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?

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.

Yes, there are schools which ask for baptism before 6 months or 12 months. (I can understand not in the year before school admission because that is gaming the system). A lot of families, not necessarily riff raff or east Europeans would organise a baptism at a time convenient to them, when friends and family can attend. Whilst others might plan 11 years ahead and have the baptism based on school entry. Or it could just be a lucky co-incidence!

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

Seeing I mentioned London, yes I do realise. I also know this is not unique to London though may be more common in the south than in the north of England.

Yes, I realise it is quantifiable rather than just saying, 'I have a Christian belief'. However, as this thread is about keeping out the riff raff, it works for that too. I'm not sure when volunteering went out; I know there was an issue with the London Oratory but it could well have been that long ago.

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.

Why do you think that? It's completely untrue!

Something else I have noticed.

RC primary schools in my area have 2 different categories for looked after children so in the admissions criteria the order will be:

1 Looked after baptised catholic children
2 Baptised catholics
3 Looked after non catholic children

and in the secondary school it states:

1 Looked after baptised catholic children
2 Baptised catholics in catholic feeder schools
3 Baptised catholics in other schools
4 Looked after non catholic children

Cof E schools do not differentiate between looked after c of e and non c of e children - they are all category 1.

Actually just rechecked and looked after non catholic children are category 6 after EHCP plan 1, looked after catholic children 2, and catholic siblings 3, baptised catholics attending feeder school 4, other baptised catholics 5, non catholic looked after children 6.
There are no limits on % of catholic children that can be admitted to either primary or secondary schools

Most Eastern European parents seem to baptise their children within the first month if they're living in their home country, three months if they need to travel back. Seeing over a thousand baptismal certificates a year tends to give this general impression at any rate.

Some faith schools have spaces that aren’t allocated on the basis of faith (they aren’t reserved for students who couldn’t qualify in the basis of faith). But not all. Plenty fill their classes before they get to the criteria that would accept most non-faith based applications. Even where there are some spaces that do not require faith-based criteria, it still gives significant advantage to places to people who qualify on faith grounds and disadvantages those who don’t.

And yes, I am against single sex schools, though I think there are some legitimate questions there about the way pupils are discriminated against within mixed-sex schools that could drive people into thinking it’s a good idea. That was also the case with faith at one point. I have a lot of sympathy for the position of Catholic schools because of the historical discrimination faced by Catholic students. But ultimately I don’t think schools should be denying places to people because of faith or sex. And discrimination within a mixed school needs tackling head on.

@ChilledAngelDelight Faith schools aren't obliged to take on non-faith DC, although the last criteria usually refers to some sort of "everyone else" catch-all category.

In our RC school, they never get past criteria 3 or 4 before all the places are filled, so the school ends up with only Catholic DC due to it being oversubscribed.

You also realise that faith schools are obliged to take a certain percentage of non 'faith' pupils right

some are. Most are not. There is a faith school in our town that takes 20% from catchment, the rest have to be religious. Otherwise, nope. Doesn't have to be the same faith, but you have to have something. The Catholic schools seem to like Muslim kids.

Discrimination against children because of the beliefs of their parents is completely wrong.

So much angst about grammar schools, but faith schools are far worse and should not be allowed. It's outrageous that I could have a state faith school on the same road and my son would not be able to attend. Grammar schools are at least based on a child's ability, not their parent's religion.

And I absolutely think some faith schools try to keep the riff raff out!

A friend of mine applied to the same faith school as her cousin. They both had similar church attendance, hers was actually a little better, friend also lived slightly closer but in a 'rough' area. Cousin's son got in, friend's didn't. They have criteria, but it's up to you to prove they didn't follow it! You also have to prove it to an 'independant' appeal panel hand picked by the school.

At least if parents really want their children to go to the CofE school they can do something about it by going to church for the appropriate amount of time - there’s no cost either.

There’s little that can be done if a child isn’t bright enough to get into a grammar and even if they are clever enough middle class tutored children will likely get in ahead of bright but less privileged children whose parents can’t afford tutoring.

At least if parents really want their children to go to the CofE school they can do something about it by going to church for the appropriate amount of time - there’s no cost either.

True, but then we’re back to the OP as generally the parents who really want the school enough to attend church when they otherwise wouldn’t bother do not tend to be the so called riff raff!

More likely one lived within the boundary for that parish and the other didn’t. The distance criteria are usually about that, rather than being about distance in a straight line from the school.

But this will be defined by the parents’ interest in education and the importance they place on it not their wealth or lack of it.

True, LittleBearsPad, but OP isn’t talking about low income but aspirational parents, she’s talking about ‘riff raff’.

We don’t know who OP’s MIL would regard as riff raff but on the basis she suffers from delusions of grandeur I think we can assume parental income is important to her

This isn't quite true.
Local authority makes the final allocations yes, but there is usually a supplementary application form for faith schools which is returned to the school(s) in question and they then get to decide in which order the applicants meet their criteria.

This is misleading.

Each LA will have a procedure so giving a definitive answer doesn't work here.

For example the LA I currently work in has nothing to do with admissions for VA faith schools other than passing the application onto the school.

Not the case in my Local Authority area, admissions are administered by the LA same as non faith schools, according to the school’s criteria. No supplemental form.

It's not where the school is its own admissions authority, as is the case with the majority of RC schools and academies.

After ranking of applications in accordance with the admissions policy, the only tiebreaker that can legally be used in accordance with the Admissions Code is distance.

Appeal panels are independent, by the way. The LA operates one for the schools where they deal with the applications (very few now academisation is the aim for all schools by 2030), but the others do need to find independent appeal panels, usually through an independent appeals clerk (which costs a lot of money, but there's no getting out of it, you have to get a truly independent panel).

My local Catholic primary (VA) draws lots for tiebreakers in each category, distance isn't used. Bit annoying for those close by.

Especially if they've been able to pay the inflated prices that accompany outstanding schools. Quite positive for families with lower incomes who might not be able to afford them, though.

It's not an outstanding school. It's just preferable to walk to your local primary I would have said.