Atheist worried about non religious schools

[LylaLils]

Hi,

Firstly, I am new to mumsnet so sorry if this post is long winded.

I am a new mum to be living in south west London. I've always sustained that if I ever had children I would not send them to a religious school due to my own beliefs. Since becoming pregnant, comments have been made by friends and family which have got me thinking and now I'm confused.

The vast majority of them don't believe in god but have jumped through hoops in order to get their kids into the "best" schools...i.e catholic.

Do I stand by my beliefs and possibly be sending my child to a crap school? Are all non religious schools in London crap? I've searched online and looked at ofstead reports and I'm still confused.

Does anyone have any advice?

Many children at church schools are non-believers - probably the majority.

Choose a school for it's educational delivery and for how well children are taught to get along with each other.

My advice as a Mum is to go and see schools to get a feel for them. The "crap" schools might surprise you and have a better "feel" about them than you would get on paper. Generally with OFSTED reports I ignore all but the Pastoral care bit - if pastoral care is good then most children will be happy and will learn. Still doesn't replace the visit though. A friend did visits a year ago and found that the "Outstanding" school had a less welcoming feel about it then a different school whose OFSTED was less. My friend made a decision to apply for the second school and her DD is now happily ensconced there .

Thanks for your replies. I do intend to visit the schools when I go on maternity.

I have reservations about being a bit of a hypocrite and also I am not up for attending church every Sunday. I am very reluctant to have my baby christened.

If I don't get baby christened soon after birth I hear its going to be difficult to get him or her into any church school...so if I do not get baby christened, I will have scuppered any chances of a catholic school...is this right?

Many secular schools are excellent. I don't know which part of south west London you are, but there are certainly some very good state non religous views.

As far as state schools go there is no point in visiting them until nearer the time. Schools can change a lot in four years. A change of head can drastically change the character of a school. Its only private schools where parents put their kids names down at birth.

If they are better, the effect in every religious school I've looked at the stats for its down to them operating a form of selectivity. More 'high achieving' kids in, better results out. If people would stop playing this game things would rapidly even out.

I'm an atheist, my mum is strict catholic and I went to a catholic school. There is no way I would pretend to be catholic to get my kid into a catholic school. Apart from the fact that catholicism is bonkers and they push it quite heavily in faith schools, they also sent that letter around catholic schools recently asking the kids to petition against gay marriage. Not the sort of stuff I want my kid influenced by.

I'm the same as noble, an atheist who was sent to catholic school. There's no way I'd send my children to catholic school.

The CofE is lighter on religious teaching than the RCs. And it can be useful to know religion in depth. In a group of university students studying medieval history those without this knowledge found difficulties; to quote one "I know all about jihad but nothing about transubstantiation".
See -atheistinchurch.wordpress.com/

Finally the MN truism, thereis no such thing as a totally secular school in the Uk state system. Non-faith schools are expected to have assemblies that are broadly Christian, RE is compulsory etc. some non-faith schools plug religion more than some C of E.
Also just because a school is C ofE doesn't mean the only people to get in are of that denomination. You have to look at each school individually.

And it can be useful to know religion in depth
Which one(s)? For most people, jihad is more relevant than transsubstantiation (unfortunately). Good RE teaching but no preaching or worship is what schools need to provide.

It's not so much what they are taught...as I will make sure my child is aware that it is only one point of view and that he or she should make up their own mind.

There is a Really good non religious and local primary school I have my eye on and that's great, its just the secondary schools I'm worried about. The ones around my area ...I live in earls court...do not have the best reputation. I'm worried that if I don't start off in the "right" way...i.e christening and religious primary, then I am in turn ruining any chances that my child will get into a good secondary school.

I don't know what to think. My mum is a staunch catholic and my dad a Muslim and I had a catholic schooling. I realised long ago that all religion did was confuse and scare me and that isn't something I want for my child. I do not want to attend church on some pretence. BUT I want the best education for my child. Argh I don't know what to think this is a minefield and I feel like the world has gone mad.

If I had my way I would take my child and my other half, and go live in a cave, away from all this madness!

I came out of catholic school with a thorough knowledge of catholicism, no real idea of the differences between it and CofE (except that catholicism was definitely better - I had no idea about Martin Luther etc) and a very poor knowledge of other major world religions. It's a joke between me and my DH that what he considers general knowledge about Islam or Hinduism I haven't a clue about.

I totally agree. I believe that learning about ALL religions, but not being taught that any one is the right one, is very very important if we are to bring up a generation of open minded and tolerant people.

Do you really mean that you are worrying about secondary schools and your baby isn't even born? That is 11 years away or so. Schools will change, there will be new ones.
Shock horror you may even move.

I think it's very difficult to predict what schools will be like in 10 years time what with all the changes that are going on at the moment with academies etc. I've also had the 'if you don't get him baptised you won't get into the catholic school' conversation with my mum, but my niece was baptised and my sister had to go to classes as well as put in some serious pew time just to get the baptism. That's out of the question for me, even before considering that I'm not keen on catholic education.

Wow really helpful thanks

Thanks noble. It's mainly my mum bothering me about it. She says if I don't act as soon as baby is born, I've messed up all chance, and I should do it just in case...etc

Grimma - for my e.g of medieval history obviously Christianity is the religion which needs to be known in some detail. I should have made this clear. V difficult to access medieval thought without understanding something so utterly central to lives then. Of course, medieval history/literature is a minority interest anyway...

My mum was keen because if we hadn't been catholic we'd have ended up at the local school which is one of the worst in the country. She sees being catholic as opting out of the state school lottery. Would private school be an option as 'insurance' against a crap state allocation in the future?
I'm lucky in that I teach in a good state school which gives priority to children of teachers so in my mind that's my back-up. It's hard to say not to worry about the future when it's something as important as education.

I think it is very easy for catholic mums to say that the baby should be dunked 'just in case' because it wasn't really a dilemma for them! I just couldn't lie like that.

dido - well, yes, I don't think we can really organise our secondary education system around the needs of people wanting to study medieval history. Whereas a sufficient study of RE to help us all understand other people in the world around us today is of value to all.

Of course not all community schools in London are crap.

And many faith schools are not the best, either.

You need to look at schools very close to you and see how they are. Catchments are generally tiny.

Schools can change hugely over 4 years. too.

As Grimma says, the good religious schools are good because of selectivity. The good secular schools are also good because of selectivity. They have hoops to jump through to get in or they have small catchment areas. When your kid gets to about year 5, start looking hard and carefully at your local schools and what you have to do to get into them. You may have to move house.

Of course, some crap schools are not so crap when you look closely at them. But they won't be schools you can boast about going to - just ones where you will get a reasonable education. If that 's good enough for you, don't worry about your friends and their scaremongering about the vital importance of getting into St Hyacinth Bucket.

er, the schools high in the league tables - i.e with high SATS scores may be 'good' - but schools with lower SATS scores, and no 'selection by stealth' may actually offer a better education. OP - you need to look at the 'Value Added ' scores as well as the achievement scores - they show whether or not chilkdren progress slower or faster than expected and therefpre reflect the quality of eucation on offer. Achievement scores alone may just reflect the ability of the children.

They've taken the context out of the value added figures so now a school full of disadvantaged kids is expected to make the same sort of progress as a school full of tutored middle-class kids.