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?

Erm, excuse me Pianomama... that's wholly untrue.

Those morals precede Christianity by centuries, maybe millennia. It's ever so frustrating when I hear that claim. Do you mean to suggest, that on their way up to collect the Ten Commandments everybody was killing each other, then they got there and said "Oh, we best stop that now!"

We had civilization, and moral standards long before Christianity came along. Therefore no, I do not carry Christian morals, I carry humanistic morals.

And that's without even mentioning that Christian morals negate many others (Where is do not rape? Where is do not molest children?).

So it's only the Old Testament that's cruel and evil then? Jesus wasn't??

Here's something of Jesus from the New Testament:

"So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. (From the NIV Bible, Revelation 2:22-23)"

There's good 'ol Jesus saying he's going to kill some children. And that's just one example. I'll say it again, I'll stick with my own morals thanks, Christianity not only doesn't have the monopoly on morals, it has no place to claim it's where morals come from, and many of the morals within it are abhorrent.

Hmmm, I wonder how Christianity survived for two thousand years..
Communism with its own morality didn't survive 70.

Do you not accept for a second there might be a bit more to it then what you
think it is?

And for your information, molesting children is not part of Christian morals. But keep reading the Bible :)

WavingLeaves - I do agree to a certain point. However, discrimination and selection is not exactly the same thing. I suspect faith schools aim to educate children and teach them according to their religious teaching so it is not discrimination.
Anyway, I think you are talking mostly about Catholic schools. CofE schools usually accept anyone based on catchment area.
I dont know if CofE schools do dominate the league tables?

My point was that there are many items missing from the Ten Commandments, items that should be there are instead replaced with items based on Jealousy such as not worshipping other goods... irrelevant items that hardly deserve to be in a "Top Ten" morals list.

Christianity is a religion, Communism is a political philosophy... they're two completely different things. Also, there are religions that have survived longer than Christianity has, so with your logic they must be more valid?

For one, atheism has survived for much, much longer than any religion has... since it's simply not a belief in anything. So, again using your logic of how long something has survived, that must make atheism more valid than any religion!

But of course it doesn't work that way, just because something is old or has lasted for a long time doesn't mean it's valid at all, it just means our primitive minds have not yet worked out that it's not true.

Hinduism has survived for what, about 5,000 years now?

Have you read the bible Pianomama? I noticed you didn't respond to my quote from the morals of the New Testament, would you like to see some more of what Jesus said, and still try to affirm its teachings to be moral:

"Do not suppose that I [Jesus] have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34)"

What a wonderful moral standard to be teaching people.

From Accords research document:

1. Discrimination in admissions

This research also appears in section 1 Church schools shun poorest pupils, by Jessica Shepherd and Simon Rogers of the Guardian newspaper (March 2012)

English faith schools skewed towards serving pupils from middle class backgrounds.

It is known that the faith schools sector admits fewer than the national average of pupils in receipt of free schools meals ? see the parliamentary written question tabled by Adrian Sanders MP in section nine below.

However, the Guardian newspaper undertook detailed statistical analysis to find whether this discrepancy was because faith schools were located disproportionately in more affluent areas.

To try and establish this the paper compared the proportion of pupils in receipt of free schools meals (a measure commonly used by government to try and determine deprivation) at faith schools with other state funded schools in the jurisdiction of their local authority responsible for education, as well as compared the proportion of children in receipt of free school meals at faith schools with the proportion of children in receipt of them in the area covered by the first three digits of each school?s respective postcode.

The paper?s findings were damming and showed most faith schools had a lower proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals than both the average for their local authority area, and amongst children living in the school?s local postcode. The paper found that:

?Some 73% of Catholic primaries and 72% of Catholic secondaries have a lower proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals than the average for the local authority. It is the same for CofE primary and secondary schools. Some 74% of these primaries and 65.5% of secondaries have a smaller proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals than is average for the local authority. In contrast, non-religious schools tend to reflect their neighbourhoods. Half (51%) of non-religious primaries and 45% of non-religious secondaries have a smaller proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals than is representative for their local authority.

Faith schools fared no better when examined at a more local level. We compared the proportion of poor pupils in each postcode with the proportion of poor pupils in faith schools and non-faith schools studying in that postcode. The data shows 76% of Catholic primaries and 65% of Catholic secondaries have a smaller proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals than is representative of their postcode. This is the case for 63.5% of CofE primaries and 40% of CofE secondaries.

Non-religious primaries and secondaries are far more likely to mirror the proportion of poor pupils in their postcode ? just 47% of non-faith primaries and 29% of non-faith secondaries take a smaller proportion of free school meals than is representative for their postcode.?

accordcoalition.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Databank-of-Independent-Evidence-on-Faith-Schools-June-2012.pdf

steve - it was not a physical sward but metaphorical. The battle between good and evil.

Like I said already , I am not being drawn into theological discussion.

I object to disrespect. Its absolutely fine to be an atheist and to bring your children as such. But attacking religious beliefs of others is not nice .

But telling me that my morals are from your religion (which they're not) is okay?

"CofE schools usually accept anyone based on catchment area."

That is only true if the school isn't over-subscribed. An under-subscribed school can't afford to be discriminatory, as they need the bums on seats to get their 'per pupil' govt funding.

If a faith school is over-subscribed, that's when they bring in the discriminatory religious criteria, including frequency of church attendance etc, instead of using fairer means such as sibling attendance or distance from school. There are shortages of primary school places in many areas now, hence the increasing discrimination and frustration.

As far as I know, all faith schools criteria would be an allegiance to the faith, i.e. baptism, frequency of attendance but LAC would be top. For a faith school to be a faith school, surely it would have to have a criteria that would ask for faith commitment. Once that has gone through, distance will come into force. Siblings are a criteria but only if the family maintains their practice. There are often comments that 'faith' families have the best of both worlds, i.e. can choose secular and non-secular but that's not true if you want your dc to attend a faith school.

There are no secular schools in the UK. Most CofE schools have catchment as number 1 criteria.

As far as I know, all faith schools criteria would be an allegiance to the faith, i.e. baptism, frequency of attendance but LAC would be top. For a faith school to be a faith school, surely it would have to have a criteria that would ask for faith commitment.

Only if they are oversubscibed; if they are undersubscribed, they take anyone.

One more thing that has not yet been mentioned on this thread, is that some of the oversubscription criteria that were used when today's leavers started school, are no longer legal. Things were really tightened up about 3 years ago.

"One more thing that has not yet been mentioned on this thread, is that some of the oversubscription criteria that were used when today's leavers started school, are no longer legal. Things were really tightened up about 3 years ago."

That's interesting CecilyP, can you give an example?

Re church school criteria, they seem to operate in an entirely pragmatic manner - all geared towards maximising the influence of the church. ie - when undersubscribed, they are pretty unfussy - taking anyone in order to keep the school (and their influence) going. When oversubscribed, they start imposing criteria such as church attendance, 'voluntary' help with church functions, etc. Whether or not their catchment is genuinely made up of committed Christians.

Just for reference: There are two kinds of CofE school. One is 'voluntary controlled' which I think means 100% state funded, and admissions run entirely by the local authority on normal criteria, so no need to be religious.

The other is voluntary aided, which has some support (up to about 10%) from church funds, with the rest from the state. These run their own admissions (usually in parallel with local authority admissions systems) and are allowed to discriminate in admissions on religious grounds (also in hiring staff, I think). This may or may not mean you have to be Christian to get in - they all vary, some keep a quota for local, non-church-attending children, and if they are undersubscribed obviously anyone can get in.

We should remove religion from state education and if parents want it teach it out of school.

Those living in the catchment area come first, after that they can use their own criteria. (it will differ in London and big cities).

Steve - for once, I absolutely agree with a comment of yours.

Your morals most certainly do not come from any religion I know of.

As you were...

My DC went to CofE school because they happened to have a place.It was not in our catchment area but nobody asked us to fulfill any church- related requirements. I think the only diffrence was that they said a short prayer in the assembly and were allowed to have a Nativity Play at Christmas instead of wishing each other "Happy Holidays".The Ofstead report was "Outstanding".
BTW it was one of the oldsest "free" schools, funded by church I think (or local community, dont really know) and is abut 300 years old.

seeker,you may have missed this earlier post of mine, so I'll repost as I'd be interested to hear your response:

"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?"

I'll stick around to read seeker's response but will bow out of this debate now as I've said my piece several times now and if anyone is interested in my views they can read back a few pages...

Luckily, the state (Christian as it is), agrees with me and not the anti-faith school supporters. I am broadly happy with the status quo - whilst I would like ALL state schools to offer the same quality of education, faith or not and hence do what I can towards that, I feel that a variety of schools catering to the needs of the individual child, and wishes of the parents, is the best system there is.

As no-one on this thread appears likely to do anything more constructive (destructive?) than moan on MN I don't see any change occuring too soon, so am content to let you whine in peace while I enjoy living in a Christian country (despite not being Christian myself). I hear France is lovely and so is America, according to Sofia (and I daresay she is right). Maybe emigration is the solution??

All schools have to have collective worship and have prayers. The nativity play is just as likely in any primary school. The church requirement is only used when the school is oversubscribed.

They don't do much more than moan. The government petition to abolish collective worship in schools has a mere 3,891 signatures and it closes on Wednesday - from that pathetic number you can only surmise that a few people moan on MN and the rest are happy.
More likely most people don't even understand that there is collective worship in schools! Twice , on this thread alone, I have pointed out that there are no secular schools in England.

WavingLeaves, I was hoping nobody would ask. I think this is the relevant update to the admissions code.

dera.ioe.ac.uk/8631/2/SchoolAdmissionsCodeWEB060309.pdf

It is probable that most schools were abiding by this anyway, but this code enforced it for all schools.

I really stand for having a choice.There never will be uniform all-inclusive educational system which will equally benefit/satisfy everyone.
I believe that those who can afford private education and chose to use it are absolutely right to do so.
I think that devouted Catholics should be able to to send their DC to Catholic schools and CofE schools should be free to teach Christians concepts to children without being accused of being politically incorrect.
I also know very well from having experienced all sort of schooling for quite a number of DC that the most important influence on DC is the family. A bright child will survive a rough school and will achieve despite bad schooling. A not so bright/unmotivated child might come out with bugger all out of the most expensive public school.
The only people who really qualified to make decisions for their DC are their parents - not a church, not the state.
If all the critics of selective education , private , grammar schools or faith based could come up with one useful suggestion of how to improve the crap state schools (Note - not all state schools are crap, just the crap ones), then it would be a useful interesting discussion.

Breadandbutterfly summed it much better while I was writing my long list of "I believes"..

I also do enjoy living in Christian society. I will pray for lost lamb Steve to help him to see the light and stop him practising virgin sacrifice every full moon or whatever his very different morals, which have nothing in common with Christian ones , command.

I'm sorry Breadandbutterfly- I assumed you were being sarcastic. I was arrogant enough to think that my views on private educstion were so well known on here that nobody would need to ask. I am very strongly opposed to private education. I think it is damaging to individuals and to society and perpetuates division and inequality of opportunity.