Church schools - how can they get away with it?

[CountessDracula]

Am I right in thinking that they are state funded?

How come they can pick and choose when others can't? Isn't it essentially exclusion on the basis of religion, isn't that BAD in the current climate?

So, then DC, explain to me how special needs ranks above church affiliation for the entrance criteria to our COE school.

Ignoring the fact of whether faith schools produce better results, why they do, funding etc.

WHO THINKS IT IS GOOD FOR SOCIETY AS A WHOLE TO EDUCATE KIDS ACCORDING TO THE FAITH OF THEIR PARENTS ????

If all things were equal and secular school taught moral values and produce well educated, well rounded kids - would you prefer that??

That's it Kaz33 - it's back to the "need" question. I still don't think anybody has demonstrated that we'd need church schools, once they agree that secular schools can teach moral values, etc.

lol, at CustyX:"there are christian school in poor areas but they dont have the legue table results so dont figure in this argument becuase you dont get the heathen libral pinko middle classes clambering for places making property prices go up etc etc."
That's all true, and of course it doesn't make it good.

80smum - great link here's some facts from it

How many Church of England schools are there?

• 25.2% of all state primary schools in England are Church of England schools.
• 5.8% of all state secondary schools in England are Church of England schools.
• 18.6% of all primary pupils and 5.8% of all secondary pupils attend these schools and these percentages in each case are growing

so, using the statistic for GB that I found earlier, if 70% of the population (assuming that this ratio applies to England only as well) consider themselves Christian then if only 25% of schools in England are C of E plus the other christian schools ( a smaller percentage than C of E, I would guess) we actually have a SHORTAGE of Christian schools

IOTA - why?

Just you consider yourself Christian / CofE does not mean that you want your children to be educated in a CofE school.

Please answer my question - is a faith education in itself a desirable thing if you remove educational achievements etc... from the equation.

Kaz - I can't actually think of a reason why you would NOT want your child educated in a Christian school if you were a Christian.

Let me ask you why do you think a Christian would NOT want their child to go to a Christian school?

iota, do you really think that 70% figure is reliable? As I said, I think people just bung down "Christian/C of E" in the "religion" box when they're not sure what to put, or because they remember they were brought up going to church, or because they sang hymns in assembly. Otherwise, how do you explain the vast discrepancy between 70% of English people being "Christian" and 2% of English people going to church? (I think we are talking English, not British - apologies if that's not the case.)

I mean, you could easily explain a small discrepancy, and I know you don't HAVE to go to a building to express a faith - but the fact that 2/70ths - that's 97% - of people who call themselves Christian don't go to church at all seems an ENORMOUS gulf. It implies to me that they're either not Christian, are only vaguely religious, aren't really bothered, or just didn't really know what to put.

DS's school has a majority kids who are of the Islam faith does that make it a Muslim school and if so why aren't the results better? Do you think it is the actual religious instruction that makes Faith Schools out preform.

The reason there are so many Muslim kids in DS's school is because all the Christian faith schools around here wouldn't take them. In fact our local COE school not only insists you are of the faith you must also attend the specific Church the school is affiliated to.

All I can say is Thank God I am a heathen!!!!

Where are the schools for for the minority religions like say Trekkies and Pagans?

is it a good thing for children to be separated according to their parent's religion iota? I think it is important for children to learn together and hope fervently that by doing so we can avoid the kind of religious tensions in the next generation that blight some areas of the country right now

"Let me ask you why do you think a Christian would NOT want their child to go to a Christian school?"

I'll suggest a few possible answers.

To go to school with people of other faiths or none.
To make friends of other faiths or none.
To go to a school which represents a greater cross-section of the local population than they'd meet in church or at home.
To go to a school which is truly representative of the local community.
Because there's no reason for schools to have any underlying religious dogma at all.
Because people who have no religious faith don't have special schools where it is taught that all religion is bunkum, so why should Christians have their own schools?

I'm sure there are others.

It's much more complex than just, as suggested below, "if you like them, then use them, if you don't, then don't." We should question the whole underlying assumption about why faith schools even exist.

IOTA - Because they believe that ones faith is a private matter, not something that needs to be taught at school.

• Because they believe that ones children, to have the best opportunity of understanding other cultures/creeds should mix/be educated with them.

Strangely enough the same reason that, although my parents would pay for the boys to be privately educated, I think it is important for the boys to go to the local state schools so that they can learn that not everyone has the financial advantages that they have.

drosophilia - Jedi schools there must be! The ways of Yoda learn they must!

well Unquietdad, don't expect that 70% figure to be entirely evangelical born-again dedicated Christians, but whether people consider themselves Christian because the were Christened as a baby and got married in the local church because it was more picturesque than the Registry Office, or whether they are in the 2% that go to Church, those people cared enought to call themselves Christian, not Jedi or athiest or agnostic.

so iota, is it a god thing for Protestants and Cathilics to be educated separately?
Christians and Muslims?
and presumably the atheists all by themselves?
WHY is that a good thing?
it sounds vile to me

Unquietdad - have just seen your post of 12.26 - absolutely hilarious!

So now we have a situation wherethe Christians don't want to send their children to a Church school for all your reasons, yet the Churches are half-full of fake worshippers who are desperately trying to get their kids into a Church school

Perfect

HC - I don't recall saying at any point that it was a good thing.

I just think there's a big difference between putting "Christian"/"C of E" on a census form and actively wanting your children to be brought up in a faith-based environment at school. This isn't America, where everyone seems to take God as read. We don't have "In God We Trust" on our banknotes (I'd probably leave the country if we did) and we don't have leaders who denounce atheists as being unpatriotic non-citizens. (here, if you don't know what I'm referring to )

I'm totally with CD, WWW, Soapbox et al.

I see no reason that dh and I should fund a local school from which our children are excluded (it does NOT take non-catholic children) and I see no reason that children have to be 'educated within their faith'. What's wrong with a non-church school and then taking the religious aspect of your child's upbringing from the home and family environment and visiting your own relevant place of worship?

There is just absolutely no need for schools for separate faiths imo. Like CD says in her original post, tbh I don't know how it's allowed!

iota - don't get what you're saying, sorry! Why should that situation arise?? There will only be fake worshippers trying to get into the faith schools if the current situation persists. I'm talking about abolishing the current situation. No faith schools = no fake worshippers.

er, what?!?!?!
well do you think it is, or not?
I am LOST.

Lots of people have given good accounts of why they want their children to go to faith schools under a system where faith schools exist as part of the fabric. These are easy to understand, if not necessarily to justify.

But nobody has put up a convincing argument for why they would want to have such a thing as a faith school per se. It's a different argument.

Put another way - if faith schools did not exist, would it be necessary to invent them?

Or, put another way (again!) would St.Dingdong's suddenly become an awful school if you totally removed the faith-based element (leaving all other factors unchanged)? And would Bogstandard High suddenly become a good school if it turned into a faith school (again, changing nothing else)?

Ah now that Uwila has joined the thread, I realise I have to use shorter words.
I said "on average", do I assume you don't understand that ? I don't know the details of your school.
What % have any sort of special needs ?
Do you know ?

aAlthough I wrote my post before I knew I'd have to get past your reading difficulties I said that That's why I said average, and I apologise for using a 3 syllable word.

Iota has a valid question, and it is worth asking from both directions.
If you really cared about your faith, would you really want it in the hands of your local school ?

Also CoE is the acme of a "broad church". It includes anything from anglo-catholics through gnostics, evangelicals, evolution-rejecters and rather famously a bishop who refers to the miracle of Christ's resurrection as "conjuring trick with some old bones".
It is impossible for any school that deal with hundreds of kids to mimic the superstitions of the various parents. And even then, children who've been exposed to bronze age misogny, laughably inae logic, and "proof by shouting", develop their own views. Thus complicating it any further.

And if you're going to have faith schools, you have what mathematicians call a "packing problem".
It's impossible for schools to keep up with the ratios of religions in any given area.

I see it as my job to teach ethics to my kids. The schools job is to moderate their behaviour, which is a very different thing.

eeek - in my post of 12:20
please read 68/70ths for 2/70ths!! It makes no sense otherwise... THWACK on forehead.