catholic schools admission policy

[sarahvac]

catholic schools admission policy - is it true that some catholic schools only admit children who were christened by their 18th month...any advice helpful, thanks sarah

Never heard of an 18 month cut off point but you certainly are expected to do it as soon as possible and I guess there would have to be a reason why you didnt.

It didn't say that on the admission to dd's rc primary school. They had a list of requirements in order of importance:
Catholic and baptised as such, Baptised as a member of any other Christian faith, non baptised (there were a few others inbetween but I can't remember)

My two were not christened and attend a catholic school

For ds's school he has to be baptised.

Sara-you will probably find that each Catholic school has its own policy.
In Surrey we would of had to have gone to mass 40 times in a year! and then had the priest sign something to clarify this!
Where we are now the local catholic school is only 50% catholic,so not so rigid!

have also never heard this as a policy (but it does stike me as a bit odd TBH). Notasheep is right - each RC school can fix their own criteria. We have 3 RC primary schools here and each one is different. You need to contact the school you have in mind and ask for a prospectus - it will be there.

Why would you ever want to send your child to a school which put your child first if you went to mass 40 times a year? i am a catholic myself and have heard strange stories but never heard the like of that

Exactly-but Surrey is very competitive,you know the kind of thing!!!!
No dd didnt go there and glad to be out of the County

i would think its extremely rubbish froma christian perspective, i would speak to priest, and diocese about it, i would get copy of complaints policy and rite a letter to governers about it.

I suspect that such a policy would be enforced to "catch out" people who decided to only baptise their kids at the last minute before they had to apply to the school. Each school would have its own criteria but generally when it is oversubscribed they would give priority to children who are baptised

I understand that the admissions for catholic schools is now the same as for all schools - you have to apply through the council as with all registrations for schools.
I completed my daughters application for the school when she was 9 months old as I want her in my church school but have now been told that it doesn't matter. i will get an application form throuygh from the council this autumn as she is due to start in Sept 07

yes helsi - you have to apply through the council but each school still has its own criteria. It's a bit complicated IMO and I told the nice lady at the council office that when I did DSs

ah well maybe i will be ok as a friend is on board of goveners

I live in Surrey and we don't have the 40 times a year mass attendance but at the Catholic school which ds' attend, children do have to be baptised and families need to be active members of the parish. Each faith school will probably set their own requirements but the 40 times a year attendance sounds apocryphal as there is surely no way of monitoring that - short of having a sign-in sheet at the entrance!

Our primary school is number 9 on the league tables and has a ferocious admissions policy! You have to be practising catholic etc etc and thus everyone is.

We are not catholic and needed to move our daughter as she was unhappy at school. Everyone said try the other schools but not this one. We did try it - they told us to write directly to the priest - we did. Our daughter has been happy there ever since. I think people talk a lot of gubbins about admissions procedures. they vary year to year, school to school frequently-as in our case- procedures are dropped in favour of personal circumstances. Good luck!

I agree that it is always worth trying for a particular school even if you don't meet the criteria to get priority - esp for a church school as whether it is oversubscribed or not can vary year on year depending on the number of siblings applying. My kids school was oversubscribed the year dd started (all but 8 kids already had siblings at the school) but hasn't been since - all the lower classes have less than 30. This is in spite of it being at the top of the league tables for our town - think people don't bother to apply unless they are catholics as they think they won't get in.

Some popular Catholic schools around here will only admit children who have been baptised before their second birthday - this is to stop the "miraculous" conversion of so many people just before the school admissions forms are due in

but you cant just walk in and get dunked you have to go to church and arrange lessons and stuff now,

woudl there really be floods of people?

When we attended baptism preparation classes for DS2 (a new one on me - in Ireland you just ask the priest and agree on a time) three out of the five couples attending were having their 10 year olds baptised to get them into Catholic secondary. The idea was that you spent the time discussing what your faith meant to you, why you wanted to bring your kids as Catholics etc. - no, not my idea of a fun way to spend six hours either - but the fact that none of these people had a CLUE about the Catholic faith made it excrutiating. One woman asked how Jesus died - I kid you not!