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?

And do you approve of setting/streaming, or do you also view that as unfairly divisive?

We certainly appear to have very different ideas of 'fair'.

I think allowing people to set up schools, run them for a number of years, and then nicking them off them once set up is 'unfair'. I think forcing bright kids and academically uninterested children or less bright children to get an education that is identical and therefore unsuitable for many - as children, however much you would like to pretend to the contrary, are of course NOT identical - is 'unfair'.

I see what you are saying Bread but I think we would all agree that all schools should be outstanding and maybe the way that they are measured is incorrect. SATS/GCSE results should not be the measurement. Ofsted reports give an very good indication but as we know, it is only based on the day of visiting. If schools have the same starting level playing field, then surely that's fairer. However, I am going to throw the cat among the pigeons in that I don't believe there should be grammar or private schools but I do faith. Faith is so important to families that want their dcs to have that ethos in their child years.

Nope. I'm all for setting.

Where have I said that children are identical and should have identical educations?

And you do seem to be skating over the fact that the lion's share of the funding of state schools comes from the tax payer- many of whom are the wrong faith to get in- while children of the faith community can if they wish take a place in a non- faith school. So in some areas, some children get two options, while non- faith or wrong faith children get one. Dispite the fact that the tax payer has paid for both.

Sekker- In another thread you mentioned "the best bath toy ever" that your 14 yr. old still liked. Please share (I couldn't find a place to message you).

Cblaine - Underwater torch.

Seeker - if you truly want a faith school, you only have one option.

If all schools are outstanding -that is the new average!

Underwater torch, dark bathroom, lots of bubbles.

Even if you truly want a faith school you aren't school - less if you don't get into your first choice.

" Faith is so important to families that want their dcs to have that ethos in their child years."

So they can provide it for the other 18 hours of the day. There are lots of things that are so important to my family but I don't expect a tax payer funded institution to provide it. We are a pacifist family- that is an ethos we try to maintain in our home. We certainly don't expect school to maintain it for us!

I would expect schools to be peace lovers!

So would I! But that is different from being a pacifist.

I expect so but then I wouldn't expect schools to say more than 'some people believe......' in the same way that parents would say 'some people believe....' or 'I believe......
The DC will make up their own mind.

I've been out all day but looking forward to catching up.

Just a quick point though, I think the thing that irritates me most about faith schools and stealth selection methods is that those who claim that behaving in a religious fashion is so important to them have no qualms about claiming first dibs on available educational resources.

And re premises being owned by the churches, don't forget that in the past, donations to the church were pretty much just a tax on being part of a church community. Which people didn't really have much real choice about. That's one of the reasons the church amassed such wealth.

State schools are obliged to do more than "some people believe" They are obliged to be broadly Christian in nature- and many, as you know, regard this as a green light to create a very faith based environment, where is is impossible to take part fully in the life of the school without being least nominally Christian.

bread You're ignorance of the subject you would debate is stupefying.

'all hospitals that are not private are state founded'. Seriously? You can start with the ones with st. in the name, the list is pretty long.

'there is no branch of Christian medicine'. Oh right. Why don't you try asking for an abortion in a catholic hospital. Or a cure based on stem-cell research. Or a 'non-ethical' vaccine. Again, the list is pretty long.

I think seeker may have shown us the solution. We encourage faith hospitals to go along with the faith schools. If you elect for a catholic school, you then also have to go to a catholic hospital if you're sick.

On the other-hand if you're concerned as to whether the state can afford to buy the faith schools, trying looking up the dissolution of the monasteries.

Depends on the Head, seeker, and how they interpret the education acts.
It doesn't really matter how the church amassed the wealth-they have it!

If you go back in history a lot of the richest families got their wealth through dubious means-but they are not likely to give it up!!

"If you go back in history a lot of the richest families got their wealth through dubious means-but they are not likely to give it up!!"

Two wrongs don't make a right, as I would have thought Jesus might have pointed out.

I don't think that the richest families in the land would have got far had they followed that line of thinking,WavingLeaves.

Who said anything about giving it up? The state just takes the properties, because it's the state and it can.

I think that you are missing the point that the state and the church are one-with the Queen head of both.

I also bet you would get into all sorts of problems where the land had been given to the church by the local landowner, for the purpose of building a school.

It would probably revert to the original landowner rather than the state-I bet they got it legally drawn up at the time.

So they are technically all state resources? Well then, we just need some legislation to make sure that the state resources are allocated FAIRLY. And that people can't claim that 'churchgoing' entitles them to an unfair advantage. What's the problem with that?

People with money who give things are generally very canny-they don't just hand it over without controls.

They technically belong to the church. The only way the state could claim them is to separate and then they definitely don't belong to the state. We will only get secular education when the church and state separate.