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.

While faith schools (in England) are free to have an admissions policy that gives priority to children based on faith, if I recall correctly they are not actually allowed to exclusively give places to that faith if they receive applicants from other faiths who meet the other admissions criteria.

This is true but the admissions criteria can be:

1. Looked after Catholic children
2. Catholic children
3. Catholic siblings
4. Orthodox
5. Other Christian denominations
6. Other religions
7. Other siblings
8. Distance

That's what I have most commonly seen for Catholic schools - some CofE schools can be a bit better. But it's not hard to see how many years no one gets in on the basis of distance. The Catholic schools around here won't even give you sibling preference if you somehow make it in under distance so you run the risk of being stuck.

@Babdoc

Am I the only one who finds it offensive when PPs refer to religious teaching as brainwashing? Yet pushing their own atheist beliefs on children is apparently fine? And why should children be left to somehow discover a religious belief on their own? Do you also advocate leaving them to discover maths and literacy unaided? For those of us who are practising Christians, our faith affects our entire approach to life. It is not something we and our children just do for an hour on Sundays, and should be made to ignore during the school week. I am sure this is true of other religions, too.

But how do you know your religious belief is the right one? How do you know its not Hinduism or shamanism?

Taking religion out of their state schools don't seem to have made the USA a secular utopia of tolerance.

I gather many now homeschool because there are certain ideologies taught and some removal of family rights that are causing conflicts between state and families and parents and children.

Am I the only one who finds it offensive when PPs refer to religious teaching as brainwashing? Yet pushing their own atheist beliefs on children is apparently fine?

I don't know a Christian who hasn't lost and regained their faith many times. I have known many an atheist or woke person who will refuse to entertain that they may be wrong, I have yet to meet one who isn't obnoxious, insulting and superior about their beliefs unlike agnostics or people of various Faith's who seem to have a level of respect for others beliefs I have yet to experience with an atheist or woke person.

A non-religious school shouldn't be "pushing" atheism any more than a non-religious tollbooth or a non-religious planning committee or a non-religious mental health day centre or any other non-religious service should be pushing atheism.

I don't know a Christian who hasn't lost and regained their faith many times. I have known many an atheist or woke person who will refuse to entertain that they may be wrong, I have yet to meet one who isn't obnoxious, insulting and superior about their beliefs unlike agnostics or people of various Faith's who seem to have a level of respect for others beliefs I have yet to experience with an atheist or woke person.

That's more insulting and obnoxious than anything an atheists has said on this thread.

Where I live (Midlands) the CofE area diocese is encouraging schools to remove the church attendance criteria from applications process. Schools will remain Christian in character but inclusive to all .

CofE gave up being Christian a while back in my opinion. I gather Charles plans to quit Christianity for some new faith, a woke universal morale code, so this is what the CofE is preparing for, a mash up of ideologies, defender of faths he will be. The new state religion will be the international woke ideologies and a kind of mash up with Christianity etc.

Well unless you all want your taxes to go up massively so that the government can purchase all the land & schools that are owned by different faith groups (approx 7000) and cover all the extra funding - this is not going to go away!

The CofE in particular were one of the main proponents of starting schools and getting children into education - they accounted for more than 2/3 of schools in Victorian times and donated the buildings and the land

All faith schools are open to all, if they are not oversubscribed with applicants of that religions, but it does make some sense that people who practice that faith, want their children schooled in that religion and pay towards that school get priority.

Surely if you are not religious, you would prefer a non-denominational school anyway - the issue is that there are not enough good non-denominational schools - but that is down to government, not religions!

CofE gave up being Christian a while back in my opinion. I gather Charles plans to quit Christianity for some new faith, a woke universal morale code, so this is what the CofE is preparing for, a mash up of ideologies, defender of faths he will be. The new state religion will be the international woke ideologies and a kind of mash up with Christianity etc.

Sorry this is a very weird statement. I can't even begin to unpick this....

I’ve screenshotted our local CofE school’s admissions criteria. The faith-related criteria are numbers 10 and 11 (so a long way down the list). Basically they only use those criteria when considering out-of-area applications and I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all. But I do see a problem with children being refused entry to schools they live next to on faith grounds.

Faith schools are not fully state funded, and even if they were, being of a faith wouldn't absolve any parent from paying the taxes that fund education.

Why shouldn't the children of those who want them educated in a faith school also have state funding?

I don't see a problem with faith schools personally. All of them accept those of different faiths or none if places remain after those the school was set up to admit have been accommodated.

@jackstini

Well unless you all want your taxes to go up massively so that the government can purchase all the land & schools that are owned by different faith groups (approx 7000) and cover all the extra funding - this is not going to go away!

The CofE in particular were one of the main proponents of starting schools and getting children into education - they accounted for more than 2/3 of schools in Victorian times and donated the buildings and the land

All faith schools are open to all, if they are not oversubscribed with applicants of that religions, but it does make some sense that people who practice that faith, want their children schooled in that religion and pay towards that school get priority.

Surely if you are not religious, you would prefer a non-denominational school anyway - the issue is that there are not enough good non-denominational schools - but that is down to government, not religions!

I wouldn't actually mind paying more taxes if it meant that we could get rid of state funded religious schools. I don't think state education should discriminate.

I would absolutely prefer my child to go to a non-religious school, and in fact, she did. However, I fundamentally object to the fact that religious families have more choices with regard to school than families who are not religious, because of the way in which the system is structured.

In my area, the best local secondary school is not religious but it is very heavily oversubscribed. The second best option is a Catholic school, which prioritises Catholics, then other Christians, then other faiths above none. I know lots of religious families who had the excellent non-religious school as a first choice, followed by the Catholic school as a back-up. Clearly, getting their kids into the best possible school was their priority, over and above having a religious education per se. Why on earth should those families have had more options than we did for our dd, just because of their religious beliefs?

If they had been pushed to the bottom of the queue in the non-religious school, while non-religious pupils were prioritised, then I would agree that it's fair for them to get priority at the faith school. As things stand, they just have more options all round - equal opportunities at the first choice of school but a massive advantage at the back-up option. Not fair.

State funded schools should not be segregated on the basis of religion full stop. If parents want a religious education, then they should either pay for it themselves or persuade their religious bodies to fund it. Taxpayer funding should give equal opportunities to all children.

@ClumpingBambooIsALie

Its nothing like a GPs surgery.

It's not that a faith school is identical in every way to running a religious NHS GP surgery. It's that when taken in the context of all the many, many state-funded services people can expect to receive in a modern diverse liberal democracy (schools, police, prisons, waste disposal, child protection, national security, hospitals, driving tests, etc.) state faith schools are a weird outlier, because the majority of services in the majority of liberal democracies are provided in a secular manner — not "atheist" or "humanist" but secular, that is, provided without religious influence or favour, for the benefit of people of all faiths.

You spend 20 mins at the GPs (for a lot of people - not very often). You nip in to see a doctor, then leave. Hopefully less than once a month. Even being chronically ill, I don't spend spend too long at the doctors.

You spend 35+ hours a week at a religious school, actively practicing a religion.

Not the same type of place at all.

@SunIsBehindGreySky

CofE gave up being Christian a while back in my opinion. I gather Charles plans to quit Christianity for some new faith, a woke universal morale code, so this is what the CofE is preparing for, a mash up of ideologies, defender of faths he will be. The new state religion will be the international woke ideologies and a kind of mash up with Christianity etc.

What about the CofE is no longer Christian, exactly?

Surely if you are not religious, you would prefer a non-denominational school anyway

Of course. But where we used to live, our closest schools were religious and hadn't admitted anyone on distance grounds in years (based on their stats) and the nearest secular school we were too far away from to get into. So ironically, if we had stayed there, one of the most likely outcomes would have been a poorly performing religious school as those ones - for some reason... - are not over subscribed by religious parents..

I don't see why I should get less choice of schools when I get no choice about my taxes going to support schools that won't admit my kids

I also don't think it's unreasonable to want to send your kids to the school that they could literally see into from our house rather than walk a mile.

What about the CofE is no longer Christian, exactly?

They stopped believing that God created man and woman and doesn't make mistakes, they now offer multiple baptisms for human (politician, Dr, charity, individual) created man and woman under the ideological belief that God makes mistakes.

@SunIsBehindGreySky

What about the CofE is no longer Christian, exactly?

They stopped believing that God created man and woman and doesn't make mistakes, they now offer multiple baptisms for human (politician, Dr, charity, individual) created man and woman under the ideological belief that God makes mistakes.

Do you have a source for this? I'm not sure what you're talking about.

I'm sending my DD to the school associated with our faith, because at least I can guarantee that she won't be told she's a boy if she shows a preference for trucks and science. Mainstream education is Mermaided up to the gills, and is failing our children.

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/faith-schools-funding-money-religion-voluntary-aided-accord-coalition-a9192296.html

Funding is increasingly from taxes

EishetChayil

My children are doing the same for my grandchildren for the same reasons. They have seen the consequences of the woke ideologies with their peers, one friend a transwiddow and another a puberty blocked, sterilised adult - now attending Autism assessments. I attended a faith school and they did not, they as I have had our faith strengthen due to woke ideologies over the past few years.

Faith schools are part funded (to the tune of quite a lot of money) by the church/religion. The state would have an enormous funding gap to fill if they refused to have faith schools.

I'm RC, I contribute to the collection every week - I want my son to go to a Catholic school. He can't, because there isn't one nearby, but I don't begrudge paying so that other Catholic children can benefit. I'd be pretty annoyed if non-Catholic children were prioritised over Catholics (unless they're vulnerable/looked after etc.).

@CayrolBaaaskin

Also *@storminborehamwood* no one is “marking your kid down” because they don’t have priority for a Jewish school. A Jewish school is the most appropriate place for a Jewish child. Sounds like a non denominational school may be the best place for your child.

What is a Jewish child other than an innocent child having nonsense rammed down their throat without being able to give informed consent?

@MattyGroves

I also don't think it's unreasonable to want to send your kids to the school that they could literally see into from our house rather than walk a mile.

This

What is a Jewish child other than an innocent child having nonsense rammed down their throat without being able to give informed consent?

Jewish history, culture and religion is not "nonsense".