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?

Sorry- to clarify - the school would still be there and service teh same number of pupils but would not be able to select on the basis of religion - and would not be allowed to have any religious stuff as part of school life.

Is this just for state funded schools?

Yes

Ooh a large red please. Do you have any pork scratchings? And please hurry, I need to re-take my seat.

This is one long old interval - anymore pinot and I might be too drunk for the encore!!!!

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

(sorry, can't find the clanger thing for the bell )

The 'On Your Knees To Save The Fees' thing is rife in our area. There has been talk of building a Catholic-only secondary school but it has (so far) been opposed.

Marsy X. We're also going to hub's Kenwood thing, weather permitting.

Any chance you can make that? Even if only for an hour? I'd love to meet your clan and The Bubble Boys will be out in force.

ooh... if the bubble boys are going to be there. I may only get the DTs there and possible DD2. DD1 will be at a party and I'm supposed to be on a study day in Croydon of all places. So............ will do my best for you and huberdihub.

Of course if you are will to travel to Kenwood... there's no reason you should also travel to Crouch End. Mwah!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Interestingly, some areas have more than 50% (66% in one!) church primary school! And that is not even including those of other religions

maps here

I find it so odd given that only 2% of the public worships regularly that this should be an entrance criterion acceptable to state funded schools.

Oh and as for these schools not really being very religious (as someone said) our local one has this as the first line on its mission statement:

"We are a Roman Catholic Community, placing God at the centre of our lives. Christian values permeate every aspect of the school day"

Faith schools are independent schools in the US.

I was shocked to find out that isn't the case here.

I know it is very odd, and look at the numbers of them. They are selective on religious grounds which IMO is wrong if they are taking taxpayers' money

oooh - I wish I had seen this yesterday. I'm with you CD. I don't believe faith schools should be state funded. I believe, in the US, all faith schools are private schools. That's the way it should be here.

Aha - just seen your post Expat which clarifies what I thought about US faith schools.

In Scotland the "denominational" schools are 100% state funded. They are almost all catholic, although I think there is also a Jewish school and a few Episcoplain (Church of England) schools. In practice this means a parallel catholic state school system, with its won catchement areas. So yuo effectively have a choice of two catchment schools: the non-denominational one and the catholic one, either of which is duty bound to take you (regardless of whether you are "known" to the priest). Many of the muslims and sikhs choose to send their kids to the catholic schools.

I agree with CD on this, but as I have no principles mine go to a Church school! The best schools in my area were church ones, so I dragged myself to church & the kids too & got them in.
However, I do think that it is wrong in a largely secular country that we have state funded faith schools. I don't actually think that there is any "right" to have your children educated according to your faith. Church schools are just a hangover from the Victorian times when schools were run by volunteers from local churches!
I think education should be freely available to everyone regardless of their faith. I think church schools are discriminatory & out of place in our largely faithless society. Faith is a personal choice - not one that should be state funded.

Another odd thing about faith schools is that they were set up at a time when it could be assumed that most people would just go to their local church. What about people who are Christians but disagree with the ethos of the church attached to the school?

I am not religious, but there are plenty of people involved in the church who I think would be a very positive influence on my son. On the other hand, given that it is accepted generally that discrimination is a bad thing, I would be very unhappy if somebody who was either anti gay or had out dated views of women was involved in his education.

All the revenue budget as opposed to capital budgets of Community schools ('normal' LEA ones to you and me), Voluntary Aided, Voluntary Controlled and Foundation schools are funded by the LEA via a formula which is mostly based on school numbers and other factors. The funding to LEAs mostly comes from funding from Central government - which in effect comes from you and me via taxes.

All schools then may get additional funding via grants, parental and other contributions and other income generation.

All Voluntary Aided and Foundation schools have their own admission policies - these may be different from the LEA policies.

As you would expect admission policies are heavily weighted towards a particular religion but also towards specialists like music etc and other religions etc - you don't have to be the set religion to get in IYKWIM.

All schools have to teach religion in some sort of context and cover all the main types - even "Church schools" have to teach about other religions. This is part of the National Curriculum - and is part of it because of the powerful lobbying of the church in effecting educational policies.

Faith schools are not just 'Christian' I believe there Jewish and Muslim state funded schools as well.

Surely, we should be arguing that religious teaching in schools should be an option - some want it and some don't - we live in a mostly secular society where the majority of people don't give a toss about religion - so why should all schools teach about it?

I think schools should certainly teach it. Everyone needs to understand religion surely?

It's just excluding on the basis of religion I object to, and having schools that are state funded being selective in this way

I think now more than ever people should learn about religion. I would however like DS to learn about religion in an objective way rather than the 'this is what we think, this is what they think' way that I was taught it.

Realsied I didn't make it clear that I was talking about state funded denominational schools - there are of course also fully private religious schools.

According to the Scottish Executive FAQs, there are 430 state-funded faith schools: 401 Cathlic, 1 Jewish, 4 Episcopalian and the remaining are special schools, of various Christian denominations. (oit of a total of 2,769 schools)

According to the Scottish Executive, "These schools play an important part in education in Scotland. We believe it's important for parents and pupils to have the choice to attend a faith school, if they want to."

There are also 152 independent (private) schools, but the FAQ doesn't provide details as their religious make-up.

I am TOTALLY with CD on this one tbh.

It is OK for you lot that HAVE a choice, eg there is more than on school. However I live in a village with a cofe school in the middle, so do we not allow DD's to go to school with their friends, or do we put up with 'jesus died on the cross for our sins' stuff? (BTW I am jewish, so have a tiny issue with this!!)

I think religion should be taught as a subject, I think kids should be taught about different festivals, beliefs etc etc. BUT i don't want my child to feel she HAS to exclude herself from her class. This year her class led a mothering sunday service in the local church. She did all the practice, but didn't want to do the service. They shouldn't be doing things like that IMHO.

Until this year not one school trip had been arranged to teh local synagogue, but guess what, they went to teh church 2 or 3 times in their RE lessons. I changed that I can tell you!!

we used to have two high schools here, they have merged them together to make a 'super school' so children have to travel quite a way to get there. the old school is being turned into a jewish secondary, yes it's fine to have them but this has caused some bad feeling.