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?

Haha, unfortunately I don't think I'd be considered as any of those things. Will still give it a try in the future though.

Steve - reluctant to engage with this thread as nothing of note has been added since I last posted. Also reluctant to discuss anything with alegedly grown men who use the term 'pwned'...

Re your point that

"I explained that being Jewish IS a race AND a religion. That you asked, and that you challenged Trotsky's atheism with the fact that he was Jewish demonstrates that you didn't know the being Jewish was both a race and/or religion. "

you, as usual', missed the point. Stalin hated Trotsky and his Judaism much as Hitler hated Judaism - you'll be aware, I assume that Hitler and Stalin both murdered Jews whether or not they were religious, or had in fact entirely renounced their faith, as you have. I doubt the Jewish doctors Stalin killed in the doctor's plot were all highly religious either, or any of the millions of other Jews persecuted under Stalin. Whilst the fact that Jews such as Trotsky were atheists might differentiate them to you, sadly to antisemites such as Stalin or Hitler, the inner beliefs of their victims was of very little interest. The poet Osip Mandelstam, for instance, was not a practicing Jew; this did not prevent Stalin murdering him in 1938.

Whilst you may have proudly renounced your faith if not your culture, you are a fool if you imagine that that would make you immune to antisemitic attacks - Hitler would have persecuted you and murdered you for having only one Jewish grandparent.

I speak as someone who lost many family members in the Holocaust; apostasy could not have saved them.

alLegedly

Since you're back, could you address my point about whether or not NHS hospitals which give priority to Christians would be acceptable?

And no, I have not insulted any posters on this thread other than two. I daresay I should have held off, and have great admiration for posters more patient than I am, who are able to read guff and not respond.

I have enjoyed reading the intelligent, thought-through comments of everyone else on this thread, whether I agree with them or not. I thought many of those opposed to faith schools made many interesting, thought-provoking comments - merrymouse, Cecily, etc. I may not agree with them but hope I was not rude - I have great respect for their views.

However, whilst I am happy to argue rationally with sensible points, well made, I can see no point in wasting time arguing with points that are blatantly illogical and/or based on not having read previous posts thoroughly or at all.

Since you're back, could you address my point about whether or not NHS hospitals which give priority to Christians would be acceptable?

No? Thought not.

No, NHS hospitals which gave priority to Christians would not be acceptable. However, the parallel is not an exact one - there is no branch of Christian medicine that I am aware of, so there is nothing that a Christian hospital could provide that any other hospital could provide. Also, all hospitals that are not private are state founded and funded - there is no equivalent in hospital terms that I am aware of, where religious groups set up their own hospitals for their own faith members. And then pay extra charges for the specifically 'religious' medicine.

I suppose there is a (slightly inexact) parallel in that you can pay extra to be treated at an NHS hospital by NHS doctors or go privately for some or all of your treatment. Thus when I had my dcs, I could have paid extra for a private room - much nicer than I enjoyed in the open ward.

That is how the NHS works - you might not like it, but people can pay extra for extra treatment or perks. Obviously this is based on wealth not religion, though - but there is no more inherent logic in it. It is using buildings built and doctors trained by the state.

I think your objection to faith schools would be more rational if pupils at those schools were getting an inherently superior education. But they're not - they are getting an identical secular education. The only bit that is different is the specifically religious ed - which they pay for. And which I assume you wouldn't want anyway. Children from faith backgrounds need to be educated SOMEwhere - so they set up their own schools for this purpose. Which you now want to appropriate after they have done all the hard work and put up the cash, rather than setting up your own schools.

Do you not realise that if they hadn't set up those schools, there would be LESS schools, and non-denominational schools would be even more overcrowded, and it would be even harder for your children to get a place there? The state would then have to pay to set up more schools, instead of them being subsidised by churches etc. And that's if they bothered to - this thread suggests that they are not likely to have much help from the secularists and humanists, who are all too 'busy working'.

FEWER schools -

• excuse me.

Sorry, seeker, I type quick but not that quick.

Apologies that I don't respond Immediately. I mean, apart from typing at lightning speed, presumably you will let me off to..y'know', have a life, go to the loo, etc...

So are you saying that faith groups pay for faith schools?

Oh, and are you saying that non faith state schools are secular?

1.Yes and no.They pay all/some of the setting up costs (depending on when the school was set up), and pay in continuity for the religious education.

1. No.

Faith groups pay a tiny amount. But that tiny amount means that a child of the wrong faith living next door to a state school might not get a place when a child of the right faith living miles away might get a place. It is just impossibly unfair!

Hi, I've not read the whole thread, I just wanted to answer the OP by saying that my MIL told me that faith schools do better because the children are better behaved because they're Christian

FWIW I think faith schools should be abolished - religion need take no part in the state education system and faith schools divide communities.

seeker - no, faith schoolls do not 'pay a tiny amount'. Most faith schools set up in the further-back past, incl all the Catholic ones, I would imagine,paid the whole lot.

Faith schools now do not pay the whole lot, but if you regard what they do pay as 'tiny' and the work involved in setting up said schools as not worth mentioning, I have simply no idea why you aren't resolving your problem by setting up dozens of schools today.

The reality, of course, is that setting up a new school is a huge labour of love and one that only those who really care about are prepared to do.

I assume you don't really care or you'd be out there filling that gap you claim exists, not moaning on the internet.

I don't see a problem - if I did, I'd be supporting various efforts I am aware of to set up new schools in my area. I'm sure there are some plans in our area too that you could campaign for if it matters as much to you as you say it does.

The area that matters to me and that I think DOES need improving is the quality of schools across the board. That is why I have been working with disadvantaged kids in my local FE college - to actually make a difference to the system, rather than just whinge about what I'd like to see on the internet.

some plans in YOUR area - typo. You see, I type as fast as I can. Though not fast enough for you, clearly, seeker.

Well, primary school buildings were originally church owned, I believe.

What % of the running costs of the average faith school comes from the church and what % from the tax payer?

The state quite simply couldn't afford to buy the land and buildings from the church.

seeker -

1. Secondar school buildings too.

1. I don't have percentage figures and I assume it varies depending on how much religious instruction is given and how much it costs. Plus school budgets are not fixed - some of my local secondaries get several thousands of pounds different in funding per pupil, fo reasons i could not ascertain from the stats give.

So there is no one answer to that question.

seeker - a question for you - it is clear from your posts on MN that you loathe any kind of differentiated education, be it grammar schools or faith schools. You would like everyone to go to identical schools, I believe. (Please correct me if I have misunderstood you.) If that is the case, please list all the action you have taken to bring this situation about. (NB Whinging on MN doesn't count.)

exoticfruits - if that is so and the land and buildings are rather valuable, why should the church give them up for free?

Would you expect every rich person to give up their house for free to build a school on it?

That was my whole point - the state can't afford the market price and you couldn't expect the church to give them free!

"seeker - a question for you - it is clear from your posts on MN that you loathe any kind of differentiated education, be it grammar schools or faith schools. You would like everyone to go to identical schools, I believe. (Please correct me if I have misunderstood you.) If that is the case, please list all the action you have taken to bring this situation about. (NB Whinging on MN doesn't count.)"

No, I don't want everyone to go to an identical school- how on earth would you achieve that? What I object to is selective education. What I particularly object to is covert selection- which is a faith school speciality.

Would you like a printout of my political activity over the past 30 years?

No,I'd just like a summary of all the bits that relate to this topic, thanks.

Do you object to private ed also,out of interest?I haven't noticed you posting on private ed threads, but maybe I've missed those posts. Or do you regard selection on grounds of wealth as fine?

When I said identical schools, I meant schools with no difference in curriculum, with no difference in entry criteria and which you appear to assume are suitable for all children, no matter what their faith, intellect,interests, ambition, etc? That appears to be your view on this thread - that there is something (morally?) wrong with the system if every child cannot get a place at their nearest school.

Is that a correct summary?