Attending Church, purely to get to a certain school

[sleepydad3000]

They're aren't many things I feel so strongly about, but this issue is one of them. I am currently looking at schools for my daughter. I am a non religious person and my partner is a none practising Catholic, doesn't go to church at all anymore.

I personally think it's wrong on a moral level to exploit a church for 6 months or however long, just to get your child to a certain school. It's almost like, "Oh hi, yes thankyou, I've got what I needed, you'll never see me again!"

2 schools near me are both decent, 1 outstanding and 1 good (Ofsted ratings) interestingly enough, the NON Catholic school has the higher mark as of 2017.... just saying. Both schools are great in my view, religion aside. But I'd feel awful and wrong and like I was cheating or manipulating the system, just to get my girl to a certain school, and then waving bye bye to the church after, as I know for a fact, my partner and I have no intention of going to church afterwards.

Also how do we know that the state cannot provide schools for all children, if the various churches decided to pull out and prevent their properties from being used?

I suspect that money could and would be found. Of course those faith schools that benefit from local authority provided playing fields or are actually in buildings not owned by a church, would be more easily transferred.

I also suspect that many in the population would reflect very badly on churches that decided to execute their property 'rights' to deny the education of children - if it came to that. Not something that would promote the growth of faith at all!

Both of you, longest and Margo, are not facing up to two major issues. Firstly, the church owns property. The state is not free to do as it pleases with private property. Secondly, even if were negotiable, the cost of buying out church property is beyond the means of the state in any scenario you could possibly conceive.

The state provides 95’ of the capital costs and all the capitation.

Yes the Church is not the one with all the power in this relationship. If they take their ball back and refuse the state funds with this "string" attached, what are they going to do with those assets (the buildings)? Just sit around getting rich? What about their mission? What about the charitable purposes for which they were given those assets? A building is not a school. They are as reliant on the State to deliver their objectives as the State is on it to deliver theirs.

I'd like to see how that tussle would play out, if the churches refused to let the state continue to use the schools that tax payers have been funding the upkeep of, the expansion of and so on for so many decades.

You keep ignoring the point Maria. No one is taking anyone's property away. They are just saying you accept state funds on condition you don't discriminate. Don't like the condition, bugger off and do something else with your property. Turn it into flats, run a private school, whatever you like. If you want the state funded teachers etc they provide a service to all comers. I have said this plenty of times and you keep banging on about property rights that are not relevant. Even if they were they are not as absolute as you keep saying. Cake shops can't discriminate on religious grounds because they are subject to the law of the land. This isn't a breach of ant rights. But here they are not even applicable.

No longestlurker. You are misunderstanding the negotiation dynamics here. The state is not callling the shots here!

the thing is in some places the church school is your catchment or nearest school. the pressure for school places is so immense that even if you just put the next nearest non-church school done as your first choice you wont get a place as you live too far away.
your choice is

• only put down non-church schools, get into non of the ones nearest you and then be allocated a terrible school miles away as its the only one with any places left

or

• go to church for a while and get your child into the nearby school that has a good report and your child will be part of your local community

no brainer isnt it really for most parents?

Maybe there should be a rule that if you do not wish to attend a church school you can opt out of all church school and your next nearest school will be designated your catchment school?
We are in wales and we have designated catchment areas in which you get priority for school places. ive just checked the map and the church school isnt on there, so everyone has a non-church school that they are priority for.
Disclaimer: someone will say catchment areas dont exist at all anymore but here they definitely do and the areas are odd shapes so someone further away in a different village may have priority over someone who lives closer to a school but is in a different catchment area!!

Well that's where there is room for argument, though I still fail to see how the Church would deliver its objectives without the state funding. But that's a wholly separate point from the one you were making when you said Margo and I were ignoring your point on property rights

Brie yes, I think that's right. Even without designated catchments it works kind of like that. I think in Scotland they do have a system a bit like you describe.

No longestlurker.

The point is: the Church has no interest or incentive to put buildings/land that it owns at the disposal of the state for the purposes of education unless the state gives it something in return. That something is interest in governance of schools and priority recruitment for believers (criteria for defining a believer vary).

If the state tells the Church that it can no longer have even that meagre interest, the Church will tell the state to bugger off and will either sell its schools or make them independent. That is a simplification but is the basis of the story. The state has no bargaining chips with the church over schools, literally none.

The state is the legislature, Maria. It may be a delicate relationship, but ultimately we live in a democracy, not a theocracy.

Thanks for engaging- I have learned quite a lot. I am not sure we are going to be able to take this any further so I am bowing out. I haven't changed my view but I do understand the issues better.

Have you not heard of separation of powers, longestlurkerever?

In my constitutional law textbook that means legislature, government and judiciary. These are all organs of the state. Church doesn't feature. I really must get on with other stuff now!

The school system changed in 1944, when faith schools were first brought into the state maintained school system in England and Wales as a result of the 1944 Education Act. The faith schools were given choices as to how they wanted to be funded.

Many faith schools became designated as a Voluntary Aided (VA) school which ever since has offered the schools special freedom to employ and recruit all teachers on the grounds of religion, to admit pupils on religious grounds and to determine the nature of the Religious Education (or Religious Instruction) provided. In exchange, governing bodies were expected to meet 50% of the school’s capital expenditure costs. Capital costs usually comprise a small fraction of a school’s running costs.

Since 1944, and with no public debate, the required contribution towards capital spending has been steadily reduced. While the Regulatory Reform Order (Voluntary Aided Schools Liabilities and Funding) 2002 reduced the level from 15% to 10%, the figure now is 10% or below as the Department for Education no longer requires VA schools to make a contribution towards most of the capital funding it makes available to them. When a school reopens as an Academy the government assumes responsibility for meeting all (100%) of capital costs.

So, I'm not entirely sure what rights the churches could realistically claim over the schools. MariaNovella could you explain what it is you think they could do with their 'ownership'?

Margo - do you own your own house?

This is what the report in 1938 had to say about the state of church schools:

By 1938 more than half the schools in England and Wales belonged to the churches; they educated about a third of the nation's children. Almost all these 'voluntary' or 'non-provided' schools were housed in Victorian buildings which the churches (mainly the Church of England and the Catholic Church) could not afford to maintain. They were 'the epitome of low-level mass education' (Jones 2003:18). Many were in a state of chronic disrepair: NUT President GCT Giles (of whom more below) called them 'pigsty schools' (Giles 1946:35), and Dent said they were 'a disgrace to any civilised people' and were 'condoned and perpetuated by the very institution in society - organised religion - which properly ought to be most concerned to improve them' (Dent 1942:23). He went on:

"To-day, in spite of the accumulated evidence that they are quite unable to provide and maintain schools of a satisfactory standard, the Churches resolutely refuse to surrender their buildings to the State. It is easy to appreciate their concern that children shall be instructed in the Christian Faith according to their particular tenets, but it is difficult for the impartial observer to reconcile the tender care they manifest for the children's souls with the disregard they exhibit for their bodies." (Dent 1942:24).

So, whilst I do understand how property ownership works and that the state doesn't actually own the land on which the schools were built, I would argue that long term maintenance, development and allowing those schools to be fit places for children to actually be and learn, counts for a great deal.

This is not the same as owning your own freehold home, where you 100% responsible for it's upkeep.

Not sure it matters who owns the schools. I want the right to send my child to a religious school, I'm a tax payer and I live in a democracy. Others want the right to send their children to a non religious school. The fact that you may not have this choice is not the fault of religious schools but the government.

In relation to selection, well non religious schools also select but I would think that they are more likely to select on privilege compared to religious schools which I think tend to select on belief. I think I read somewhere that in actual fact, faith schools tender to be more socially inclusive. Will try to find reference and post.

Why should any state facilitate a right to a faith school? What if I'm a Quaker? Where is my right to send my child to a state school of the Quaker faith? Is it just your faith you want state schools for Bicycletheif or are you wanting that right for all faiths?

Faith is a private matter for individuals, it has no business spilling over into state activities, particularly given the increasingly secular nature of those within the democracy the state represents.

Faith is a private matter for individuals

No. Faith is institutionally led.

MargoLovebutter - Apologies if I misunderstand you but you seem to be saying that, because the government has paid a proportion of capital costs for VA schools since 1944, it should be able to buy the land and buildings at little or no cost. If that is what you are saying, I'm afraid the European Court of Human Rights (to which our own courts are subordinate under the Human Rights Act) disagrees with you. If the government wants/needs to take possession of the land and buildings it must pay the full market value.

MariaNovella an individual's faith is there own private matter for them to practice as they see fit in their own time in a way that is legal and does not interfere with someone else's freedom. The faith that they practice may be institutionally led or it may not. I don't believe Buddhists are institutionally led, although I have no doubt you will wish to prove otherwise!

prh47bridge that may be the case. I have no doubt the Catholic Church would have checked the law and probably CofE too - but the price paid should, in my view, reflect the value and condition of the property when it was appropriated for the current use, the expenditure, upkeep, expansion, maintenance and general improvements made since.

Margot all faiths.

That's great Bicyclethief - how do you propose the government ensures that every child of faith has the right to go to a faith school of their faith?

Do you think that those of no faith have a right to go to a non-faith school?

Margo - the church’s property has not been appropriated at any point. School buildings and land belong to churches. The state cannot take any kind of unilateral decision to purchase them at below market value.