In remote places, priests would travel long distances specifically to baptise children.

Baptising a child just before they will start school is indeed very unusual as far as I'm aware and there would normally be an explanation for this.

Sensible travelling distance varies greatly from area to area though.

Yes, MrsAvocet, hence the use of the word "sensible" instead of specifying distances.

Nothing that you've posted makes any argument why discriminating against certain children on the basis of their religion improves school availability, except for those children who are privileged by that system.

@turquoisewaters
It will be part of attempt to avoid cheating, yes. We used to struggle with many things but Catholic families, even in the most chaotic of circumstances, would make sure that was sorted fairly quickly on a new babies arrival.

@ArcheryAnnie

Sensible travelling distance varies greatly from area to area though.

Yes, MrsAvocet, hence the use of the word "sensible" instead of specifying distances.

Nothing that you've posted makes any argument why discriminating against certain children on the basis of their religion improves school availability, except for those children who are privileged by that system.

Quite.

Sorry, I need to stop predictive text...
Baby’s arrival

@ArcheryAnnie

Sensible travelling distance varies greatly from area to area though.

Yes, MrsAvocet, hence the use of the word "sensible" instead of specifying distances.

Nothing that you've posted makes any argument why discriminating against certain children on the basis of their religion improves school availability, except for those children who are privileged by that system.

That would be because it wasn't intended to. It is possible to disagree with both religious based admissions criteria and a lottery. I have previously posted that don't believe religion is a random criterion at all, hence the OP's entire argument is flawed. However, I don't believe that a lottery system is the answer either - at least not nationally though I accept it might work in particular areas of high population density. There is no completely fair, incorruptible admissions system and probably never will be. The root of the problem is a shortage of school places of sufficiently high standard. Until that is tackled by proper investment in schools, not allowing new housing developments without expanding school places in the area etc, people will keep trying to manipulate the system for their own benefit and unfortunately a proportion will succeed.

@Lockandtees it's my personal experience and of course it didn't only benefit me but thousands of others have benefited, far more than that of kids on free school meals given the opportunity of a good school. You don't have to have faith to go to a faith school, just be tolerant of it.

I'm not going to apologise for being able to get far better grades than my parents socio economic status would allow. Let's face it, there's plenty of schools and parents that would be quite happy with kids like me not being in their school. That's the problem, not the faith schools.

Yes of course I want all children to be able to have a good quality education but scrapping faith schools instead of learning what can be so special about them would do more harm than good.

If it was part of overall reform where there were no private, grammar or selective schools then fair enough. Otherwise you're just kicking away one of the few ladders poor kids can climb.

I taught in a faith secondary (I am an atheist) and some parts of it I found interesting, others odd, and some shocking. Faith schools are no place for girls. I left rather than refuse to allow the teenage girls in my form access to contraception information they had asked for.

I also found it socially segregated. In the middle of the East End of London, the intake was white, mostly middle class. Some Polish or Nigerian. Not at all a reflection of the world outside it. At that point I taught secondary and the issues were real. As a form tutor whose pupil came to them pregnant for help, what I witnessed in the handling was a travesty of care under the name of religion.

Similarly, now I live elsewhere and teach rurally and in primary, the few religious primaries are run like private schools for the nice middle class people here who go to church. Nothing at all, again, like the land around them.

Despite that, the religious academy trust is the weakest in the area and it significantly underperforms so all those parents went to church for nothing. I say "all those" but numbers are declining so much that my nearest church primary is in danger of closing.

I say good. I would go the way of France and say religion has no place in the state or education. None. Children deserve to grow without it. If it's that great they can find it themselves.

No not grammar schools op, because they are also rely somewhat on money, given that all the children who get in are tutored to within an inch of their lives. My son doesn't come from that sort of money. Whatever he achieves will be on his own efforts.