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?

@CherLloydbyCherLloyd I know, you're right. It's very complicated. 😔

I grew up where there was separation of church and state. No religious affiliations at any state school. There were private faith schools.
In this country we didn't live particularly near any state school (London, in an area where the schools seemed quite close together, so child A could live nearer three schools than our child did and still be in the same area). The two nearest were C of E and a Catholic. No way could my son get a place as half were reserved for those of that faith then of course siblings etc.
so agree, there is no place for faith state schools. And before anyone thinks it, I was born here and am English.

unsureatthispoint · Today 09:10
Out of interest @unsureatthispoint do you agree with state funded religious schools that aren’t Christian?

Yes, I do agree. I have no problem with other religions

unsureatthispount why do you have a problem with Christian schools but not schools of other religions?

My dc went to a C o E VA primary school. I am a fallen Catholic aethiest , but in our rural location, it was genuinely the most convenient school, literally by miles. In both my DC's years only 1 place was given to a baptised child who was a practising parishoner. Other children in this category would have been prioritised, but there were no such applicants.

Anyway, the point I want to make, is that when the school became an academy, it became known that the C o E actually owned the land and buildings The academy now have to them off the C o E - the Church has a lot more influence on state education than admissions and religious content.

There's been a healthy shift over the decades from RI (religious instruction) to RE and RS - and now philosophy, religion and ethics types of curricula

And a very good thing too, though it's still no guarantee against getting a teacher who'll use the opportunity to "slip in" the indoctrination wherever possible

Haven’t read the whole thread but to me it is a no brainer than faith should not be an admission criterion for state schools.

Imagine if there were hospitals for certain faiths only. Or police, or fire services. There would be an outcry.

I'm not sure if I think they shouldn't exist but it does frustrate me that I have no choice but to send my child to a CofE school even tho I am from another religion (but not religious enough to drive her 45 mins each way to the nearest school from our own religion). Our nearest school is C of E and the nearest secular is oversubscribed so we wouldn't get a place because being of a different religion to your nearest school wouldn't give you any priority to get in to a further school. I think that is utterly bizarre given that these are all state schools. The state is effectively forcing me to send my child to a Cof E school

I agree OP. I'd go a bit further and say that religious schools have no place in the education system- state or private. It's impossible in the city I live in to find a secondary school that isn't religious which leads to a large amount of families "finding religion" from year 4 onwards so they can get a place in a "good" school.

How on earth is an assembly that doesn't include formal worship, "funding discrimination" or "excluding religious families"?
Please think about the current position, whereby children of no religion have to participate in or at least quietly and politely observe Christian worship every schooldays.
Now that does technically fund discrimination - there's a carve out from equalities legislation in order to allow it. And atheist/humanist children have to suck it up, or exclude and isolate themselves during assembly.
Whereas if you remove the religious worship element, and address shared values and humanity, everyone is included aren't they? Why would people of faith have to remove themselves? Nobody's going to be preaching atheism or telling believers not to believe, or think about issues raised through the prism of their religion.

Well, this mother had to sue a 'secular' school because her religious child was being forced to 'quietly and politely' observe morals that she did not agree with. It goes both ways, I'm afraid

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/christian-mum-sues-sons-school-29112429

Well, if they are all good schools, they must be doing something good, surely

I agree with religious schools, Christian or otherwise

Well, if they are all good schools, they must be doing something good, surely

Sure... the 'good' ones are imposing selection criteria. Good for them.... The 'bad' religious schools in that area will not be oversubscribed and so can't exclude children based on the parents ability to attend the right sort of church.
As I said earlier, in areas with a lot of religious schools (mine too) if parents can't or won't attend church their kids are liable to just end up in the poorly performing religious schools rather than the higher performing ones.

It's really not hard to understand how this works, and how unfair it is.

Religion shouldn't be in schools apart from taught as a "world around us" subject. It certainly shouldn't be a criteria for entry, or taught as fact. I couldn't believe it when my 5 year old came home and told me that god made the sky and god is his father.
Religion is for churches and home.

Well, if they are all good schools, they must be doing something good, surely

As a pp says what they are doing “right” is imposing selection criteria. The selection criteria require organisation and effort from the parents (ie church attendance). That ensures they only children from parents who are organised and engaged and - in many cases - willing to bend over backwards to get their child a good education. Disengaged or chaotic parents are unlikely to be attending a place of worship regularly. Funnily enough children of organised, engaged parents who put effort into education tend to do better at school .

If a school were to set any other selection criteria which require organisation and effort - let’s say, children would get a place if their parent turns up at the gate every Friday at 7pm for a year and sings a particular song - it would have the same effect. It would select a particular sort of parent.

The state is effectively forcing me to send my child to a Cof E school

@Janefx40
This is an enormous problem. It is the problem which caused the first Archbishop of the RC archdiocese of New York, 'Dagger John' (John Hughes) to campaign against religious indoctrination of non protestant children in NYC public schools, which were in the mid 1900s run by a private organisation, thus laying the groundwork for the concept of secular public schools.

And the person who talked about sending their child to a Catholic school in Ireland to learn about the Unionists and British is the exact reason why religious state schools should not be allowed. If you want your kids to be indoctrinated with one side of history pay for it yourself.

@lieselotte the absence of any mention of Irish history and the history of sectarian relationships in the UK (of which NI remains a part) is itself a form of indoctrination.

An appropriate history curriculum in the UK should include the history of the relationship of one island with the other, and of groups within those islands, which together constituted the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (all coloured pink on the map of the world) for over one hundred of the formative years of modern Britain.

The selection criteria require organisation and effort from the parents (ie church attendance)

They can also involve an interesting amount of money, and not just in buying a house nearby

Several of our local ones require a signature from the religious leader to "prove" church attendance, and in getting that signature it's made very clear that backhanders donations are always welcome

A nice little earner no doubt ...

Unsureatthispoint my apologies, I misread your posts.

I hadn't seen that one in the press but have Googled it now. I guess we have to see what the judge says idc.
As an observation, I see this mother is represented by the Christian Legal Centre, which is funded by evangelical campaigning groups and labels homosexuality, as well as pre-marital sex, a problem - according to Wikipedia anyway.
I'm sure from the other perspective one could find cases involving LBGT+ children or children of LBGT+ parents who have objected to materials and teachings shared by faith schools in relation to sexual orientation crossing the line.
It's good that we all have recourse to the courts, in extremis, but... where one person's rights and protected beliefs conflict with another's, we really need nuanced discussion and mature compromise. Courtroom battles by their nature are an adversarial zero-sum win-lose game and the antithesis of nuanced debate and compromise.
I don't think schools are the place for campaigning and proselytising and I agree that "goes both ways" and the diversity of beliefs in a school community has to be respected, with delicate balances to be struck in areas of tension where individuals hold diametrically opposed beliefs, and rights conflict.
At the moment though, teachers with Christian beliefs, the vicar, and various Christian groups have a free state-sponsored pass to campaign and proselytise in my son's school, and that's really not on either.