To wonder if church schools are becoming undated

[Notasproutbutagiantpea]

*outdated ?

My youngest DC is off to start school in September and we are in catchment of a relatively new modern school with 5 class intake and also same distance is a church of England school with 2 classes. Both same good ofsted, both in past 2 years.

The church school catchment on the council website is basically the whole wider area, which is slightly confusing. But the church school has been undersubscribed for the last 2 years. Is this a low birth rate thing or the fact the the non- religious school is full more appealing in modern times? Maybe less people are christened, or religious, so find it harder to secure a church school if this is considered part of the application as still goes through the council, but you can add notes as to why you want the school. Plus the church school was saying before the place allocation that they still had spaces for September. A friend has said years ago that the head had said they pick who they want, in terms of family fit so distance isn’t an issue.

A couple of smaller schools (single intake) in the area have become academies so maybe it’s just smaller schools are struggling?

Five class intake? Like 5x30? That's huge - 150 per year, x7?
Primary of 1000+ children?

parents, no idea, how they got them, no idea, how they lit them, no idea, but yes, you are right about the demographic, I am not blaming the school, but I did remove my daughter.

I am just saying that being a church school does not mean much in terms of behaviour, and intake, etc.

I think it depends on area.

Around here, some villages have CofE schools, some are community schools. All have catchment as top priority. All equally popular really. Whether its community church is just a fluke of history... our village its community school as its the scho from the old RAF base.

They don’t afford smaller classes, they by and large have a smaller intake limit due to size of the facilities. This is largely due to them usually being very old buildings owned by CofE. My twins class is 18 kids and has capacity for 22.

I can't believe 4/5 year old were smoking .

I live in a pretty rough area lots of teens smoking weed etc
But i find it hard to imagine children of 4/5 smoking 🚬.

The CoE catchment covers the whole area around that school until it meets the catchment of the next CoE school. For a Catholic school, its catchment will be the whole area until the catchment of another catholic school. The non religious school will have a smaller catchment as there will usually be more non religious schools in an area. The catchment areas of church schools are independent of non religious schools. So that every Catholic family lives in the catchment for a Catholic school, for example

They usually have church affiliation on the admissions criteria but this will only apply if the school is full. If there are more children than places they will give the places to the children with church attendance or baptism or whatever it says in the criteria, and after that they give the rest in order of siblings then distance. If it isn't full they will take anyone who applies. They aren't allowed to deny entry on grounds of religion but they can prioritise places for the religious children.

Our local CofE school was undersubscribed partly because of the religion thing....most people locally are not CofE, but also because the vuilding was dated and old fashioned and not really conducive to modern learning.
A rebuild, plus changes at other local schools means it's now the most popular option
Plus people often just go for the nearest....and areas tend to have cycles in my experience.
So 15 yrs ago all the you g families lived near school 1, but now those families all have young adults leaving for uni, and the young families live in the houses near school 2, which all had older people in 15 yrs ago who moved in when they were built 30 yrs earlier but have now downsized.

But yes I agree a church school does not appeal to me

3 years it’s only infants. Different school for juniors. Same with the Church school only infants.

Some church schools do get money directly from the church, it depends on how they are funded and who owns what. We don't directly but they do own some of the additional land si the school comes with masses of outdoor space. The links to the school also bring lots of links with the local community so we get lots of kind donations and willing volunteers. The school get roughly the same per pupil (ignoring additional money individuals with other needs bring) but a smaller school has a lot less staff af the higher end of the pay bracket. We have 1 head low down on the heads pay scale and then just teachers whereas a bigger school head will earn a lot more and they'll be a senior team to pay too.

There are 4 main primary schools in our area, 2 CofE, 1 Catholic and 1 (the largest) secular.

I would say all the schools are equally popular, bar the Catholic school each of the others has a mixed intake of children. However the largest school does have better facilities so can often attract more people.

I took my son out of a CofE school. He has autism and the head just wanted him out as he might have affected their Sats results. Wouldn't support him whatsoever. Took them to a tribunal and won. He's now in another mainstream school and doing amazingly, like any other kid.

What am I reading?? You witnessed 4 year olds smoking cigarettes?? Pretty sure this isn’t true.

Why is the catchment for the COE school whole town and 2 neighbouring town rather than just a certain areas? I don’t understand the criteria then.

It may be the ancient parish, or because in previous years/decades even church schools in those places closed.

If you would care to share where it is it might be possible to find out.

And if it's undersubscribed of curse distance won't be an issue. They'll take anyone then :)

How could their tiny hands and limited fine motor skills work a lighter?

At one of the CofE schools I go to as supply teacher a different child lights a candle in assembly every day. The teacher opens the box of matches and gives the child a match but all of the rest of the process the child does.

So they are basically training them up!

I would have flatly refused to strike a match at that age. Still have a phobia about it now. Use an electronic arc lighter to light candles.

Depends. If it’s a Catholic school they usually have wider catchments to cover a whole town. If it’s CofE (usually well attended) it’ll cover a smaller area, so the drop in attendees is likely to be related to low birth years.

We have two church schools in our catchment (plus secular) one is unsubscribed and one is very much over subscribed due to reputation, the catholic school which is rated outstanding is also over subscribed. I really think it has more to do with reputation than anything else.

5, and why would it not be true? Do you think there are not 5 year olds running round unsupervised? Do you not think they would get up to stuff like this?

There's a push from CofE church schools to drop faith as an oversubscription criteria. Admissions policies are set way in advance c18-24 months before the Sept starts. It's back to the grass routes/original concept of providing education fir the local community. Which is why their catchment might be wider.
All UK LA schools follow their admission policy to the letter.
CofE schools are generally trying to promote a Christian ethos. Catholic schools are trying to create catholics - I found the documents about their purpose (available to all) to be quite fundamental in tone.

Gangs of marauding 5 year olds huddling up in the park for a ciggy

I'm not convinced about 4/5 year olds smoking either! Half of em can't even cut their own dinner up and no school in the land would let this go unnoticed - massive safeguarding issue.

How on earth could that be possible? Reception children are supervised at all times, handed over by teacher at gate to a responsible adult.

Unless this was in 1935 or something?!

This was in the evening, after school, not during the school day. It was in a park by the school, not on the school grounds.