Why do faith schools dominate the league tables?

[benetint]

I looked at the league tables for primary schools in my area (nottingham) and I was surprised to see the top few were not schools in affluent areas bur were all catholic schools. Many of them are actually in quite deprived areas. So what is it catholic schools are doing to get such excellent results? Is it that they can be more selective about who they take? Are they just exam factories? Ate they stricter with their kids? Or are they just better in general than secular states?

I have often wondered the same myself! Catholic schools seem to get excellent results in my area

It's the power of prayer.

religious people, especially Christians, are more clever .

It's complicated but one reason is the juggling analogy (seeker's I think maybe?). If you have two schools next to each other. One you just fill in the CAF form. The other, you fill in the form and also the parents have to apply for, take, and pass a juggling proficiency test. Which school will get the better SATs and why?

Divine intervention!

The schools may be in deprived areas, but because they only take practising Catholics their intake will normally come from a much wider area.

It is also usually the case that any school which is in any way selective - either by picking the children directly or by requiring parents to jump through particular hoops, such as getting their children baptised by 6 months and getting certificates of attendance at mass etc - is likely to attract the more organised kind of parent with an interest in their child's education than a local catchment school which is the default allocation for a deprived area.

Also, one school I know of that fits that description (very high performing Catholic primary in deprived area) apparently has a habit of encouraging less-able children to move to other schools "which meet their needs better", or withdrawing them from Sats and various other ways of manipulating the statistics.

But of course some of them may also be very good schools with dedicated teachers.

It would make sense in the modern day Catholic schools would sustain their high acheivments, as they are likely to attract parents heavily invested in their chidrens education who knowing the Catholic school is the best will jump through hoops to get a place, and continue to jump through hoops to make sure their child stays on top by providing extra educational opportunties which would continue to reflect well on the school.

However it doesnt explain why orginally out of the types of schools available so many Catholic schools begin to leap to the top of the tables.

Where we live CofE schools come out on top of the primary school league tables.
That's because most primary schools where I live are CofE schools!

A friend of mine, a very sincere and conscientious practising Christian was turned down for a high achieving CofE school because her DS didn't pass the interview to determine religious commitment. The interview concentrated rather less on the child's religion and rather more on whether Daddy lived at home....

And that is why they're not allowed to do interviews any more.

We've got 3 RC primaries round here and only one of them is really high in the tables tbh. For years, the local school topping the primary tables was is quite a deprived area tbh and was an la school. I don't know how typical this is, though?

they are effectively selective
END OF

Certainly at secondary level many faith schools seem to be selective. Definitely in the part of west London where I was brought up. I had assumed that if parents had to make an effort to get there child in they would be supportive of the school and of education in general. It was not until I saw the 2011 GCSE results tables, that I realised that the admissions procedures of these schools effectively filtered out all but a handful of lower ability children.

Round here leafy MC commuter villages have CofE primary schools.

Local RC and CofE secondaries have huge catchments. Very motivated parents prepared to fill in forms, get proof of attendance and do long school runs.
One of DDs great friends left all her friends and a good school in walking distance to travel 7 miles to the catholic primary to get into the RC secondary.

You don't need overt selection for that kind of thing to skew the intake.

Have interviews ended? My friend and her DS had one last year for one of the country's most successful catholic primaries and it was clear that behaviour and academic potential was as much of a consideration as the religious box ticking. So yes, their results definitely come from covert and overt selection.

Yes, interviews were supposed to have been made illegal as part of admissions policy in about 2008.

It's because they're selective.

They're students are not representative of the general population.

Ah, I was obviously right that it was you then seeker. I like it: it's simple and to the point.

If they are genuinely accepting any child regardless of religion, they are doing an excellent job.

If they are only selecting children whose parents go to the right church, they are

1. Probably excluding children from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds
2. Providing a hoop that parents can jump through in order to avoid going to a school attended by children from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds.

In my experience, highly selective faith schools do very well. Faith schools that select according to proximity to school don't do any better than non-faith schools in the same area.

"If they are genuinely accepting any child regardless of religion, they are doing an excellent job."

Quite. But they don't. They are the DFES's dirty little secret

There is no secret for admission to Catholic schools, just turn up at mass every week, make sure children are baptised and they have had first holy communion. This would be on top of living in the catchment area.

My DS's comprehensive secondary school has a much wider intake in terms of economic status, ethnic mix and ability range than any of the other schools in the area and have better results than any of them.

Maybe going to mass on a Sunday - sitting still and quiet for an hour, listening to the sermon for what can seem to be an age is good training for being in class and maybe seeing your teacher with their families a couple of rows behind give Sir or Miss a more human face to be respected.

Or maybe it weeds out the parents and children who are unwilling to sit quietly for an hour every week in the service of their long term educational advantage? You're quite right, a child who can do that is likely to do better in class, and a child who can't or won't will probably do worse, and disrupt the education of their classmates.

An immigrant who's just arrived won't be able to attend because they won't have attended the right church for years and years.

And so they'll have far less EAL kids than the neighbouring school.

Kids with bad SN won't be able to go to church for an hour a week, so they won't be able to apply either.

Sorry, some kids with bad SN won't be able to go to church for an hour a week.....

We have an RC primary & an 'ordinary' primary within metres of each other. The RC one has 9% of children on FSM, the other has 20%. The RC gets (slightly) better results.