To say religious state schools shouldn’t exist?

[Mushroo]

This is probably controversial but interested in opinions on both sides!

I attended a catholic primary and secondary school and had a lovely education (my parents are actually quite religious). However, given how increasingly secular the UK is it seems quite antiquated and divisive to segregate schools based on religion?

Where I live, our closest primary school as the crow flies is religious (c of e) and as a now atheist we wouldn’t get a place as we sit at the very bottom of the admissions criteria (other religions are given priority over atheist). This means we’d have to walk past it to get to the non-religious school further away.

This leads to many people ‘finding god’ in the nursery years to get a place which I refuse to do.

I don’t see the benefit of religious schools, surely if you are a religious family, you can learn about religion at your place of worship / Sunday school or equivalent.

I think state school should be secular and teach all religions equally (including atheism as an option) and places shouldn’t be offered based on religion. State school places should be based on particular needs (e.g. adopted children, siblings and then distance only).

Genuinely interested in thoughts, AIBU?

I hear you. The choice thing comes up lots but if all provision was of a high standard you wouldn’t need choice.

I also disagree with more choice for some than for others - which is the impact of these admissions policies. We were lower down on the lists than our next door neighbour on all of our four nearest primaries. The first three as we weren’t religious and the fourth as their house was one house closer to the non faith school than ours.

As it was we ended up incurring the cost of driving to school as the school we got allocated was not within walking distance. Whether or not Church groups met costs for the children on their roll was irrelevant to us. What was relevant was that they transferred additional transport costs onto us.

Religious schools that essentially bottom line keep so called fairies in the sky beliefs going and flat earth.... Are not comparable in anyway shape or form to grammar schools which merely cater to. Certain type of child.

I would be more supportive of a selection criteria that didn’t mean having to pretend to believe in a God, or follow the ‘right’ religion.

Religion is very very personal and it’s bizarre my child’s school choice should be affected based on whether or not I believe in an entity, and not only that, my method of belief (e.g. a catholic might not get into a C of E church).

Many people are religious without feeling the need to go to Church and they wouldn’t meet the criteria. It’s all very rigid.

I would be happier with a selection process based on any other arbitrary factors such as volunteering in the local community.

Faith just shouldn’t be a selection criteria at all, and parents shouldn’t need to adhere to a particular religion to improve their child’s school chances.

(to be clear, I don’t blame those that do, as it is the systems fault).

Do remember that it's not the case that the state owns these schools and is letting them have a religious character.

They are church schools, currently operating in conjunction with the state.

Even when the country thought itself rich (under New Labour) no buy-out/nationalisation scheme was attempted.

Yanbu. The worst academic performance is often the white working class, they are also the least likely to subscribe to a formal religion. Religious state schools exclude them and often do better in the league tables because of that but do nothing to help people who are really in need.

The Catholic Church only admitted that the Earth rotates around the Sun in 1992, they should not be allowed to be operating schools.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg13618460-600-vatican-admits-galileo-was-right/

Yes that was my experience too in the 1980,s and my nephew ,s also went to.the same school.and it was still.predominantly white British just a few years ago
however my sons Catholic school is in a very multi racial.area and in his school at least 50% not white British.

@Mushroo

Interesting point.

Like with like it's just another filter isn't it between those that value eduction and those that don't.

That's what much of it comes down too and I do think it's something to fear.

Some children are easily led.

The Catholic school local to us is very diverse with Spanish /Italian /Polish and Irish intake.

Only a couple of church schools in my diocese have a faith element as part of their admissions criteria, it's the usual siblings/distance mix. This seems to be the increasing scenario.

In an ideal world I would agree with you OP - this kind of segregation by specific criteria can never be ideal.

Meanwhile, in our very much less than ideal world, DD attends a CofE primary, for which we along with lots of our friends did the obligatory two years’ cynical church attendance. In our bit of London there are so many church schools that they massively skew the intake of the others, meaning that all the normal community schools have significant issues. If the church school hadn’t been an option we’d probably have moved from our demographically mixed area to a more middle-class one.

In such an unequal society as ours it’s often just a case of pick your poison - if not by religion, selection would (and does) instead take place by academic ability, or postcode, or income. Our neighbours, for example, are very vocal in their opposition to church schools, but still wouldn’t countenance the ‘challenging’ local community primary so have gone private instead.

Short of some kind of massive societal shift that abolished the class system and dramatically reduced inequality, the only way you could truly level the playing field would be to remove all parental choice - church schools, grammar schools, private schools - and operate a true lottery system, as has been attempted in Brighton. But this would mean pupils travelling much longer distances to school, which again would be less than ideal for friendships and the environment. Even if you forced all children to attend their nearest school, there would be selection by postcode, as many middle class families would simply up and move.

I would also add that, having taught in a number of state primaries, both church and secular, it is often easier to foster a strong ethos and sense of family/common purpose in a church school, which many parents appreciate even if they don’t subscribe to any religious dogma. While the best community schools can also achieve this sense of cohesion, in many I’ve worked in the ‘shared values’ have been so vague and pluralistic that there is very little sense of genuine community at all, and this has often had a knock-on effect on behaviour and so on .

In DDs school there are British children of Indian, Sri Lankan, Irish, Nigerian, Polish, Philippino and Ugandan descent. These are just the children I know of.

In my Catholic primary school class (I'm 37) it was a 50/50 mix of children who were white British and those who weren't. Some of my classmates came to the UK as refugees.

My secondary school was predominantly 'white' but that was due to the fact that it was in a much less multicultural area.

I feel that I agree that state schools should teach all religions equally.

My feeling is that schools that cater to a specific preference whether that be religion or sport or academic aptitude should be independent.

We send our children to an independent Christian school and even though we identify as “spiritual” my children seem to believe in heaven and hell and God.

I could be outraged but my spiritualism comes from a strictly Catholic background so each to their own.

Ultimately they go to school for education and children will embrace and discard whichever bits they choose.

Righto, so you don't see the benefit therefore they should be banned..... 🙄

Where we lived in the UK (now left, partly b/o the school system) the 'good' primary school was Catholic and you needed baptism certificate and attendance record to get in. So no chance for us.

The catchment area school was c of e, and you had to be church-going to get on the board. The Bishop of Ely had a voice in running the school, what does he know about teaching?

And they slipped RE content in everywhere - once around Easter, my kids went to a workshop, without warning, about (not kidding) 'hands-on approaches to crucifixion'.

Coming from a country where education is 99,9% state and RE limited to lessons you can opt out of, I find it outrageous that a state-funded school can be exclusive the way the Catholic one was, or peddle ideology like the c of e one.

Ironically, I've ended up in another country where the well-reputed schools tend to be Catholic...

I'm a Christian and I think religious state schools should be banned.

@EmmaGrundyForPM Are you practising? Do you have children? And why do you think this if yes to the above questions?

This is very insightful thank you. It’s exactly the same round here where many middle class parents ‘play the church game’, move or go private.

I think I would be less ideologically opposed to the idea if the process was a bit more honest.

If the local school said ‘look, we don’t care if you actually believe in God, but we would like you to show that you can commit to turning up to Church once a week and like the school values, that’s ok.’

Probably a hangover of my religious upbringing (ironically) is that I don’t feel comfortable lying (saying I am religious) to gain advantage.

I just dislike the charade of it all when I don’t think there’s really an argument for them existing.

Grammar schools are least conceptually based on the aptitude of a child, and not the personal belief of a parent.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy that schools with a criteria to get in, perform better.

My DCs CofE school had children from pretty much every culture/religion/country. It's in a very very diverse area though and reflects that.

One thing that would need to be considered if faith schools were banned would be what happens to the schools that are on land owned by the church. I presume that if the government banned faith schools my local one would technically have to be closed as the diocese own the land. Of course they could choose to donate/sell the land/buildings to the local authority but the school are church are physically attached. School use the church part during the week. Church use the school part during the weekends. It would still be possible to do so, but it would also be easy for either party to refuse to do so.

It seems a really crazy system. I'm in the US where the religious schools charge tuition, parishes and religious organisations provide religion classes amd sacramental prep outside of school hours, and you go to the school whose catchment you live in if you choose to go to the public school. I sent my DCs to a RC elementary and then public high school.

RC parishes I am familiar with tend to work hard at offering ongoing religious education for all ages and run very streamlined fundraising, as well as various clubs and service opportunities.

What is your argument for keeping them?

Op my knowledge of the religious school is that it's not wholesome goodly place, some of the staff are not pleasant, the head was appalling and many parents are also not in any way practising the ethos of religion.

Being religious was sold to me a way if being, trying to be better, kinder etc.

I've honestly heard and witnessed behaviour that would make the medici and old popes proud and to see the perps then walking Down the aisle sancitmonisly sucking on their bread strains those inner religious thoughts.

You may be right but certain parents (me) will do whatever it takes to get the best/most appropriate education for their child. And as I have more resources than some others that necessarily gives him more advantages. You can never level the playing field. Never. Others who have more than me will doubtless do even more for their child.

@x2boys YABU
live in a good school catchment = ££££
live in a very good school catchment = ££££££££
religious school catchment much bigger, mean less ££
The grammar school catchment is huge, meaning £

if there is no religious school, no grammar school, only the richer family can get in a good school.

It is utterly shocking to me how education - particularly primary schools - is infiltrated by religion.

Sadly it feels like things are too entangled to separate now - for example a lot of the land and buildings are owned by the CofE for example, I believe.

So I'm not that shocked by your post, OP.

What does shock me, however, is that being religious is an admission criteria?! WTF?!?

Church schools exist because the churches set up the schools originally when the State wasn't providing education, and in many cases the land and buildings are still owned by the church (usually CofE or Catholic).
I imagine the government doesn't want to buy them all.