To think faith schools should be forced to change their application process?

[storminborehamwood]

Most people accept that you can't discriminate against someone for their religion. So why can faith schools do it when it comes to kids getting a place?

AIBU to think state-funded faith schools should be forced to remove religious criteria from applications?

I know state-funded faith schools get extra funding from religion and that supposedly justifies giving priority to kids with religious ties.

I just can't understand why it's illegal to mark someone down for a job application based on their religion, but it's okay to do it for a school application.

@Just10moreminutesplease

I think it’s crazy that religious schools exist at all.

Who in their right mind would want children divided up by religion instead of learning together?

And yeah, I know plenty on none Christians apply for catholic and CofE schools. But they are still majority Christian and reinforce the idea that Christian is the ‘default’ (and I’m not sure there are very many none Muslim children at Islamic schools or none Jewish children at Jewish schools? Though happy to be corrected if I’m wrong).

Surely if your religion is so important you can just teach your children about it at home?

Totally agree.

State funded education should be secular imo. If you want your children to have a religious education, send them to Sunday school, yeshiva, madrasa or whatever the relevant equivalent is.

Where I live, there are 5 primaries, 2 are CofE, 1 RC. It's harder to get your child into a non-faith primary than in a faith one, esp as one of the CofE schools is much larger than any of the other schools.

Where we were previously in London, our two closest schools were CofE. The next furthest was an excellent secular school. We wouldn't get into the CofE ones because we aren't religious. We were too far from the secular one. So our kids would have ended up at a school further away still while parents drove their kids to the school just over the road from our house. Sensible? Fair? Basically religious parents get a wider choice of schools.

I also just don't see why the state should fund religious schools anyway - parents can teach their children about religion on their own time without excluding other children from their closest school.

Out of interest, what has been the impact of the virus on entrance criteria? Pre pandemic I noticed children at Mass getting a booklet signed by the priest each week, prior to school applicstoon. Then churches were closed.

Had the weekly attendance requirement been dropped?

Application *

There shouldn't be faith schools.
School is a place of education not indoctrination.

Why anyone would want to send their kids to these brain washing establishments is beyond me but if you value academic achievement above all else then crack on!

The reason I think that Jewish schools have dominated this conversation is because the OP sounds like she’s from Borehamwood which houses 2 secondary schools, one of which is secular and had a poor Ofsted recently and has some real issues and the other is one of the top state comprehensives in the country which happens to be Jewish and outperforms the majority of private schools. I can see that local non Jewish parents who would like a local school find it unfair that they might be excluded from the school.

Having said that, the school has an affiliated primary school which is a free school. A proportion for places are given for religion and the rest are allocated on distance. Whilst the distance places are mainly taken up by Jewish child whose parents probably moved to the area to get places there are also non Jewish children in the school who got distance places.

@NiceGerbil

'it's the parents' prerogative to limit their children's exposure to those whose faiths and behaviour they disagree with. '

???

There seems to be a strong focus on animosity etc here.

The fact is that in some areas if you're not the right religion then there are no local primary schools that will take you.

How is that ok?

Is that because local non-faith schools are oversubscribed, @NiceGerbil, or because there aren't any?

Due to a combination of a change in demographic and new building, there was a massive increase in the number of under-5s here a few years ago. Rather than enlarge existing schools, the LEA opted to add a whole new form of entry at one primary, and the only one that had sufficient space to have temporary classrooms was a CofE school on the very edge of town. So a lot people who want a non-faith education for their children can't get one.

Over the years, siblings have joined the school and its massive now. There are so many children going there from outside the immediate area that the traffic at each end of the school day is horrendous, and the roads around the school are gridlocked.

Meanwhile, a former special school site, close to the town centre and convenient for most of the town, has been left to rot for years.

OP I agree with every word you said. I have also never understood why it's ok to discriminate against kids on the basis of what religion they are, but not for a job (except in very limited circumstances).

In my view all faith schools should be opened up to everyone. You can still have the ethos, but it's very unfair to stop someone coming who lives in the same street.

There's so much hate for grammar schools but at least the kids get in because they are bright, not because their parents go to church or synagogue or temple or whatever. Even if they are tutored, they need the raw intelligence.

I also think faith schools can be very divisive.

I have also never understood why it's ok to discriminate against kids on the basis of what religion they are, but not for a job (except in very limited circumstances).

Not even what religion the child is - no four year olds has chosen their religion. Also, faith schools can discriminate when it comes to employment - I'm not really sure if they're meant to, but we knew a teacher who found it hard to get a job in our area (oversupplied with CofE and RC schools) as many wanted a reference from his vicar or priest.. Lovely 'ethos' there.

State funded education should be secular imo. If you want your children to have a religious education, send them to Sunday school, yeshiva, madrasa or whatever the relevant equivalent is.

The reality is that this would never happen in the UK. We have a monarchy and our Queen is the head of the CofE.

There would always be C of E schools as schools are an important part of how faith is transferred to the next generation. So if there are C of E schools, why can't other religions have their own schools.

Btw in America, no faith schools are state funded. Evangelical Christian, Catholic and Jewish parents pay crippling amounts for each child to attend their respective faith school. I don't think their society is more secular/inclusive than ours. In fact it is a nightmare for an atheist. When a religious school receives no state funding, there is no incentive for it to progress in line with what secular society values. JFS could have rejected state funding after the Supreme Court upheld its decision that it had to accept the children of Reform/Masorti/Liberal converts. But it didn't because it probably recognized that UK Jewish parents were probably not willing to pay fees and thus it needed state funding to remain open. And JCOss (UK's first cross communal school and which actively tries to build relationships with other faiths and also accepts non Jewish children) was also opened with state funding because there was no non Orthodox Jewish state school at the same time so it is a step in the right direction to make Jewish state education more inclusive & diverse.

@Travielkapelka indeed, op seems to be from Borehamwood where the religious schools she is referring to are Jewish. There are two state secondary schools, one Jewish, one not. The Jewish school was set up by the Jewish community and over the last couple of decades many Jewish families moved to Borehamwood so their child could go there. The Jewish school has some of the best academics in the country and a more middle class student body than the non-denominational school. But that is really pretty much entirely because it is a Jewish school (otherwise no reason to think it would be any different from the non-denominational state school).

I think what concerns me about these types of threads is that there is lack of tolerance to people who are different from you. In op's case, its jewish people. In other cases it might be catholics or other christian groups.

There are plenty school places in Borehamwood but in schools not as academic or middle class as the jewish school. So many in Borehamwood and elsewhere are angry at the local jewish community having better schools. But the schools would be just the same as the non-denominational school that op could easily send her child to if it wasn't a Jewish school. So you can't have the education offered by a Jewish school by saying it should be abolished It doesn't make sense.

I think its great in the UK that we are tolerant and open minded enough to provide partially state funded religious schools (which as I said must keep to certain standards and teach certain secular matters). These schools serve our diverse communities. If there aren't enough school places, of course there should be more. But that's not an argument to abolish good schools which serve a community that you happen to not be part of.

Its nothing like a GPs surgery. Also noone is being denied entry because of religion but children of a particular religion can be given priority for a school of that religion. Which entirely makes sense! If religious state schools are undersubscribed, they must let anyone in and many do.

I have family in Borehamwood and they have faced some hostility from non jewish neighbours accusing them of putting up house prices, having shops that they (the neighbours) don't want to shop in, having their own schools funded by the taxpayer (apparently Jews taxes don't count) and having everything "their way". Its can be frightening to Jewish people as this low level anti-semitism can lead to worse behaviour as we all know.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@sashh - that only applies to very narrow definition of teaching of the actual religion and it still has to abide by “British values” etc. the type of thing you mentioned should not be present in any school (faod religious schools can’t discriminate re staff etc).[/quote]
Oh look a school recruiting this week for a 'Practicing Catholic'

www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/headteacher-manchester-1484599

And another

www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/headteacher-medway-1485049

And some advice on when schools can legally discriminate on the grounds of religion.

neu.org.uk/advice/religion-or-belief-discrimination

@onlychildhamster actually state funding doesnt make any difference - private schools are equally subject to the equality act when it comes to admissions. JFS's policy refusing children on the basis of who their mother were fell foul of the Race Relations Act (now the Equality Act). It would be equally subject to that Act if it were a private school.

The JFS case (and others) set out that it must be something the child (preferably) or family do (ie practice of religion) not what they are or how they were born.

I think there should be no faith schools to begin with Children who choose to get religious education can do that in Sunday school / after school clubs.

@sashh - the link you posted actually says they cant discriminate. But faith schools may take into account if staff conduct is in accordance with the ethos of the school (provided that their selection otherwise complies with discrimination law). So I don't see the problem. If you're not a catholic, why do you want to teach catholic RE anyway?

@BubbleCoffee

All state schools must follow the national curriculum whether they're faith schools or not. It's mandatory to learn objectively about various different beliefs.

Academies don't and the only mandatory bit is that children learn about 1 other faith.

I have family in Borehamwood and they have faced some hostility from non jewish neighbours accusing them of putting up house prices, having shops that they (the neighbours) don't want to shop in, having their own schools funded by the taxpayer (apparently Jews taxes don't count) and having everything "their way". Its can be frightening to Jewish people as this low level anti-semitism can lead to worse behaviour as we all know.

When I was looking to buy in 2019, the first place I went to was borehamwood because I heard that was where all the young jewish couples were settling in. We bought in london eventually though cos DH prefers London. I suspect his sister made aliyah partly to avoid living in borehamwood!

But young families to the Home Counties is very normal thing nowadays and is almost expected. However, non Jews have the whole of Kent, Surrey, Bucks, Berkshire and even further afield to move to. Jews only seem to have borehamwood esp Jews with families in Golders Green/Hendon/other parts of north london. A lot of Surrey and Bucks Schools probably do have a very middle class, ex londoner demographic too, its what happens when a london terrace is over a million so people with a healthy budget often make the decision to move further afield. But unlike other groups, rich and poor Jews tend to move together as we need certain economies of scale to run our shops and schools and have a decent number of synagogues. I have hardly seen a mumsnet thread that says- help all the londoners are taking up spaces in my local school- which garners a lot of support. In fact so many mumsnet threads involved moving out of London! Well Jews move out of london too, they just don't have a whole list of destinations to pick from.

@Missgemini

I think we should be trying to improve the other schools that aren't doing so well, instead of being annoyed at the religious schools. Why do we think religious schools do better though?

They’re often better funded. Not always, but often.

I don't see why we can't continue to have a variety of state schools for a variety of children. No reason all schools should be secular because some people are secular any more than all schools should be jewish because some people are jewish. A mix of schools to suit communities is the best way imo.

I don't think there should be state funded religious schools at all. If I take your premise that they should exist then it's totally reasonable for them to include criteria for that religion.

Faith Schools in England and Wales are an accident of history. The CofE ran the first free primary schools in the 19th century, and by 1944 they were still a power in the land, joined by the RCs, who gained great kudos with the wartime govt when the Archbishop of Westminster went full-on fire & brimstone in favour of bombing Germany into the dust, no doubt in a spirit of Christian Love.

Coming at a time when you had several CofE bishops banned from the airwaves for their lilly-livered just war homilies, this was an, er, godsend to Winston and Co, so they were in his good books for the 44 Act.

Then enter Blair, who saw the Christian hegemony was unsustainable and decided he could co-opt other faiths rather than go secular, which was why he sided with the Sikh mob that tried to burn down the Birmigham Rep.

Should be abolished, more accurately all made voluntary controlled and told to go independent if they refuse, but won't happen.

@onlychildhamster - lol there is definitely a love hate relationship with Borehamwood with many in the Jewish community! Boring wood, etc. But last time I visited its really looking better.

Agree with your post though - noone is saying all the Londoners are putting up house prices in the home countries,etc.

In Borehamwood a some of the non jewish population are blaming the jews in part because they seem foreign to them and in their mind less entitled to things. For example, England flags in houses next to Jewish facilities and draped over the Eruv wire. As if it were mutually exclusive to be jewish and English.

I disagree.

I'm Catholic and my kids went to Catholic schools, as did I. I personally wouldn't want them to attend a school of another faith, so I have no issue with it.

It's right that priority is given to those who are of the faith, then spare spaces can go to others.

YANBU OP. But see also entrance exams, catchment areas and parent paid for uniforms or transport. Until every child can go to whichever school they/their guardians choose for them, there will be a way to game the system or discriminate against children.