To expect fair application to faith school?

[ordinaryriffraff]

I am slightly disturbed regarding a statement made by MIL.
She suffers from delusions of grandeur so please can you help?
She recently suggested that the school governors and head teacher go through applications made to local faith based school and are thus able to "keep riff riff out".

Can any teachers, especially head teachers let me know if this is actually something that happens??? Or is this yet another fantasy in MILs head?

It also isn't the school you'd send your DC to? 😉

I work with a lot of schools as part of my job (I run a food bank and we sometimes take referrals from schools). It has really changed my view of what makes a school desirable to me as a parent. A school that has a sound understanding of the families it serves and their individual needs, and which takes steps to provide the tailored support that families need, is in my view a better school than one which (as I’ve experienced) puts its proverbial fingers in its ears and says “La la la, no help needed here, we’re absolutely fine” when there’s evidence that their pupils are not. Because the latter will trip up not only on the hunger/SEN/poverty/behaviour stuff that seems to be insinuated with the phrase “riff raff”, but with the many things good and bad which invariably affect kids from the most middle-class families.

A parent's religion is nothing to do with if a child is offered a place at a school or not. It's if the child was baptised in the parish the school is in, followed by children baptised in other patishes. Distance from the school is so further down the criteria along with siblings at the school. Volunteering at church or regular attendance does not increase your chance of admission as it is all allocation by your LEA, with proof of baptism needed if a place is offered.

Sorry lots of typos as very tired!

This would be pretty easy. It’s a purchase of capital, so from a finance perspective, the government could just exchange other assets that it holds for the land and buildings of the schools. The government wouldn’t be any worse off as it would still own the schools as assets.

You can pretend that child baptism isn’t a proxy for parent’s faith if you want, I suppose. But it makes you look like your not discussing in good faith.

In any case, different faith schools have different criteria. I was under the impression that requiring baptism in a particular geographic area had been banned because of its unequal impact on ethnic minorities. But perhaps not. In any case, lots of schools don’t require that. In London, most of the CofE seemed to require a year’s attendance at weekly church services by at least one parent and the child. Baptism not required.

Unequal impact on Ethnic minorities isn't really an issue that needs to be considered in my local area as it's a predominantly white, English, Cristian area. Parental religion is also a non issue as we have an abundance of primary schools, Catholic, C of E and secular so almost every child gets their first choice of school.

The point I'm trying to get at though, is why would you want to send your child to a religious school when you aren't that religion? Catholic schools in particular are very religion focused, so if you don't want that for your child why would you say you are being discriminated against when refused a place if you aren't that religion. Why would you want to take away the place of a child who is immersed in the church and the Catholic way of life?

They don't have tome to do that, but they do have time to change criteria to keep out 'riff raff'.

Lots of RC schools used to just ask for baptism and church attendance.

Then we had mass migration from Poland and other Eastern European countries.

Lots then changed their policies to 'baptism before 6 months' or 'baptism as soon as possible'.

Now many Polish people take their baby 'home' for baptism to the same church they were baptised in, partly so relatives can attend.

And of course you need to have a passport for your baby, who must be well enough to fly, so you can't just jump on a plane.

Add to that tradition of not baptising before age one.

@NumberTheory Baptism isn't a proxy for the parents faith; in the Catholic Church Baptism is one of the 7 Sacraments, meaning it's an integral part of an individual being brought up in the faith. I am RC, my DC's father, my EXDP is not, however he was happy for the DC to be raised within the faith.

You don’t seem to have understood the purpose of anti-discrimination rules, but no matter. There are all sorts of reasons some parents might want to send their kids to a religious school even though they don’t share the faith. It may be the closest one, or most convenient, or even the only one in the village, or they might have friends, neighbours, or family there. Or it might have the best Ofsted score in the area. Or it might be the only outstanding state school in the area or be a feeder school for the most outstanding secondary. Or the parents might want a school that they think has found a way to keep out the “riff-raff” and won’t have as many kids in poverty, kids from chaotic backgrounds, kids with parents who don’t really care about education. Some parents might actually want their kids to receive a religious education even though they don’t share the faith because they think the ethos is good, even if they don’t believe the basis of it.

In an area where pretty much everyone can get their first choice of school you won’t have the same issues because there won’t be much discrimination in places. But there are areas of the country where there aren’t enough school spaces, where some kids are going to get allocated totally unsuitable spaces miles from their homes that will leave them without local friends and will be a logistical nightmare. Sometimes making it necessary for parents to change their work/hours and lose income or have to pay significant amounts for care that they wouldn’t have to if they could go to the state faith school just round the corner. And the families that are hit badly like that are more likely to be the ones that are already at the lower end of the income scale. Faith schools in highly selective areas, in general, take way fewer kids who qualify for FSM.

So baptism isn’t a proxy for parent’s faith, and your “evidence” of this is that your child has been baptized and has a parent of faith?

I'm simply explaining how bringing up a child in the RC Church works @NumberTheory.

Faith schools in highly selective areas, in general, take way fewer kids who qualify for FSM

Evidence?

There are so many CofE schools that they are formative of the norm. And their demographic is in line with national demographics. RC tend to have higher proxy markers for deprivation than the general community (perhaps because of the high proportion of recent arrivals to UK?)

Yes of course there will be some individual schools where that’s not the case, and the numbers with proxy markers of deprivation are lower, but that’s not representative of the overall national picture. (After all, some community schools also have lower markers of deprivation than the area in which they are located)

A very mixed cohort at DCs faith school so I am pretty sure no one has sifted out the 'riffraff'.

Volunteering at church or regular attendance does not increase your chance of admission as it is all allocation by your LEA, with proof of baptism needed if a place is offered.

Sorry but you are wrong! You seem to be talking about a specific school, but for many faith schools regular church attendance over a certain period is very high up on the over subscription criteria!

Eh? All schools have an admissions policy, regardless of whether theyre faith schools, academies or LA schools. The LA carries out ALL the admissions in all schools apart from private schools. If you don’t meet the criteria for a faith school, you will not get a place unless the school is undersubscribed - ie there are fewer applications than there are places. Some faith schools in oversubscribed catchment areas will solely have pupils that are of that faith. Others, like the one I work in, will have a broad mix of faiths. My school is not oversubscribed, which is why the pupils are multi faith.
You have to be able to demonstrate that you are committed to following a particular faith in order to get a place in an oversubscribed faith school. One way is via church attendance and being baptised.
The Headteacher you spoke to was being honest. If there are 30 places, and 100 applicants, church attendance is one way of narrowing down the number of applicants.

You also realise that faith schools are obliged to take a certain percentage of non 'faith' pupils right? Do you feel as strongly about discrimination when it comes to single sex schools or do you just have an issue with religion? Ultimately regardless of admission criteria, a school only has a set number of places so there will always be someone who loses out if it's in an over subscribed area. Is it fair that a child might not get to go to the same school as their friend? Possibly no, but that's life. They will make new friends. A child who wants to be fully immersed in the Catholic experience and take part in all the rights of passage such as First Holy Communion should take priority every time over someone is non Catholic but their parents didn't like the secular option.

This is the way it is in the vast majority of schools in the north of England. I'm assuming you are in the south where competition for places is a lot higher?

Would you like to signpost the schools that do this? Because I’ve never heard of it. There would be absolutely no need to change the admissions criteria to specify the age by which children should be baptised. All that happens is where the school has more applications from baptised children than it has places, the distance from school criteria would kick in.
Also, are you implying that people from ‘Poland and other Eastern European countries’ are ‘riffraff”?

The point I'm trying to get at though, is why would you want to send your child to a religious school when you aren't that religion? Catholic schools in particular are very religion focused, so if you don't want that for your child why would you say you are being discriminated against when refused a place if you aren't that religion. Why would you want to take away the place of a child who is immersed in the church and the Catholic way of life?

But many parents are of that particular religion and have strong beliefs but simply don’t fulfill the churchgoing requirements. You seem more fixed on Catholic schools in your own area where a baptism certificate is all that is required. In London you can turn your question around and ask, Why would you want to take a place away from a Catholic child who lives within a a short walk from the school and give it to a Catholic child of more observant parents who live the other side of London?

The church attendance as a requirement also seems to be a CofE school requirement more than for a Catholic school

Attendance is a permitted criterion under the Admissions Code. Because that’s pretty basic in membership of a religion (remember this is about a countable way of demonstrating membership, not a subjective test of quality of faith)

Volunteering however was excluded ages ago (revisions of 15-20 years ago?) on the grounds that availability of free time to do the volunteering is not something everyone has.

What you need to realise is that you are talking about London, not the the rest of the country. These issues you have do seem to be London centric

Your mum’s not completely wrong though. It is essentially a way of selecting mostly white middle class families who have the time and resources to play the system.

I don't think this is true. My DC went to a Catholic primary & it was really diverse with lots of EAL children. It was also a lot more diverse financially. The other primary schools in the town are much more white and middle class.

The difference I think is that they wear shirts & ties from reception class so look smart. They are also expected to sit for long assemblies & mass from reception class. So it might look like they are better behaved.

I'm not Catholic and wouldn't want my children in a faith school unless they followed that faith. It's a regular feature in a Catholic primary.

I think schools are obliged to apply the criteria fairly and they can't refuse to take a child based on them being 'riff raff'. Does your MIL (and some posters) believe that just because a child goes to mass they won't be badly behaved? Going to mass doesn't make you middle class. Are traveller children middle class? Are the children of the Hungarian family who are factory workers middle class?

I'm pretty sure the diocese partly funds faith schools.

Briefly on the "white middle class" thing - my husband are practising Catholics living in one of the whitest parts of the country (rural Cotswolds) and we have been to 5 or 6 Catholic Churches as well as Clifton Cathedral, and let me tell you it's the most diverse group of people I've honestly seen anywhere in church or in the rural Cotswolds.

When I went to C of E churches it was literally all white even in larger towns and cities... in the Catholic Churches there are black people, south Asian people, East Asian people, South American people, different race couples with mixed race kids - anyone you could imagine in any combination, they're there... and most of them are super hardcore Catholics too (which I adore! It inspires me), more so than many of the white people - and nearly all of the non white attendees are 30s to 40s couples with kids.

The only demographic that is significantly whiter is the much older people (like 70s+) but even then there are exceptions - I can remember one specific south Asian older mother figure with her daughter or maybe grand daughter at mass, the older lady was in a beautiful soft rose coloured sari with gold detailing, which is why I remember her!

We have been to the churches that the catholic schools go to and from what I remember there was a fair mix of ethnicities there too within the school kids - despite being the whitest part of the white as anything Cotswolds 😂 but it was less diverse than other churches that we had been to in other areas for sure.

Furthermore, I think that Catholic schools are only allowed to select Catholics up to 50% of the student population, and then it's a free for all, Catholic or not - but the parents do have to accept that their child will be going to mass etc regardless of the home faith (or lack of one) so if they don't want that they shouldn't apply. I don't think it's wrong that faith schools exist (as I think many some people here might be implying but I could be misreading) and I think they should prioritise those with the faith, for obvious reasons. I just think that all schools, grammar, comp, etc all need massive improvement. I went to an all girls grammar and then switched to a co-ed comp and both were essentially hell on earth. 2 out of 4 of my primary schools were also pretty bad. I also worked at a private school and from what I could tell it was alright for most of the girls there. All of this was in the Cotswolds and there was always a mixture of ethnicities (to varying degrees - the private school was the most diverse) which, if I were to think about it in a purely analytical way, were probably over represented for the actually makeup of the local community - but that obviously wasn't an issue for anyone.

So I guess my point is that it's not always what you might think, and in my experience of all different types of school and my experience of specifically Catholic Churches, even in the rural Cotswolds, there never seems to be race bias or filtering. Obviously it could be different for different parts of the country, but that's just my personal experience. I obviously can't speak for any other type of faith school as I have no experience of them.

Obviously if a school isn't particularly oversubscribed, this whole thread is irrelevant. It may be more prevalent in the south of England but there are definitely some schools in the north that are affected.