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?

I'm not saying anyone is riff raff, I'm saying many children form Eastern Europe speak English as a second language, and some schools see this as a problem.

There are other ways to exclude certain groups eg the RC girls' school I attended had a rule you had to wear a knee length skirt.

In a town with a large Muslim population this effectively bars girls who, or whose parents want them, to cover their legs. And yes some Muslim parents see a faith based single sex education as better than a secular education.

My old school is now merged with the RC boys school. The current admission criteria gives priority to children from a different town who attend an RC school there over children who live closer but don't attend an RC school.

It is true at least in our area because I've had detailed conversations with our parish priest about it and he works closely with the school. Maybe it's not the same further afield but he said it was a government requirement... maybe local government?

And one of our parish priests believed that he could get children a place by phoning up and telling the schools that he wanted them given a place. Possibly because he'd happened to only ever call undersubscribed schools previously, rather than ones with massive waiting lists for every year.

Lovely man, but very, very misguided on matters of the Law.

@NeverDropYourMooncup yes that doesn't sound right at all... however that doesn't mean that my parish priest is incorrect about this other issue, if that was your implication? I can't know for sure either way, but I have no reason to disbelieve him as he is a very conscientious and 'by the book' man and priest. If he wasn't sure, he wouldn't have guessed/made assumptions/told anyone as if it were fact.

It's not a statutory requirement, so he is mistaken in that.

What do you mean? The (very good) Catholic school in my hometown won't accept anyone who can't get a letter from a church confirming their regular attendance for at least 6 months before their application. Which i think is really good, I personally don't believe that faith schools should be for people who aren't a part of the faith. Seems odd to me. Especially seeing so many AIBU posters who ask if they are being unreasonable for expecting their faith school to basically NOT mention their faith (or for wanting to complain when they do!) because it doesn't fit with their atheist beliefs!

It's not a private school, either.

Not quite. It's not that they won't accept them - because that's illegal - but because they're oversubscribed and are therefore offering places to the candidates who rank highest on the basis of their Admissions Policy; evidenced baptised Catholic and attending Mass regularly (plus looked after children/adopted from being looked after, whether in the UK or from overseas, plus those with the school named in an EHCP or where the LA has instructed the school to take them in accordance with the local Fair Access Protocol).

More Catholics apply and accept offers than there are places = intake is 99-100% Catholic. Fewer Catholics apply and accept offers than there are places = non Catholics in the cohort.

@NeverDropYourMooncup I did say that it might be a local authority thing, not a national government thing so I'm not 100% sure how you can be so certain when you don't know where I live? Unless you know it's illegal for LA to make policies like that?

It’s far more likely to be a school specific thing than an LA thing

Well, I do know the Admissions Code pretty well, so I can say with absolute conviction that he is mistaken that it's a 'government requirement'.

It might be a policy that the particular Diocese has adopted for their schools in the area. But it's certainly not law.

I have first hand experience of Diocesan Education Boards trying to pass local policy off as the law. I’d say that’s fairly likely tbh.

If the vicar / other relevant religious leader has to write a letter supporting the application, presume there is some coded wording in the letter that looks fine to the parents but has a sub text that says "take this child" or "don't take this child" in a way that only the head will understand.....

@NeverDropYourMooncup fair enough - like I said I don't know anything for sure. And I understand there can't be any national requirement because others in the thread have vastly different experiences, which makes me think it's more local. Maybe I even misunderstood what he was saying during our initial conversation! Perhaps I'll have another chat with him about it if I get a chance and report back with clarification.

They usually just sign a form.

I don’t think conspiracy theories are helpful!

I think 7b is open to interpretation. And they are only giving examples of what they think a 'commitment' should look like. I bet it's a riot deciding who should get those precious places.

It's not a government requirement at all, but some Catholic schools may only reserve a certain percentage of places for Catholic applicants. You can check if your priest is correct on this regarding your local school as schools publish their over-subscription criteria on their websites.

@CecilyP oh that's good to know, thank you very much! I'll have a look later. Got no kids yet but I am expecting (just found out last week) so curious to know more about Catholic schools, though we are seriously considering home schooling because I had a great experience being home schooled for part of my education and frankly learned more at home than I ever did at school!

Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly etc is pretty definitive

It said eg. weekly, monthly. That's not definitive.

But it ranks them.

Going every week will prioritise you above people who go twice a month etc.

Its pretty clear and easy for parents to see what they need to do!

And the 'eg' also gives leeway for people who might have very good evidenced reasons for not quite attending as frequently, such as having treatment for cancer/being in hospital, being a kinship carer for a lot of children/another child with SEND or illness, etc.

Generally, Priests don't have time to be faffing around writing letters as they'll have requests for hundreds of the things, so they complete a form. Essentially, it's a case of confirming yes, they have heard of the kid and their parent, they are catholic, they have been to Mass more than twice before submitting the application if there is ranking on the basis of regular attendance in the policy, etc, and gives the opportunity for the Priest to confirm if there are additional circumstances that they would like to be taken into account if possible.

The person dealing with the applications just wants all the information and evidence they need to put them in the correct category and ranking so the ones open to interpretation can be put forward to the governors in an anonymised format, the decisions of that meeting can be recorded, acted upon and then the rankings uploaded to the local authority so they can offer places in accordance with preferences. Having to deal with 1250 applications for 120 places in the space of about four weeks, wrangling the LA applications portal (which is usually a PITA before you take into account people not typing their child's date of birth, not leaving contact details, giving a different surname on the two systems, etc, etc) and all the queries whilst also doing at least one other job throughout means they don't have time to be policing anything, other than 'do I have the evidence? What category is this?' and moving on to the next application.

Thankfully, the majority of applications are cut and dried. They have Baptism certificates, First Holy Communion if it's secondary, priest references - tick, tick, click, enter the category code and done - or Christening certificates/confirmation from religious leaders for other faiths, enter the category code and done. Because that gives time to look at the exceptional cases and make sure they also receive fair consideration. The unlucky Admissions staff who have to manually input paperbased applications are under even more pressure because of the vast amount of time that takes in itself.

It's a complex process with strict legal requirements and time limits. And technology, which is usually the biggest pain of all. There's just no time to be arseing about with the sort of shite the OP's MIL is running her gums off about; it's ultimately the Governors' decision, but for them to make decisions in time to comply with the Law means that a pretty low paid grunt has put the hours in to keep their Committee meeting to under 97 hours long.

From reading through this thread, so many people seem to have absolutely no idea what practicing any given religion looks like, or how it can be evidenced for faith school entry.

In terms of what Catholic schools do at primary level, the Diocese of Westminster produces a form which schools can adapt to use as the Supplementary Information Form (SIF), which parents then use to support pupil applications. There's no assessing letters (though I suppose there would be nothing to stop a parent from submitting one), but that isn't ordinarily part of the official process.

This is an example of the SIF:
education.rcdow.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Primary-SIF-2021-22.doc

There are different types of faith schools.

Voluntary Aided schools can set their own criteria subject to some general limitations and can have all their places be faith based if they wish. Any limit would come from the school itself or the (religious) board that oversees it.

Voluntary Controlled faith schools are run by the local authority and have their faith criteria set by the local authority. So it could be the LA that insists on faith applications only applying to X% of places.

Faith Academies (or Free Schools) are their own admissions authority and can set their own admissions guidelines, including faith criteria - but those criteria are subject to approval as part of the funding agreement and as part of that process central government sometimes limits the number of places offered on the basis of faith. So it could be central government who insists on a limit.