To think MIL being judgemental and over-bearing about DC's baptism.

[Rollergirl1]

DH and I are not religious. DH's parents are practising catholics and DH was heavily involved in the church until he was a teenager (was an alter boy). I was christened when young but haven't gone to church since i was little. We had a civil ceremony when we got married. DD is due to start school in Sep 2010 and I have started looking at local schools. The two best schools in our area by a mile are the two local catholic schools. So we are now getting DD (3) and DS (1) baptised. And we are getting them baptised at PIL's local church despite it being 200 miles away from where we live. The reason that we are doing this is because local churches expect you to go to church regularly before they will consider baptising. So this is purely down to laziness and convenience. MIL knows the exact reason we are doing this and knows that we are not religious. She is making a big deal of it, arranging marquee for after the ceremony and inviting all their side of the family, etc. And I am happy for her to do so because she is doing us a favour. One of the godparents (my best friend)is unable to make it as they have other plans for that date. I wouldn't dream of making her change them as she knows this is not a big thing for us and we are really only doing for reasons cited above. Also my Mum won't be able to make as she is having a knee replacement the week before and won't even be able to walk. And she is not religious and not catholic. And it is happening 200 miles away. But my MIL is now saying that if my best friend can't come than i should ask someone else to be the godparent and has firmly stated that she thinks my mum should be there. I'm now getting stressed as I really don't want to make a big deal of this as we are only doing for the reason of schools but then think am I being unreasonable as MIL doing us a favour by sorting this out for us?

My eldest enjoys going to church and she enjoyed a latin mass at the birmingham oratory.She is usually the first up on a sunday as well.

The way she is going we may make a nun out of her.

Rollergirl1 you want catholic school?try a convent school with the sisters of (no) mercy

And will you be going every week?
My friends son is at a RC school and when applying to the school they were told to bring a letter from the priest and were given a card to be signed every week as proof.

My DS1 is at a C of E school and we had to get a letter of recommendation from the priest saying we had been to church 46 out of 52 weeks that year.

So it is a long standing commitment for the whole family.

Agree with Tryharder. The system is utterly disgraceful.

And as for: "I really really really (really) cannot understand why anyone would send their child to a religious school if they did not believe."

Can you really really really not understand why a parent would prefer their child to get a decent education with some religious studies thrown in than to go to a school where they never learn any spelling or grammar but at least aren't having their little heads filled with stories about God?

Really?

but Lucille - you're missing the point that it's not the fault of the faith schools that so many non-faith schools are crap. Take the "faith" status away from those schools - do you think everyone is suddenly going to be rushing to the schools they're already trying to avoid??

No of course not - and guess what - there'll still be lots of children that don't get places.

They can keep their faith status, but they can operate a fair admissions policy.

you do realise that if they're Voluntary Controlled they ALL use the LEA Admissions policy, and that even many of the Voluntary Aided schools use it as well??

Also an equal admissions policy ISN'T GOING TO MAKE THE CRAP SCHOOLS BETTER!

"Your godparents need to be catholic, this is quite important as you are promising to bring up the children in faith,the priest will be quite strict on that."

Nah - that depends on the priest. My sister asked me and DH to be godparents (we didn't do it) - I'm an ex-catholic atheist, he was baptised Church of Scotland but has never attended and is also an atheist. Priest was perfectly happy with it - just me that wasn't!

I luuuurrve this thread - it just goes on and on. But seriously, people, I have a baby to feed. Must go now. xx

I had Sisters of Mercy, one Daughter of Charity and Christian Brothers. Atheism was the next obvious step!

Rollergirl, your arguments are far too reasoned for such a naive OP.

Rollergirl have just been catching up on this and it occurs to me to wonder whether you have thought seriously about all the teachings of the catholic church and that you are happy for your DD to be taught that all of these things.

For example the catholic church (famously) have very strong views on things like contraception, abortion, homosexuality and so on. Many catholics have a lot of trouble reconciling some of the teachings with their own beliefs - catholicism is a bit of an "all or nothing" proposition really. Speaking as someone who was brought up in the faith myself.

If she goes to the catholic school she will get a lot of moral guidance along with her results and you need to make sure that you are comfortable with the teachings. This is the main reason I would never send DD to a catholic school, personally I don't agree with a lot of the basic stuff that comes out of rome. However i would feel more comfortable about sending her to a CofE school as what they teach is, IMO, a much more compassionate set of rules to live a good life by.

As a person who was 'baptised, confessed,communioned and confirmed' in the catholic church and was educated at church schools I think YABU... it was the most stifling, weird, inappropriate experience. I hated every minute of school, the nuns scared me to death, and the constant daily repetition of hymns, prayers and psalms was horrible. My school was an excellent school apparently but the whole imagery of death, guilt, resurrection and forgiveness ingrained in our everyday life was hard to take at age 4. If you have no faith at all I really wouldn't send your DC's.

"I want the best for my children" is a very odd expression and shouldn't be allowed to explain or justify anything. Nobody ever says "I want the mediocre for my children."

FAQ, we live in an area of "very high social deprivation". There are two state schools in neighbouring streets in the same catchment. One is obliged to take all children, including many from very chaotic backrounds, many more with no English when they start in Reception, and a significant number coming in further up the school with no English. The other only takes regular churchgoers with a letter from the priest (obviously if it ever ceased to be oversubscribed it would take others). Which school do you think is going to have the easier time achieving high standards? The selective admissions policies of these schools is a problem for all state schools, and certainly those close to them.

but Lucile it's also a myth that church=great results. It's not the church schools fualt that the government is doing very little to improve failing schools. "value added" (or whatever it's called) is a much better marker to use imo than end results.

I want to know that my child will improve while there and they're not going to keep plodding on at the alreay acceptable leve they're at.

And a good school will always be oversubscribed, and there will always be children who don't get it.

DS's school

60 places

28 to siblings
20 who lived closer to the school than any other (so distance)
12 got places given using the distance tie-breaker

last child to be allocated a place lived 0.373 miles from the school

61 children didn't get offered a place.

It's on outstanding Ofsted rated school (happens to be a church school but is Voluntary Controlled) as it happens.

The local catholic school (VA with still using it's own admission policy) was also oversubscribed............and it's not even a good school LOL.

rollergirl i hope you have a lovely day for the christenings , lots of people like to share their opinions & that's all very well , they don't have to agree with your reasons , but you are doing this for your children which i can respect ,
best of luck

FAQ it's certainly not a myth in my area. It is a depressing and utterly unsurprising fact. The church school is simply able to sidestep most of the extremely difficult issues facing its neighbours.

yes but it's not a given that a deprived area school is going to be a sink school. In fact there are numerous deprived area schools around the country that are simply outstanding despite the social problems they face.

They can achieve outstanding results, and sometimes do, but it's a hell of a lot less likely.

so surely resources should be ploughed into making failing schools, in any area, whether deprived or not (and believe me I know of some awful schools in "good" areas) good schools.

If it wasn't such a postcode lottery for LEA admission schools then would there be any need for this damning of faith schools??

Of course resources should be put into improving failing schools. But ending a system in which how much choice parents have depends on what faith they belong to would be a start.

And I am not damning faith schools, only the special privilege they enjoy with regard to their admissions criteria.

Anyway, to the OP, you are very lucky to have your MIL sorting it all out for you, so I would be nice to her. Get a new godparent or get your friend to change her dates and persuade your mum to come. I understand your not wanting to make a big deal of it under the circumstances, but if it's a big deal for your MIL and she's arranging it all then you have to respect that.

"But ending a system in which how much choice parents have depends on what faith they belong to would be a start."

as would be ending the system that means that "choice" is also limited by income.........

and for the last flipping time only a small number of faith schools apply their own criteria - Voluntary Controlled schools ALL follow the LEA admissions policy, and an increasing number of VA do as well.

Lucille, your argument does not hold up I am afraid, by our own admission the only difference between the two schools is that one takes mostly or all church goers yes? Well does the church limit its intake to only those that are from chaos free backgrounds? Only english speaking? Well, no they don't, the church does not select its parishioners, it is open to any and all comers, there is no admission policy, no base line entry level to go to church it is simply decided by who walks through the door on the day.

THere is no real reason for there to be any difference between a faith school and any other, they have the same cirriculum, the same level of discipline available, the same gov funding etc I don't understand why they should be "punished" simply because they achieve well, why not spend the energy on bringing non-performing schools up rather than faith schools down.

Don't know the figures for RC schools, but as far as CoE goes

approx quarter of state primaries are CofE, with more than 50% of these being VC (ie following same LEA admissions rules as non-church schools - not based on faith)

so only about 1/8 schools use "faith" as crieria for some/all of their places.

Also church schools have approx 30% of pupils that are eligible for free school meals (one way of measuring "deprivation" in the area), which is roughly the same as non-church schools.

(all figures from CofE website)

I'm with FAQ, I wish people would stop getting hung up on the faith thing, it's a red herring. Failing schools need fixing, removing faith school status will not achieve this.