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?

So I should be sending DD to a better school further away then? But she won't get into those either as she is not religious. And for the better community ones lives too far away.

So she will have to go to a crap school halfway across the borough.

Not sure how that is a result TBH.

Also not sure how halfway across a town is worse than halfway across a london borough.

actually I lie - they don't bus it all - some of my neighbours before I moved back here had to walk it - as the buses into town only ran at 20 minutes past every hour and by the time they'd then walked from town up to the school it would have made them late for school.

Ninky you are baffling me.

If we had bought our house with schools in mind we would bought it somewhere else.

As it is she can't go to any of the local schoools. I am not sure at all why you're having a go at me.

so the issue is that there are STILL CRAP SCHOOLS.

Turn all those religious schools into VC ones and you'll likely still end up with a similar issue. Scaning through our local school allocations for this September on average 1/2 of all reception places in the town schools went to siblings.

If they're good schools with no religion criteria they'll probably not only get those that were going to apply anyhow, but all of the other children who now "fit" the criteria applying

result = over subscribed schools, then those children ending up at the crap schools.

But if it was on the community basis she would be able to go to one of the nearby ones.

Which aren't super brilliant, but aren't appalling either. So would be fine.

I would rather she went to a not great school nearby than a not great school miles away. That is the problem that I have with it all.

Like I say around here it is normal to find god to get into a school nearby. As the majority of the schools have these criteria. So it all gets very silly with everyone suddenly barging to church when their kids reach a certain age. It's not just something done by the few for the best schools, its something done by the majority for average schools.

Our basic choice is.

Either pretend to be religious and get to church.

Or (our current preferred option) find the worst 3 schools in a 5 mile radius and put her down for those. As at least that way she will have a place (there were about 400 children last year who didn't get a place at all).

This is not filling me with joy as a parent, that its the best I can so for my PFB...

so she's a PFB and you're certain that on a community basis she'd get into a good local one?

Is that taking into account when the children in care, children with SN and siblings have been allocated places first?

I have to say at having 88 odd schools in a 5 miles radius - we have 27 in a 5 mile radius - most of those in small villages with even more hopeless bus links than our town buses (which is pretty hard to achieve ).

And lets face it - if there were 400 children that didn't even get places opening those faith schools (I really do find it that all 66 of those faith schools are VA with the Catholic type criteria lists - but there you go ) wouldn't really help - as there would still be 400 children without places........all fighting for the same places as you are.

We used to get caned by the nuns at our primary school too ninky, although they don't sound as violent as yours. I think it was pretty common thing in catholic schools back then, people who were educated in other ways are often surprised when I tell them.

And yes my parents did pay for my schooling but I'm not them and certainly can't afford anything like that for DD. When we bought our house we didn't have any DC, I didn't think about schools at all. We have 3 primary schools nearby and it was only after DD arrived and a friend mentioned it that I suddenly realised she wouldn't actually be able to go to any of them. All of this stuff is very current for me and I just don't know what to do about it.

On a community basis she would get into a reasonable local one which would be good enough for me. One of the schools is a 5 min walk with little housing around it so pretty sure that would be OK.

I don't think we have all those schools in a 5 mile radius, that's for the whole borough. The 400 children without places was for all the schools in the borough as well.

In order to avoid DD being one of the 400 when she goes, I think what I need to do is find the ones which are under-subscribed (ie poor) and put her down for those. The 5 miles thing is an arbitrary distance cut-off that I've arrived at for no apparent reason.

No worries LTOS. I'm having to take my DD aged nine out of Catholic school where the pastoral care policy is all talk and no action and risk the local school of hard knocks so yes I may have been overly-aggressive r.e this topic.

Good luck to ye

I'm just saying even if they turn them all VC tomorrow don't get your hopes up.

I know of people who live a similar walk away to DS's infant school and didn't get a place we were both - but after sibling places had been given that year there weren't many left and she was something silly like 0.02 miles far away for the last place.

on a lighter note at the rate it's looking at the moment I don't think there'll be any "normal" places left when DS3 starts at the school. So far I already know of 20 siblings - and that's just those that currently have older siblings in Reception-YR2 LOL. (and he doesn't start until Sept 2011). - I think they put something in the water that year as there's LOADS of 2yr olds running round the playground at pick-up time atm .

And now I really MUST leave the thread.........DH has done the necessary housework.......but unfortunately he can't do my studying for me LOL.

The whole thing is a bleeding nightmare ninky.

Good luck to you too.

at bleeding nightmare.

Hope you get it sorted.