Cant get DC into a faith school

[angelfireabbey]

I know this is possibly the wrong place because it seems the whole of MN is atheist or totally secular. However, there is a lot of discussion by MNers here about getting intofaith schools ( often without any faith because they are good schools).

I am a little bit fed up with it. I take my faith seriously. I take my DC to church and we believe. I wanted my DC to have a faith education. There are only two faith schools where I live. They are oversubscribed by parents who seem to have suddenly aquired a need to attend church to get a vicars signiture.

I had my pastors signiture but we didnt get a place. So instead my DC is stuck in a state school where the teachers and other children laugh and say that they have " imaginary friends" ( or simply they are nutters!) and that they believe in fairly stories etc. Sound familiar MN parents? ( I bet you wouldnt say it if someone were of say Jewish or Muslim faith though would you?). It is offensive you know.

They have an atheist teacher who clearly knows next to nothing about Christianity.

I would settle for any faith school although there are no others ( of any faith ) within 40 miles of us.

So how do I get into one? I have asked my church community. I know they are doing their best and we are praying hard but I am sure some savvy non religious types must know more here. So I am asking.
I see thread on thread where parents are scamming the system.So how does a genuine person get in?

Thanks.

I'm afraid I don't agree. Lying is never fine.

Arsenic- the children go along with it and maintain the deception in the cases I know. (I mean secondary age, not Primary. Presumably a primary child just thinks their family believes in christianity, etc and is none the wiser?)

Damn right Arsenic, hence "If my child were educated in the UK...". I am lucky enough to live in a country with proper separation of Church and State. Here the 'jump though hoops' that separates the state schools is French Immersion. Fortunately, I speak shit French alors je suis sorted. Except we are thinking of spending a year or two in the UK at some point and I can't bear the idea of DD having to pray.

Lying is absolutely fine if the system is corrupt or wrong. "Is there anyone hiding in your attic?". "No". The system discriminates and therefore lying is fine. If someone was only going to hire me if I said I was a Pagan, would it be wrong to say I was? No, it would be wrong that they discriminated in the first place.

Damn right Arsenic, hence "If my child were educated in the UK...". I am lucky enough to live in a country with proper separation of Church and State.

I wasn't having a go, just feeling a bit envious

Except we are thinking of spending a year or two in the UK at some point and I can't bear the idea of DD having to pray.

In our experience of 5 state schools there have always been at least a couple of pupils who don't attend 'collective worship' due to their/paretal preference.

Re. the lying, I could probably square small lies with my own conscience of the 'fake paganism for a job' variety, I'd do some pretty cynical things on the DC's behalf but I couldn't involve the DC in a lie myself. Actually it's not so much 'involve them in a lie' or not just that. How would it work? You take them to church and make sure to raise your eyebrows at them throughout the service so they know we are NOT taking this stuff seriously? Or debrief them over Sunday lunch every week? Put the other views over? Ir let them young minds absorb it (seeing sacraments, hearing sermons, attending sunday school with bible instruction etc) and years later they realise you exposed them to something sacred (to some) in a spirit of deep cynicism? I just can't get my head round it all and we've been in some tight spots, school wise.

I suppose if you are religiously fluid, it's easier.

The whole thing is so unnecessarily fraught with dilemmas and I feel for every parent who has to choose which way to jump.

It may not follow that your DC remains religious. I was brought up in a religious home and went to a faith school I am now an atheist. I wish there were no religion in schools at all.
It does sound like the school is not very good and that your dd was treated badly. I would put all the effort into dealing with this. Your dd is at the top of the list for the other school so there isn't much you can do about that. For your dd's sake I would try and resolve the issues at her current school.

(I mean secondary age, not Primary. Presumably a primary child just thinks their family believes in christianity, etc and is none the wiser?)

Yes attending church from age 2 or 3 for primary entry is v different from attending from age 8 or 9 for secondary admissions. The primary scenario feels worse somehow, if there is no genuine belief from the parents.

As someone of a non-Christian faith, I would far rather send my child to any UK school with collective worship, then any school in France, where the supposed "separation of Church and State" is utilised to convey racist, anti-immigrant sentiments.

Also, "lying is fine if the system is corrupt and wrong". Hmm, does that extend to any system you think is corrupt and wrong?

Also, "lying is fine if the system is corrupt and wrong". Hmm, does that extend to any system you think is corrupt and wrong? Yep. Thankfully I have been lucky enough to live in relatively benign democracies. So, not much scope for lying. If I were living in Sudan or Saudi or North Korea, I would be lying my arse off. As, I suspect, would most of us.

Arsenic I didn't think you were having a go Tone is so difficult to read on here.

Arsenic - you could look at it this way: by regularly taking their child to church, non believing parents are giving them a chance to find a faith, which may turn out to be a great source of happiness and meaning as the child grows.

Because you know - it's not really about the adult's faith is it? It's all about the child, or it should be.

Your complaint against the current school is entirely legitimate - discrimination on grounds of religious belief is equally as illegal as discrimination on grounds of race, sexual orientation etc.

I find it interesting that you mention your genuine belief and that you had your minister's letter signed but you don't mention how often your family actually went to church during the qualifying period prior to applications.

Admissions criteria don't measure magnitude of faith, because that can't possibly be measured. They measure factual information about actions.

In our area, the faith school is the only nearby school with remotely acceptable academic performance so it is heavily oversubscribed.

Their admissions form to be completed by the minister requires each family to be categorized either (a) there pretty much every Sunday and involved in further activities too. (b) there on Sundays more often than not. (c) there on Sundays generally about once a month plus Christmas and Easter. Within each category the applicants are ordered by distance from the school.
,
Each year usually everyone in category (a) gets in, and about 5-10 closest applicants from category (b). I have absolutely no doubt that there are people with genuine faith in category (b) and (c) and people with no faith in category (a) but it's right that applications should only be influenced by actual actions, not words or thoughts.

Don't be too downhearted about the chances of a place coming up now you're at the top of the waiting list. People often have to move to another city or country for work or family reasons. You may get a place sooner than you think.

This was quite an interesting read from parliament about statistics and teacher qualifications in faith schools.

www.parliament.uk/Templates/BriefingPapers/Pages/BPPdfDownload.aspx?bp-id=SN06972

Something I didn't know - faith schools don't have to follow the NC in RE lessons, they can choose to limit them to their own faith. So at non-faith schools you will get a rounded view of world religions, at a faith school not necessarily I wonder how that works at GCSE?

I am sorry you have encountered one rogue teacher in a community school but you are in a position to complain because there are rules to ensure that what is taught develops in pupils a knowledge and respect for all faiths. The same cannot be always said for faith schools. What of the non Catholic parents who were given no choice but a place in a local Catholic School (and whose siblings will have no chance of a place because priority is given to "practising" catholics) or the parents in Berkshire who were given no choice but a place in a Sikh school?

And the local parents who may find they cannot get a place in the six closest primary schools and face two bus journeys and an hour journey there and back dragging two toddlers twice a day partly because four of their six closest schools are faith schools, with four wheel drives clogging up the roads around? In those faith schools 1% of the children recieve free school meals and in the community school 10%.

And all the Eastern European parents who are devout pratising Catholics for whom baptism before six months was not the common custom because of the difficulties in a communist country who now find themselves excluded from London's most oversubscribed Catholic Schools because they are not deemed Catholic enough as a result.

Indeed as a non conformist however devout your faith which I don't doubt I can advise you that you would have no means of accessing a faith school in this area. For the most oversubscribed you would need to start organising yourself from your child's birth, getting early baptism, attending the right sort of church even on holiday (there is a process to collect the necessary signatures) cleaning the silver (though the admissions regulatory body have finally called the schools out on this discriminatory and indeed sexist practise) etc etc.

I do not at all blame any parent who goes through those hoops to secure a local school place for their child. Around here the alternative may be a distant school or no school place at all. Some 4 year olds did not start school until Christmas, many parents move, or sell up/ take second jobs etc in order to afford private schools.

The existence of faith schools, and especially their privilege of being allowed exclusive admissions that exclude local children leads to so much unfairness that it just isn't very christian, is it? Our Anglican diocese recognises that and calls on faith schools to be inclusive but do their local churches listen and do the christian thing?

Whilst we go to a non conformist denomination, I know my DC actually has leanings toward a quieter contempative approach and may well decide when she is older to travel a path toward either the High Church C of E or even Roman Catholicism

Well there's your answer to why you didn't get a place. My children go to a Cof E school. Preference is given to children whose parents attend the CofE attached to the school regularly, then other Christians, then people of ther religiions. The catholic primary has the same (only with catholic children taking priority obviously).

You could got to YOUR church for 20 hours a day every day. It still wouldn't put you above someone who went once a week to a Cof E or Catholic church.

You say you want your childrent to go to any faith school. The people who run the faith schools want children of that particular faith not any faith. So you're at a disconnect.

I'm against faith schools. People who support them frequently say that the churches themselves pay towards the costs and so that rightfully entitles them to give preference to children of the same faith. The model you seem to favour would be a child of any faith was given preference to a faith school. It'd never work - you REALLY think a CoE or catholic church would happily carry on part-funding CoE or catholic schools which didn't give "their own" preference? It wouldn't happen and would be the gateway to the complete abolition of faith schools. That'd be absolutely fine by me, but very contentious for others.

You could got to YOUR church for 20 hours a day every day. It still wouldn't put you above someone who went once a week to a Cof E or Catholic church

That isnt strictly speaking true, although it may be so elsewhere.

The admissions criteria placed us in rank 3 - above us were cared for children and SEN and children who had baptismal certificates and were regular attenders and had siblings at the school (of course as she is a first born, we have no older siblings).

However, I have not always attended the church we go to now and we are C of E and DD has a baptismal certificate. We had signitures from both our current minister declaring she attended church and we were committed christans and also from the Bishop (who my DH knew from his work and because he was once our parish priest) who vouched for us.

Of course that does leave this system open to abuse with many parents attending church just to get in, you are quite correct on that. But DD did ho to a "feeder" primary.

The argument is now that we were "accidently" overlooked and it was an administrative error, and we should have been much higher up the list so we have suddenly climbed the list. This is possibly the reason many of DD's friends have managed places at the school but we did not. But of course the school in now full.

There are other options now being discussed by clergy .
My DD has gone off to the church run half term club today (which is a joint venture with the local C of E).

I am certainly not sending her back to the school. She told our minister last night she did not want to go back.

I am sorry you have encountered one rogue teacher in a community school

I am not sure she is a "rogue" teacher honestly. I just think its the way its done in community schools. I have also found out since last night that it seems the schools idea of "act of worship" or assembly leaves much to be desired too - but I am sure its all fair and above board in a school like that.

It just isnt what I would like for my DD, its clearly not what she wants either. I am hopeful now of a solution, even if temporary.

If there were an option for my DD to go to a private school and we could afford it,I would be happy for that. The main stumbling block is the fees.

I have heard there are schools which are run by parents as independent schoolsand they only chargefees according to ability of parents to pay. If we had one near to us , it would be a consideration.

Indeed, if the maintained schools were all community schools,we might have a greater opportunity to have these. In fact the faith school in question here, used to be an independent school and the buildings and land still belong to the diocese and it still maintains itscontrol of the school , but became state ( non fee paying) in the early 1980's ( when it sems a lot of such schools did -not sure why)

It's an abusive system. The criteria vary wildly from school to school, let alone LA to LA.

Our local schools are: siblings, then CofE who go to the linked church, any other CofE, distance. The next nearest CofE also put 'any other faith' above CofE.

How 'faith' is determined also varies wildly. As long as it's an abusive and discriminatory system I think it's pretty rikch to complain about it being 'open to abuse' - particularly when most CofE schools require church attendance, not commitment to the faith.

Something I didn't know - faith schools don't have to follow the NC in RE lessons, they can choose to limit them to their own faith. So at non-faith schools you will get a rounded view of world religions, at a faith school not necessarily I wonder how that works at GCSE?

Whilst I may not be pointy elbows and breaking the commandments getting my DD into a school, I do know something about this.

In an RC school staff teaching Re not only have to be practicing but also have a special certificate saying they have trained as RC teachers of religion. In a C of E school the rulesareless strict but still a person of faith is expected to deliver RE according to the faith of the school.

As for GCSE, there are specifications which allow only one religion to be studied. In many schools this is done not just faith schools. An RE teacher (teaching GCSE) told me a few days ago that he did not do a GCSE specification with two faiths because he found that in his school most of the children had little or no knowledge of any faith and it was hard enough to get them secure in one faith system for an exam let alone two. It seems its not uncommon to do that at GCSE in schools where the results count.

No angelfire there are very clear rules about the way the RE curriculum is delivered because we are a pluralist multi faith society and it is very important that our children are bought up to respect those of all faiths and none and to think about the important moral and ethical issues. That is quite aside from the fact that the teachers has spoken in a way that was not respectful to your child which is clearly unacceptable in ANY school. My DD has persued Religion and ethics to A level and I have been very impressed by the way in which the curriculum encompasses all points of view and the plurality of ideas. She has found it stimulating and enlightening.

It is intrinsic to your posts that you have little respect for those who do not share your and your daughter's faiths, especially those of no faith but that sort of prejudice towards any group on the basis of their beliefs would not be acceptable in a community school and you would have grounds for complaint .
Incidentally you mention bullying, I live close to a faith school with exclusive admissions and I daily witness exclusion and bullying, in fact on a greater scale than surrounding community schools. It is a new school and I strongly suspect that rather than send teachers out on patrol they think they can rely on their much vaunted "ethos" . Do you really think that if your DD encounters bullying for whatever reasons then a faith school might not be the solution to her problems and you need to be securing the right support for her regardless of what sort of school she attends. Bullies don't just pick on faith to attack the vulnerable.....

Mocking students isn't 'the way it's done' in non-faith schools. That's actually quite an offensive statement.

I am not sure she is a "rogue" teacher honestly. I just think its the way its done in community schools

It's offensive sweeping generalisations like this, calling in to question the professionalism of thoudsands of teachers, that make it very difficult to offer you advice or support. You opening post smacks of this sort of prejudice too.

It is intrinsic to your posts that you have little respect for those who do not share your and your daughter's faiths, especially those of no faith but that sort of prejudice towards any group on the basis of their beliefs would not be acceptable in a community school and you would have grounds for complaint

This is not actually about "respect" is it? I have every rspect for those who wish to persue a different belief or no belief. It is up to them.

What I would prefer that my DD is brought up with those of similar faith around her. Its is what she seems to prefer too as far as I can see as it has been her expressed wish.

If she changes her mind she is free to go to any or no church on Sundays. I wouldnt stop her.

However, the community schol was not a choice, so I see no reason why I have to show respect to those faiths who cannot show equal respect to my DD's faith. It cuts both ways.

Incidentally you mention bullying,

I never mentioned bullying, other posters have labelled it that.