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?

Schoolworries - "Nobody has really explained why initially faith schools started excelling though. "

I have. :)

1. Self-discipline inculcated through religious practice.
2. Better behaiour through shared moral framework.
3. Intellectualcontent of religious practice - difficult foreign languages, analysis of complex ancient texts etc.

Sometimes the excel sometimes they don't. People have a problem with faith schools excelling so they make a Big Fuss about it. They have no problem with faith schools not excelling so nobody notices. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

TalkinPeace - my kids' religious education is paid for by voluntary parental contribution. So you do not pay for it.Their secular education is paid for by the state, same as yours is.

"some of the people who 'campaign against faith schools' are actually in reality only campaigning against catholic schools and really, it's catholics they are campaigning against not the schools."

I really don't think that is true.

I used to live in an area where there was a black hole about half a mile square where if you didn't go to church, your child did not get to go to school (well, they did, if you were prepared to take your 4 year old to a school a couple of bus rides away). This is why people resent religious schools. I don't think people resent catholic schools as much as they resent C of E schools because there isn't such a perception that people are only practising catholics to get their child into a school.

I do think some people - like IAmSteve - who dislike faith schools clearly do so because they dislike religion full stop and see it as a Bad Thing (TalkinPeace also with his patronising description of religious teachers).

Because they don't want their children to be taught any religion they would like to deny all children the right to have any form of religious education And really,they hope this will do away with religion altogether.

Oh, it really is true Merrymouse. Sadly. :( You'll note I said some not all.

@Bread Groupthink. People who don't think like they do are dismissed as idiots.

There are thousands of faith schools - some excel, some are awful, some are average (we have examples of all three locally). But because of their entrance process they offer a mechanism for "well-motivated" parents to congregate in the better ones.

The humanist campaign is against segregation of children in state schools on the grounds of parental belief - seems pretty straightforward to me. I am also, as it happens, against my children being denied access to a third of the schools my taxes (mostly) pay for. Bejng CofE (or Catholic) is not a special need.

breadandbutterfuly, I dislike faith school in England, not because I dislike religion, but because they would not give my children an equal opportunity to be educated simply because I do not believe in God. In addition I resent having my tax money being used for a service that is not available to all.

And, as I said in my earlier post, in fact, my dd is about to start attending a faith school, despite the fact that the rest of her family does not believe in God.

Thank you for answering breadandbutter. Intresting food for thought :)

SofiaAmes - in what way do you feel they are not giving your child "an equal opportunity to be educated"? Given that:

""Around one-third of maintained primary and secondary schools in England are faith
schools and just under one-quarter of pupils attend such schools. "

then clearly those who wish to attend non-denominational schools have far choice - about twice as much choice overall. In practice, your choice is infinitely greater - if I want to send my child to a Hindu school or a Sikh school or a Moslem school and get a free education I have almost no choice. There are more Jewish schools, largely because the community has been living here longer, but in most areas you would have an incredibly long commute - or have to move. Lots of Catholic schools are very oversubscribed, and it's not as though all Catholics live in just the one area...etc.

So actually, you have vastly more choice - you have no understanding of the fact that genuinely comiitted religious people will move great distances to be near a school where their child can learn about their faith. The fact you cannot be bothered to move at all but object if any school near you won't take your child shows the gulf in understanding.

I certainly didn't expect my local primary school to be ideal for my child - I moved a long way at great inconvenience so they could have access to their faith.

should read "clearly those who wish to attend non-denominational schools have far MORE choice -"

The biggest problem with state-funded faith schools in the UK is that it can lead to some very unfair admissions scenarios.

Say you have two equally good, oversubscribed state primaries about half a mile apart, one community/non-denominational, and one CofE or Catholic, and two families with primary aged children each living right next door to one of the schools. One family is atheist, one is practising Catholic/CofE.

If the Christian family is living next door to the community school, they will have a free choice of a place at either school - at the community one on distance, and at the church school because they attend the linked church. If they live next door to the church school, they'll get a place there on distance and belief.

If the atheist family is living next door to the community school, great - they'll get a place. If they are living next door to the church school - disaster. They won't get a place there, because they aren't religious, but they won't get a place at the community school because they are too far away, and being not-religious does not give you priority at a not-religious school. Instead they get allocated a place at a failing school 3 miles away. The failing school might even be a religious one, but not enough believers want to go there so its places get given to those with no choice in the matter.

All these schools are 90-100% state funded. Now how is that fair?

breadandbutterfly, There were no good schools anywhere near us in West London that would freely admit my ds without a promise of attendance to a religious institution. (There were multiple good RC, CofE, Moslem, Sikh and Jewish schools nearby, but no atheist schools). I also, did not think that a long commute would be appropriate for a 4 year old. However, I, in fact, have a great understanding of the concept that someone can move great distances to fill the educational needs of their children. I left my job of 5 years, sold my house in West London at a loss, and moved 6000 miles to Los Angeles to get my children to a school where they could be educated without bias and prejudice.

Breadandbutter- please could you read my last post and explain how people wanting non-denominational schools have more choice? They clearly have less.

The USA is one of the most openly religious contries going!

I don't think you have to move to LA! But the principle is the same - that you cannot always assume that your perfect school will be located on your doorstep, whether or not religion features as a criteria and if you do not actively seek this out, then blaming faith schools for your child's lack of success at getting a place is just a lazy excuse for your own lack of interest.

It's not as though faith schools hide it - if you move next door to a Catholic school and you're not a Catholic, it should hardly come as a great surprise to you if the school fails to be suitable.

Breadandbutter- I never understand parents who leave it to admissions time to even bother to find out what schools are available to them.

People don't always have a choice about where they move to - local authority or housing association tenants, people with work related housing, people struggling to find somewhere they can afford to live within commuting distance of work or near family support etc etc.

I think in practice very few people would actually be willing or able to up sticks and move house purely because of schools (mainly well-off middle-class families). Any admissions system that works in a way to force people to do that, just because they do not subscribe to a particular faith, is indefensible.

Breadandbutter, I am not blaming faith schools, simply the government for subsidizing them, while allowing them to discriminate against my children. Like I said before, my dd is going to be attending a faith school this coming year. It is a private one that I will be paying for (with healthy assistance from the school....).

Schoolworries, I started "late" (when my ds was 3) because frankly it never occurred to me that the schooling provided by the State and paid for by my hard earned tax dollars would discriminate against my child because I didn't believe in God. There are many religious people in the USA, but our public/state schools are completely secular and children are not discriminated against because of their parents' religious beliefs.

What expat said!!!!

whoops....exexpat

exexpat - in that specific situation,yes, the Catholic child has greater choice BUT only if the parents view a non-denominational school as a valid choice, which they may not, if getting their child a Catholic education is genuinely important to them. In that situation, the Catholic child who lives too far away from the Catholic school and the atheist child too far from the non-denominationalschool are equally disadvantaged.

But of course, your example is false, anyway, because the much greater number and spread of non-denominationalschools means that in practice a far more likely situation is a religious person with no faith schools anywhere even faintly within commuting distance, and those that are, incredibly over-subscribed. So they have no choice but move. Which they do - without moaning that it wasn't fair they could only get into a school of the wrong faith or no faith.

Your example also ignores what happens if the second child isn;t Catholic but jewish, or Sikh or Muslim etc etc - they have the same options as the athesist child - but neither of the schools actually suit their needs!

Because of course not everyone of 'faith' is the same faith, as you seem to picture it - unlike those lucky atheists, for whom 2/3 of schools are suitable, for those who are genuinely religious but in a minority faith, only a small number of schools across the whole country will actually be suitable!!! And yet they subsidize your 2/3 of schools without complaining.

"Butif you move next door to a Catholic school and you're not a Catholic, it should hardly come as a great surprise to you if the school fails to be suitable."

I don't think this is a problem if there is another alternative school available. However, people tend to get a bit miffed when there is no other school available, or if parents have grouped themselves so that you you can choose the school where the parents don't care or the school where those parents who do care have decided to jump through the hoop of sacrificing their Sunday mornings to the local church.

Also, given that people seem to be able to give themselves a religious education in the US and attend a secular school, most people genuinely don't understand why you can't receive a religious education at weekends, in school holidays and before 9 and after 3.30. (On the other hand, spending years being forced to sing "We plough the fields and scatter" at school in the UK tends to result in people who are rather luke warm about religion)