Why don’t politicians challenge admission to state schools based on religious attendance?

[SouthLondonDaddy]

It is common knowledge that most, if not all, religious state-funded schools discriminate (or is the technical word ‘prioritise’?) their admissions based on religious attendance. It is also common knowledge that many people baptise their children or become new-found Christians only because of schools.
I personally believe that discriminating admission to state-funded schools on the basis of religion is a disgrace, but what I don’t understand is why, AFAIK, no politician has ever tried to challenge this system. The UK is, except for Northern Ireland, a rather secular country, yet allows this blatant discrimination which would cause uproar in more religious countries (e.g. Spain or Italy).
Politics is always more about self-interest than abstract fairness, so I don’t expect many politicians to act driven by a generic sense of fairness, but I would have thought there was enough “political demand” for them to act on this point. In other words, AFAIK the number of families negatively affected by this policy should be so much greater than those who welcome it, that there should be a strong incentive for politicians to act on it. Yet AFAIK this topic has never really been on the political agenda. Why? Is the UK so full of church-going families? Are Church lobbies so powerful? Or what?

Let’s talk some numbers.
I remember reading somewhere that about a third of state-funded schools are religious in one way or another.
In the 2011 census, about 25% reported their religion as “Christian” and about 25% as none. AFAIK the census didn’t ask about attendance to weekly mass, and I am not aware of other surveys that were as far reaching as the national census, but the surveys I have seen talk about figures of between 3% and 10% of the population, which sounds realistic, at least for London (Northern Ireland may well be different).
So, 33% of state-funded schools require some kind of regular attendance to mass, which is something only between 3% and 10% of the population do regularly! Quite a disconnect!

Just wanted to flag that there are also Jewish and Muslim state schools.

What is required to meet the faith criteria is stipulated by each school in specific terms. It normally involves attending church a set number Sundays per month for X number of years. There is no stipulation that you have to believe in God, sing hymns, pray, feel affiliation to any religion and certainly not donate any money. It literally means what it says on the tin - turn up on the designated days and sit there until the end to get your attendance recorded

One naice, highly over-subscribed CofE primary school I came across had very strict faith based admissions criteria: as well as having to be baptised by a certain age, worship in the linked church and attend practically every Sunday, there was a requirement for parents to have played "an active role in the church community for at least two years prior to admissions". Examples given included bell-ringing, singing the choir and flower-arranging.

On one hand, I hate how these high hurdles effectively rule out families who haven't been in the position to plan school applications many years in advance. On the other, it did at least require parents to do a little bit more than just turn up and sit in the back row three times a month. And it also gave the vicar a steady flow of conscripts volunteers to help run the church - perhaps some of them even stayed on long after admissions criteria were of interest to them

My concern is that there are not enough adequate schools, not that there are religious schools. I'm also not aware of staff being promoted for their faith, rather than their performance.

From www.catholiceducation.org.uk/about-us/faqs

Do you have to be Catholic to teach in a Catholic school?
51% of teachers in Catholic schools are Catholic. Catholic schools value and respect all staff members regardless of backgrounds or beliefs and promote and support the vocation of teaching.

For certain leadership positions (eg. Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher and Head of Religious Education) there is a requirement that the position be filled by a practising Catholic in order to maintain the Catholic ethos of the school.

Humanist link to what can happen, eg a teacher who is not a practicing RC can only be employed if no RC teacher is available.

humanistlife.org.uk/2014/06/23/ten-facts-about-faith-schools/

Examples given included bell-ringing, singing the choir and flower-arranging.

The Fair Admissions Campaign has been successful in challenging all of the schools that have this sort of criteria, so if you come across it now you should flag it to them: fairadmissions.org.uk/

Guardian article on eradication of "admission by flower arranging" ...

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/01/faith-schools-admissions-church-flower-arranging-eradicated-england

@picklemepopcorn

Diversion, what you quite rightly have a problem with there is the insufficiency of school places in your area. It's clearly not good enough. Have they expanded church schools instead of other schools?

In my area, you have to go out of your way to get to faith schools. The majority are not faith schools. The faith schools are oversubscribed, though.

Yes, lack of school places is the problem. But surely you can see it would be salt in the wound to walk past multiple other schools, that I would be happy with but can't even realistically apply for, to get to the crap school a long way away.

The local Catholic school expanded - but that made no difference hyper-locally, as it just extended their catchment area into km rather than 100s of metres, and didn't take pressure off the nearest schools. They have very strict requirements (particular church, baptism before 6 months etc, and fill that category). The CofE school Governors refused the council's request to expand (local gossip said they didn't want to become less exclusive, and that they could cope financially with being 1FE by asking the wealthy parents for more money, I've no idea if that's true but the refusal to expand is on the record).

All the community schools had either already expanded, or were in the process of doing so and couldn't fit in (another) bulge class, or (in one case) physically couldn't expand as the site was so constrained.

That's not an uncommon position in big cities, and it does feel very unfair to families who aren't practising CofE or RC.

Yes, lack of school places

To be more precise, there is a lack of a surplus of school places.

A few years ago a national audit office report said there needed to be a 15% surplus of school places for everyone to be provided with a "reasonable" level of choice e.g. between faith/non-faith. These days the informal recommendation to Local Authorities is 5%. However they're also being squeezed financially so some local councils have a target of 0%.

Diversion it would be worth you asking what your LA's target surplus is and how it compares to the actual surplus.

Bear in mind though that the target /actual surpluses can be influenced by the local community's resiliance to stress. If large numbers are resourceful enough to move house, go private or follow the faith route (whether against their better judgement or not), and the LA is ruthless, then both are likely to be artificially low or even negative. They get away with it because so many people are happy to make big sacrifices rather than sending their child to an inadequate or RI school.

Of course if all the surplus places are in inadequate schools then they shouldn't really be counted as a surplus.

I have looked into many schools in many areas of London over many years, and I cannot remember a single case of a state-funded faith school which doesn’t prioritise all its places by faith

Start with Dulwich village infants and presumably the linked junior. It's offered half its places as open places for at least the last 5 years. It's far from the only school to do so. There was a move by the CofE to encourage schools to offer open places.

Also any VC school will offer all its places under the same criteria as the LA.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay , thanks for that. Dulwich village is for infants only and there is no automatic transfer to a junior school AFAIK. Plus, I'm considering leaving East Dulwich because Southern Fail has made transport a nightmare, so I'll never consider moving to Dulwich Village: more expensive, harder to get to anywhere, and you can't even buy a pint of milk!

Is the linked school Dulwich Hamlet Junior? The infant school website says there's no automatic transfer.

As for the eradication of admission by flower arranging : Does that mean there is some kind of specific ruling forbidding it, and that every school has to respect it? Or that most schools have voluntarily removed these criteria for fear of being challenged?

Rafals unfortunately not all voluntary controlled schools have open admissions. See here: accordcoalition.org.uk/take-action/campaigning-for-inclusive-admissions-in-local-voluntary-controlled-faith-schools/

Does that mean there is some kind of specific ruling forbidding it

Yes, Google the judicial review 're the Oratory school. They were found to breach the bit of the admissions code that says schools can't select on the basis of parent's hobbies or interests.

BBC article on Oratory case: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-28319015

I hadn't realised that, angel.

I don't actually agree that schools should be allowed to prioritise by religion, although I doubt that it will change. But there are a couple of things the OP has stated as fact or common knowledge that aren't true. Although it's possible that he's taken a Londob-centric view. That might go some way to explaining why there isn't a greater push for change from the general public.

Simple reason why MPs don't kick off about it is because a disproportionate number of them avail themselves of the most exclusive of faith schools.

It's bizarre that Cameron and Gove's daughters attend the same secondary despite there being at least a dozen closer schools. And Clegg in Putney and Blair in Islington send/sent sons to the same school - there must be hundreds of schools between them. In Islington there's an outstanding rated Catholic boys' school but with higher numbers of FSM - now why wouldn't the Blairs have opted for that one?

It's an acceptable way for politicians to go state but retaining some exclusivity. Clegg almost admitted as much by going round private schools and saying they'd go private if they didn't get a state school they were happy with. The Oratory has bonkersly low numbers of low attainers on entry (might even be none) - unless Catholics are cleverer than non-Catholics it proves that the admissions process weeds out the uninvolved.

Someone made the hospital analogy above - that it would be fine to have a Catholic hospital if there was an equally good secular hospital next door. But that's not the whole story. The Catholic could choose between the two hospitals depending on waiting times and specialists; the non-Catholic could not. If fact they'd be lower on the list for the secular hospital if the Catholic lived nearer.

Imagine if a school had an admission policy that prioritised those of no faith...

Oh god and don't get me started on trying to remove the 50% cap on religious admissions in new schools. The Catholic church makes out that they'd have to turn down Catholics on the basis of their religion. No it does not, it means that 50% of pupils would be admitted with no reference to their religion. They might in fact all turn out to be Catholics, and no doubt they'd gerrymander it to get as many as possible (perhaps by putting all siblings into that category for example).

Toby Young has put in his tuppence-worth on the 50% rule this week: schoolsweek.co.uk/faith-groups-unlikely-to-see-50-cap-lifted-but-other-options-are-possible-says-toby-young/

The comment about teaching staff brought something back to me. The one and only time that I did not get interviewed for a teaching role was when I applied to be a SENCO at a Catholic Primary School. The HT had asked me if I was of the Catholic faith during the customary pre-visit. I answered honestly that I was not Catholic but of a Christian background. I was really surprised not to get an interview - I had previously held SLT roles and, only a few years before, my application had been described as 'exemplary' by an LA panel member within the same local authority. The penny has just dropped!

In answer to the OP. Very few people campaign on this issue for a number of reasons:

For most people this issue goes off their radar as soon as they get their child into school. Any subsequent children are likely to have sibling preference. They breathe a sigh of relief and carry on.

Issues are extremely localised. People in other parts of the country will point to their VC CofE school, admitting a large proportion of non-faith backgrounds, and ask wherein lies the problem.

The CofE in particular is a very broad church and I imagine that many people of English origin, even if they are of no faith, feel a sense of sentimental and historical connection to the institution. It is bound up in the fabric of life, especially in rural areas. Schools, Brownies, Scouts, fetes, church parade...Therefore attending church for a while to secure a school place is something that many people can accept.

As stated up thread, the people who benefit from this policy are not going to protest.

I dont know if its changed recently but my DC didn't go to our closest offered state school we had to pay transport costs every day.
Neighbor didn't go to the nearest offered state school either but because they were religious the council picked up the transport costs.

FFS blatant discrimination on 'religious' grounds.

"They are church schools which work in close co-operation with the state system" Close co-operation meaning that all of the running costs and 90% of capital costs are paid for by the state!

I don't care what percentage of the population are of faith: in a secular democracy our resources for education, the cornerstone of a progressive, cohesive society, should not be apportioned along religious grounds, and education itself should be secular. The faith institutions can take care of faith, worship and Religious Instruction in their own institutions and gatherings.

OP - the ludicrous situation regarding the definition of criteria for faith is that they cannot know or police what is in people's heads, only what they do. They do not say you have to believe, just that you attend church.

Disestablishment, and then a transition phase: all church owned schools can sell their land and buildings to the state, go private or close.

Anything else is an anachronism, in the C21st.