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?

Probably needs it own thread. The arguments and motivations involved are not always the same, I'd have thought.

are you saying then avoidingcolleuges,that we can not spend our money where we choose then? re educating privately
similar in principle to some of the posters here that would deny my children to be educated at a school that embraces their faith,and make no mistakes here, it is their faith!
or are you just opening up another thread?!!
(this comment is for all the moaners about this subject that are posting here)
cut the crap....have you been turned down by your prefered school because you are not of that faith,or equally not applied cos you dont fit admissions criteria? (she expects back an answer of highned denial from some!)
re-iterate again a previous poster
send them to a faith school if you agree or dont send them to a faith school if you disagree it is that simple!!

I think this may have been the basis for DC's post about faith schools having fewer special needs kids.

"cut the crap....have you been turned down by your prefered school because you are not of that faith,or equally not applied cos you dont fit admissions criteria?"

No crap here. The answer to your above questions is no, and no. We haven't even got to that stage yet - DD is at the local primary, our choice of school, and DS is at nursery.

"send them to a faith school if you agree or dont send them to a faith school if you disagree it is that simple!"

And I re-iterate, IT'S NOT. That choice does not address the key, central issue which people are trying to debate here - whether we should have faith schools at all, and whether the education system would be any the worse for it if they were to be removed from the equation.

cowmad actually it really isn't that simple
as I have said many times on this thread and elsewhere - my local village school is a CofE school
no, I don't particularly want dd's to go there because I am an atheist.
no, I don't really have much of a choice because to send her elsewhere (i.e. a non CofE school) would mean a long journey to another town because the other non cofe school within this town she will not get into because it is over subscribed.
so actually it isn't that simple, in rural areas particularly.
how would you feel if your local schools were all run by (say) a Hindu temple? would you be happy to send your child there?

Certainly that's a good question, and the two themes interact. Most private schools have some sort of relgious core, typically CoE.
DS1 is at a highly selective private school, and you'd have to do a really crap job not to have them leave with good results. Being a Christian school, they avoid having many special needs to screw with their statistics.

That is an issue the unions don't really address.
Most private schools are selective, quite openly.
DS1's school friends are all above average academically, and since the school selects on behaviour as well, they're nice in a slightly spooky way.

Does this harm society ?
Certainly teaching unions would say so. They want smart kids in their scools to dilute the harmful effect of the Sky Sports generation. But I don't want my kids used to help undo defective parenting.

Also, in our case the superstition is not hard line. Although there's a full time chaplain it doesn't ban evolution or persecute any of the many kids whose parents aren't superstitious, or who have a different invisible friend to compete with Jesus.
Ask your4self. If a school says "Jesus is the good guy@, what does it say about the kids who deny his very existence ? Think they have a good time from the other kids or from the teachers themselves ?

The nearest school to us is CoE which, with a fanatic in charge. Even Ofsted who see their job as PR bunnies for schools had dark remarks about the bullying problem and how in spite of it being an area of essentially zero deprivation and near 100% use of English at home, the results were very mediocre.
I would go hungry to pay fees rather than let my kids go there. And yes, before you ask I have gone hungry back when we were poor.

The Chaplain at DS1's school is not a bad chap, and we've had vigorous arguments over religion. One left my hand bleeding where he threw a piece of metal at me. No I don't know why I caught it rather than duck

Private schools are a far smaller % of system than you might think, and way lower than state schools driven by people who think "Narnia" is a historical textbook.

My kids don't meet any working class kids through school at all. Even competitve sports seem to be solely between private schools. They do meet a pretty broad range of backgrounds, and given that the parents aren't failures, they will experience meeting admirable, but very different people.

Education is compulsory, and if you don't have the resources, then you have to take what the state gives you. Superstion based schools increase the distance between schools and homes causing both lower outcomes and pollution.

harpsichordcarrier's very valid question:
"how would you feel if your local schools were all run by (say) a Hindu temple? would you be happy to send your child there?"

Or even, to suggest another alternative : How would you feel if they were all run by active atheists?

ooh yes good plan
I shall take over my village school
I shall take 100% funding for it, natch
and I shall teach atheism
I shall tell my "truth" about what I think about what it says in the bible.
now, cowmad, would you like to come?

agree with Sherlock .....same old, same old.

And as for this purse waving, 'it's my taxes paying for it' - your taxes are funding wars , the arms trade and God knows what else.

if u dont like your local school then move,like you would do for a good job that would give you more satisfaction
if you cant/wont move educate at home by a non faith teacher...tailored to your approval,an claim for that off your lea...
of course you will have to prove that religeon is detromental to your children ,if you can.
when i last looked this country is still a democracy and as your so good at convincing all of us here that your way is better unquietdad,try politics and then you can enforce your way on everyone else

plus I can't believe some people are so ' dense' shall we say, that they actually talk of 'brainwashing' and religion being ' rammed down their throats'. What bloody planet are you on then? get real FGS and stop being so reactionary.

cowmad"when i last looked this country is still a democracy and as your so good at convincing all of us here that your way is better unquietdad,try politics and then you can enforce your way on everyone else"

I'm afraid it smacks of desperation to start making this kind of jibe. It's attacking the arguer rather than the argument.

"convincing all of us here that your way is better"... aka having an opinion? Since when have I said I want to "enforce my way" on anyone? I'm simply joining in a debate about whether we should have faith schools. In order to do that, I've invited speculation about what would happen if they were to be removed from the system, and asked for a defence of why they are necessary. (Not desirable - necessary.)

"if u dont like your local school then move" is an outrageous comment. Why should people move rather than send their children to the local primary school? How easy is it for most people to "move"? Why should they even want to, if they like where they live?

Plus, a decent education for your children is a RIGHT. There's no way on earth it can be compared to moving for a better job, which is a career decision, not a right.

aha
if I don't like it I should shut up
stop moaning
or move!
am loving these Christian attitudes, what a marvellous advert for the church they are

no replies then about being turned down for your school of choice then???winkwink and nodnod(except from unquietdad who said he wasnt at that stage yet despite having a child at primary school eerrr yes you are!!)
send em
or dont
(this bit is true but funny!!)off to mass and a great big dinner afterwards bye!!

er, cowmad are you even reading my responses?!?
yes, my daughter will get into the CofE school
NO I DON'T WANT HER TO GO.
is that so difficult to understand?

"except from unquietdad who said he wasnt at that stage yet despite having a child at primary school eerrr yes you are!!"

Don't insult my intelligence. Read. My. Lips.

We are not at that stage because WE HAVE GOT A SCHOOL PLACE for DD, have started the process for DS and won't have to make an application again until the issue of secondary school comes up.

The implication - quite insultingly - was that people on here who are opposed to faith schools are taking that stance out of sour grapes. I find that quite shocking, especially from someone who is supposed to be showing us how good it is to be Christian.

I can't believe how much this thread is irritating me.....

Another my kids will go to the local C of E, again like HC - I don't want them to go there but its less than a minute away and if I didn't where exactly would they go - the catholic primary or maybe the one on the other side of town where I would have trouble getting in because it is a good school and over subscribed.

Get real Cowmad - we really don't want our kids to learn that Jesus came to save us. We are quite happy for them to be integrated into the local community, learn respect and morality. But these values are not copyrighted by christianity or any other religious group. You could argue quite the opposite - but thats an argumeent we won't have.

Why can no one come up with a convincing argument that faith schools are per se a good thing, not just for their kids but for society.
Or are we all so self centered that we only think of ourselves - god help us!!

And the "send them if you want to/ don't if you don't" thing is a hugely reductive approach to the situation and a false "choice". It ignores the situation of people like harpischordcarrier and kaz33, who don't like the idea of the school being a CofE school but, as members of the local community, want their child to go to the local school rather than driving them halfway across town.

in a faith school, the children will be taught the tenets of that faith alongside and as part and parcel of the curriculum i.e. as truth.
generally by teachers who are believers in that particular faith.
so yes, they would come home having been taught that that faith is the correct one, though other people believe other things.