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?!

@lurch3r our admissions process for both primary and secondary is similar, but only one parent (same parent) can sign in. As my husband works weekends, I go and take my children with me to the family friendly services, but there are also evening and weekday services to cater for more families.

My children do go to a faith primary school and will go to a faith secondary, but I agree it doesn't seem totally fair. However, I somewhat agree with the OP it is one way of doing it that is available to all and I can't think of a perfect way.

The next best secondary school in our town we are around 100m out of the catchment and our catchment school (which is further away) is not somewhere I'd send my children. Therefore we'd move and would be contributing to inflating the cost of houses near this other school.

I can't speak for all faith schools of course, but DSs primary was much more diverse in terms of race and wealth than the MC school round the corner - where all houses in catchment were £400k. Whereas his school received pupils from further away including deprived areas as the criteria was church attendance and with distance right at the bottom of the criteria.

Friends daughter went to a posh Catholic secondary school. They went to church prior to her being accepted and a few times after then it became less and less then dried up completely by about year 8!
I would imagine many families do this.
It's sad that all schools can't be as good as this school was ( many miles away from where they lived too)

I don’t think this is a fair overall picture of religious schools. It’s a chicken and egg situation. They do often do better academically. They also have a quite distinct ethos and are not directly comparable with secular schools because of this. I have talked about this before on this site but I taught at a Catholic school ( I’m not a Catholic). Behaviour expectations were extremely high and the ethos of working for a common good and taking responsibility for your actions ran deep. This came ahead of the academic performance but fed into it. For context, this was an inner city area with great deprivation. Our academic results were in the top few percent in the country. We avoided the middle class fake church goers as they would not have wanted a school in this area. I have worked in both and it is not just down to parents or funding ( it is not true that funding is better, they are often responsible for their own buildings and repairs). Their was a mix of religions and a very wide range of ethnicities. Look at what they do well.

There was a mix..
That’s embarrassing.

To me a school where they teach the existence of a magic man in the sky as fact cannot be taken seriously as an educational setting

@GoneScone

To me a school where they teach the existence of a magic man in the sky as fact cannot be taken seriously as an educational setting

Neither can answering the wrong question. If this was an exam you’d have failed it.

Okayyy.. luckily it's not

I think Faith, Selective and private schools should all be abolished

@GoneScone

Okayyy.. luckily it's not

Please re read my OP. I wasn’t making a case for religious schools because I think religion is so great.

Well, one thing I liked was that the children were very respectful and would not refer to another’s faith as worshiping a magic man. We visited the local Hindu temple and had representatives from the local Mosque visit and had some great discussions. It is important to be tolerant living in mixed environments. Atheism was equally respected and discussed.
I think you’re right OP that a lot can be achieved with parental who are supportive of the ethos.

If a school receives state funding I don't think it should be allowed to select on the basis of religion or ability

Parents who are supportive of the ethos ( I think it’s time for me to go to bed.. )

Incidentally there are no secular state funded schools in the UK.

There is a requirement to have a communal act of Christian worship every day.

Obviously a lot of schools don't really bother but nevertheless that's the law.

If the school is not Christian they can apply to get it changed Jewish etc instead.

OP I'm interested in your thoughts on areas which have predominantly faith schools with religious entry criteria. Don't you think that is discriminatory?

Blackberry learning about different religions (RE) is not the same as worship or subscribing to a particular religious belief.

I've re-read your OP - genuinely wasn't trying to be rude, but the point I was making is that faith school aren't so great everywhere. For one, they teach religion as fact which to many, is a big negative. Demographics may play a part here, but for the (non-faith) secondary school my DD's just got into, there are many folk cheating the system to get their children a place. Again as I say, this could be different everywhere. The two faith based schools closeby to me do poorly in OFSTED inspections, have poor rates of attendance and high incidences of bullying and exclusion. They're also full of predominantly white, locally- born kids so cultural exposure is minimal. None of this appeals to me as a positive.

Worship was optional.
I think most would be surprised by how R.E. is actually taught in a Catholic school. It is question and discussion based.

It's true that they teach about other faiths in a respectful fashion at my dc school. We were having a discussion tonight with our 7yo who wanted to hear about alternative festivals to Christmas and Easter in other religions and his older brother was all over it.

RE has a set curriculum I'm sure.

You can opt out of the worship in practice it usually means missing assembly though.

I know many schools don't do it, the law says they are supposed to though

@wondermule

Do you have any evidence that it's the cheats that push up the results of faith schools? I think it's important as it seems a key part of your argument.

It does have a set curriculum but it is question and discussion based.

We had a small number of Muslim children who sat out of mass. Others would attend. All chose the school over other secular local choices as they were supportive of the general ethos and thought it was of value to have more in depth faith education even of a different faith. My children went to a Catholic primary and they understand cultural references that many adults would miss. We are not a religious family. Education is education.

Both mine went to a Catholic Primary. I'm not Catholic but DH and family are. I don't believe that Catholic Schools attract more affluent students. It's not the case at their school. They have a large number of new arrivals/EAL who they have to try to include at late notice & the students have little English.

Discipline is better than other primary schools in the area. They are expected to sit still for longer periods from a young age. Mine were sitting still for an hour or so for mass on a Sunday when they were toddlers. It's just the expectation that they do this.

With regard to religious people working at weekends, there are masses at different times of the day both Saturday and Sunday.

The traveller community are Catholic and I don't think they are more affluent. Many of the parents of the children at our school are key workers (care workers, factory work, NHS).

www.catholiceducation.org.uk/about-us/faqs

With regards the funding, the Church provides the buildings and so saves money for the taxpayer.

The school buildings and land of Catholic schools are owned by the Catholic Church. The Church provides these premises, at no charge, to enable the state to fulfil its obligation to provide education for the population. The day to day running costs of Catholic schools are funded by the state in the same way that all schools are funded (either through local authority or DfE funding agreements). The Church covers 10% of the capital costs for the maintenance of the premises in all voluntary aided schools.

Through this arrangement the Catholic Church saves the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds a year.

I think people pretending to be religious to get into a certain school is an awful thing to do.

@Wondermule

Crikey I was putting too much faith in the reading skills of mumsnet users before posting this!

I am NOT saying faith schools are good because religion is good.

I’m saying religion is a better way of filtering admissions because it is a ‘random’ marker that doesn’t denote wealth, intelligence or class. This creating a more equal school.

I think you were putting too much faith in your own analytical and comprehensive skills.

If you can’t work out that the Jewish school in Golders Green will end up getting better results than that Sikh school in Goodmayes, maybe YOU need to go back to school.

Some will be more mixed with religion as an admission criteria. We had the mix described above but also started to get some children of visiting academics who saw the results, wanted a Catholic school, and, because they weren’t local, weren’t scared by the postcode!