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?

As much as I'm anti religion, and would love it removed from primary schools, I suspect we'd all be in a far worse position if the gov was landed with all primary schools & the CofE pulled out completely.

Not that it ever would, of course.

More a case of the state infiltrating the church education system rather than the other way around though, so not so shocking.

I can see how the admission criteria thing works too, really. If there is a Sikh secondary school you'd expect practicing Sikhs to have priority for the places, wouldn't you?

This is what sparked my post! I was idly looking up admissions for my local school, and whilst I knew it was a religious school, I naively assumed at least half of the places would be for local pupils.

Sadly no, non-religious pupils are right at the bottom of the selection criteria which is:

1. looked after children
2. siblings
3. attendance at the school church
4. attendance at other local c of e churches
5. other religions
6. non- religious

It seems crazy to me that I couldn’t get my child into the nearest primary because I don’t attend a specific church, and not only that, my ‘non-faith’ puts me lower down than the ‘wrong’ faith.

Might set up an atheist school and to get in you have to plant a tree in the local area.

I don’t think there should be a state Sikh secondary school is my point.

If someone wants to go to a Sikh school it should be self funded (either by the religion or by parents paying to attend).

A Sikh can learn to be a Sikh without going to a Sikh based school.

You are correct OP, religion has no place in a child’s education and state school entrance should be based on your locality and not on whether you believe in gods.

Can we assume that you only want Christian schools banning or is it all schools of all faiths? Good luck with the latter!

My local school is a church school and despite being just a two minute walk away, we would be towards the bottom of the priority list because we are not a religious family. The next nearest school is a half hour walk away. If local authorities are hellbent on rolling out 15 minute cities, they’d better change the school admissions criteria.

@Mushroo I have never heard of admission gong based on religion for a state primary, apart from non CofE - eg catholic.
As enough for non CofE to do it, but fir mass market CofE big standard primary: shocking.

Which part of the uk is this OOI?

I'm curious OP, does the (I assume, non-denominational) school your child is likely to get into have a bad reputation/poor results/inadequate OFSTED?

Is that what has prompted your initial post?

My two children attend a catholic school- one primary and one secondary.

A lot of the assumptions people have made are completely incorrect. Both schools have a higher than average amount of children from different ethnic backgrounds- particularly polish and African. This has had such a positive impact on both children who have learnt lots of new traditions and to be more accepting generally. Due to the fact both schools are outstanding, many children who have EHC plans also attend and therefore it has taught them acceptance in this regard too.

The ethos of the school is forgiveness, kindness etc- promoted more prominently due to faith. This is important to me and a key reason why I chose these particular schools.

They are also funded by parents and local diocese and this allows for extra funding where needed- bursaries, extra 1:1 help etc.

Finally, we are catholic and attend church and other parents are the same. Nearly all parents in our children's class attend church and definitely share similar values to us.

Environmentally- parents are always going to be willing to travel to make sure their child attends the best school. If catchment was the only criteria this would mean that children in affluent areas would be schooled with other affluent children with not much diversity there either and vice versa.

Did you consider this when buying your house? I don't necessarily think kids should have to go to the local school, for us it would have been a lot easier for him to go to a school near work. Religion in our area actually comes lower than being in a feeder primary of the same academy trust

All faiths! I dont think it’s beneficial to only interact with the same faith in a school environment, nor do i think state funded schools should be able to restrict admission based on a belief in ‘gods’.

A quick google (so may not be wholly accurate) is that a third (c.33%) of UK schools are faith based, but the latest census shows that 40% of the UK identify as ‘no religion’. I suspect the figure is higher than 40% for parents of school age children so the numbers don’t even stack up.

Nope! They are both outstanding. I just think it’s madness I have to walk past the closer one because I don’t ‘believe’ in a god.

South Manchester - 3 miles from
the city centre, ‘leafy’ multicultural.

We are in a white majority area. DS' Catholic primary school is the most diverse by far.

I’m pleased to hear at least religious schools have become more diverse!

I wonder though if that’s the case for non c of e / catholic schools.

It can be a method of increasing access - a Catholic school located in a wealthy area will bring in children from a wider network - and is often far more diverse than the immediate population. With the 'nearest school' principle, the kids on shitty estates struggling with all the barriers associated with poverty and lack of opportunity have no choice but to attend the school on the estate.

Catchment areas are more of a barrier than faith. If your school is surrounded by million pound houses, no kid in the council flat is going to have a chance of attending. But the people able to afford to move into catchment will.

If schools can be restrictive on the basis of religion they should be allowed to restrict on the basis of race too. Basically religious schools are discriminatory and should be illegal.

This is really interesting, and probably the most compelling ‘for’ argument I’ve heard.

Im still convinced religion is the right criteria, but the premise makes sense.

*not convinced!

Totally agree, OP. It's totally mad that in an age where we're supposed to be encouraging social cohesion, the state funds religious discrimination against four year olds.

Despite the claims that they are more affordable than house price selection, there's at least some evidence against that - by having disproportionately well-off faith school populations, it drives a greater concentration of the well-off non-faith school children into the 'good' schools that they'd be able to get into - exacerbating the house price issue, and meaning that the 'not-so-good' schools have an even greater proportion of the most deprived (and often most challenging) kids than would otherwise be the case. So you have two disproportionately well-off enclaves -the faith school families and the house price selection families - meaning the less desirable schools have an even greater mountain to climb.

Agree entirely OP. And I went to catholic school myself.

Yes they ought to be banned. It's absurd that anything publicly funded is able to discriminate on religious grounds. We don't have catholic hospitals or Islamic police stations. I don't see any reason why schools should be different.

Totally agree. There's no place for religiously run schools here.

I completely agree with you they should be secular.
However it would be unusual for a C of E school to have religion that high up the criteria. My C of E school (yes we go to one but purely because it's nearest) uses local authority criteria of looked after child, siblings, distance etc. religion didn't come into it.