To think its unfair that my DD will probably not get into the state school I can see from my window

[dilemma456]

Message withdrawn

I know I said I wouldn't post again on this thread but LOL @ Miffy: "I agree with Dollius' message (top)...in an oversubscribed School in a village with one School people from the village should have priority."

That is exactly the point I was making yesterday which you disagreed with vehemently. Or perhaps you mean that it should apply to people in villages but not us nasty inner city people?

no I would turn all of the schools into state schools nolonger...

without shutting them down

but then noonki you would lose the funding from the church, the schools would eventually be no better than the other schools and people who dont go there wouldnt want them anymore

or is that the point?

no - when I am prime minister the church funding will be replaced by government funds. And all schools would be better funded.

why would I not want people to go there?

well then can you be prime minister now?

I didnt mean you in particular and I didnt mean not wanting people to go there, I meant that taking away my dds church school isnt going to help your childs education be better (I use you as a general term not actually you)

If you remove the church funding from my dds school then it would most probably fall greatly in achievement for a variety of reasons. So where as at the moment my dd and hundreds of none christian children are getting an outstanding education partly because of church paid for resources they would go to getting a worse education.

Why would anyone wish that on someone elses children? I cant access the state school up the road in my catchment area that has mainly upper middle class parents who raise a fortune in donations for the school through the pta because they are wealthy and they can and hence the school is outstanding because of the resources the pta pay for, but I would never wish that they stop being allowed to plough private money in purely because their children might get a better education than mine.

but the PTA at the other school don't go preaching their own beliefs to all the children do they? If competition for schools is high in your area and your nearest school is a faith school then you would have a hard time getting them into a slightly further away non-denominational school. That's why I think it is unfair.

nappy the non-domination school dd was at nursery in preached more about religion than dds church school now! She knows loads about the Muslim faith now and I didnt ask for her to be preached to about that, (I dont mean teaching about other religions I mean PREACHING because most of pupils were muslim and lots of the teachers were.

The difference being when I signed dd up in a non domination school I didnt expect her to be preached to about a faith, when I signed her up to the church school I did. In my area there are plenty of closer schools that are none church and decent schools, if people dont want a christian ethos they can go there or they can opt out of religious teaching at my school.

What do you mean with the nearest school being a faith school comment? Did you mean not wanting to go to a faith school and not being able to get into next nearest school or did you mean having trouble getting into either?

I am SO going to go to Church schools after half term and do a survey on how many children are church attenders or baptised you know, because there are only 2 that I know of in dds class.

nolonger - either not being able to get into the faith school or not wanting to go there even if you could.

in faith schools how exactly is the christian ethos put across? is it just in RE and assembly or at other times too?

for example in language lessons at my old school you used to learn the our father and hail mary in french, spanish and german and had to say them at the beginning of each lesson. some of the form tutors who were religious also made you say it every morning in form. whilst you could opt out of RE, mass and assembly you couldn't really opt out of the other things. some people's parents wanted them to opt out but the children didn't want to because they didn't want to be the odd ones out - another important factor. it's very easy to say well they can opt out but children often don't want to be different to everyone else.

In my dds school its just in assembley and re, they say prayers (not hands together eyes closed business) at lunchtime although these are being thankful and do not refer to a God. Its a thankyou to the people who have prepared dinner for them basically. They do teach them its not Christian to be unkind though.

Its nothing like your old school thankfully!
Even I wouldnt like it to be in every lesson like that.

My main thing with wanting my dds faith school is because at the three community schools here they arent allowed to make and put up Christmas decorations, have a tree up, do christmas cards and colourings and things and I just think thats horrid. All the kids (regardless of faith) are so excited about xmas and they arent allowed do to anything related to it incase it offends someone, but the fact is the muslim and athiest children at the schools mentioned celebrated xmas as much as us and also wanted to make christmassy things.

Give me a good non church school that allows my child to acknowledge its time for santa and teaches her right from wrong and I will be happy there!

We ought to have equal numbers of schools reflecting the various religions, to be fair and that is not the case in some parts of the country. We are only just getting the first hindu school here. Compare that with the number of Catholic schools and then compare the catholic and hindu population. It's hardly fair at all.

I just have no experience of this people not getting in business, maybe its because my dds school is not a catholic one?

Is it in that situation where most problems are occurring with admission? are their rules stricter?

nolongeraworriedmummy - I am reassured to hear that it is possible to get into some church schools without having to get a reference etc. However, we are incerasingly seeing that this is not necessarily the norm.

The point is that church schools do have this power should they wish to exercise it.

I don't want to shut down church schools because even though I don't really agree with mixing religion and education in this way, these schools are established and there is no gain in closing them. All I want is for them to stop prioritising people of their faith. So if 10% of their funding comes from their church, they can reserve only 10% of places for congregation members. What is wrong with that?

I would have no problem with that at all dollious , I have lived and worked in schools in two big citys and there have only been one or two children at most in a class from the church, perhaps only 5 or so children in the entire schools so 10% would be asoloutley acceptable.

The majority of people IME who use the religion card do not go to church nor are they necessarily religious, some have even gone to church soley to get their child in (they disapear after Christmas once their children are in reception) and some have their children baptised because it is the done thing, so no I do not see why those children should get priority over other athiests.

The one reason faith schools often do a lot better is because they can cream off all the middle class children. If there were no faith schools everyone would just go to their nearest school and the children who would have been creamed off for the faith school will bring the results up on the other schools. Often it is unfair because some schools are actually very good but they just don't have the right pupils to get good results no matter how good the school and teachers are.

nappy I think its probably the extra funding rather than the kids as my dds school is not middle class at all, 2 thirds of school have some kind of special needs, 70% are on free school dinners and nearly all are from the roughest council estate in the big town and start way below average levels and their results are amazing,

Dont know about elsewhere though.

I have no idea about CofE, but all of the Catholic schools in this area are in existence because the local Catholic families raised the money to build the schools (not just one - but THREE schools) and that's before I mention all of the hours of work the nuns and monks put into teaching UNPAID so that the schools were better resourced, meanwhile these orders are supported by the Catholic communities - why then shouldn't we have a priority? Have you bothered to raise the money to set up a better secular school for your DC Dilemma? Have you put in many thousands of teaching hours for nothing? I very much doubt you would be moaning on here if you had. If you can't be bothered to put as much effort into your DC's education as we have then why should you reap the benefits?

And has anybody thought about WHY these faith schools do so well (and therefore are more attractive than secular schools/arouse envy from secular society)? Instead of moaning about it being unfair why don't you look into what you can do to make your local secular school better - or move to an area with better schools (surely you checked the local schools BEFORE you moved in?!) OR set up your own school.

Actually nappy is correct - in general, faith schools' ability to cream off the middle class kids is the reason they perform better. This was proved in a study by the London School of Economics which I linked to earlier.

Also, nolongerworried, that may be the case for your school, but the same report (above) quotes nationwide stats which show that, on average, 20% of children at non-denominational schools are eligible for free school dinners, whereas the figure is only 10% for faith schools. This shows that, on the whole, faith schools are not as well populated by poorer children.

Dollius thats why I put dont know about other areas on my post, I also agreed with you lower down as well regarding if 10% funding only 10% church admitted places

nolongerworried

This is an example of what I mean in MY area

dds outstanding ofsted and sats church school quote from ofsted: The percentage of pupils with learning difficulties and/or disabilities is above average. The proportion eligible for a free school meal is above average. The attainment of children starting school in Reception varies each year, but the majority have skills and knowledge that are below those typical for their age.

nearest satisfactory ofsted and ok sats non church school ofsted quote:It serves an advantaged community in social and economic terms. When children enter the school in the Reception class, they have skills above those expected for their age. The percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals is low. The proportion of pupils with learning difficulties and/or disabilities is below average

This is typical of the area so HERE at least the schools arent mis using their admission.

nolonger - it may not be the case for your school cos your school doesn't seem to select it's pupils too much - you said only 2 people in dd's class are church goers?

yep including dd! in the whole school there are 5ish at the most.
In the last c of e school I worked in there was one in the entire school and that was the vicars son In the none church school I worked in there were loads because it was a middle class intake.
So I guess it depends on the area.