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.

So only people who share your faith are “your community”? Blimey- that’s grim.

A community is not necessarily faith based. Schools are quite often the hub of communities - geographic, religious, linguistic, social...

I would love to see what all the attendees of the schools had to say about it, what the public at large had to say about it and what kind of a PR disaster it would be for the Catholic church

I can pretty much guarantee that it would be a PR (and hence political) disaster for the government, not for the Catholic church. Parents of the displaced children would blame the government for the closure of their school, not the Catholic church. "Government policy forces closure of Catholic schools". "1 million pupils face having no school due to government policy". That is how I would expect it to appear in the press.

Indeed. If, as in France, the decision to change the regulations around Catholic schooling were initiated by the government alone, the government is pretty likely to get the blame.

Oversubscribed church schools are just backdoor selectives. That is the reason they are “better”. Nothing to do with faith- just old fashioned privilege.

Utter bollocks, the Catholic school my kids went to had an admission policy based on Mass practise, nothing to do with ability/banding etc. School had some very, very academically weak pupils. Plus a large proportion of needy families. Where’s the selection?

“Where’s the selection?”

There is selection, but the criteria are not academic.

I do have some sympathy for people who are aggrieved that they have less school choice than other families. But I also think that, in a country where ruthless competition and strategising at every micro decision are absolutely critical to success in life, there isn’t much point moaning about wishing the country were more socialist. You have to get with the politics. It’s not as if Brexit is going to make things any better any time soon...

🇪🇺

And so we come back to the question in the OP. It's a shit world, no one cares about fairness or equal opportunity. People won't clamour for a change in the law because they're all right jack. It's dog eat dog and if that means going to church to get a school place you do it and feel no guilt.

I still slightly balk at actually getting baptised in a faith you don't believe in. If that's not cultural appropriation I don't know what is. But it just goes to show how absurd the policy is that people will consider this.

People won't clamour for a change in the law because they're all right jack.

The EU is the greatest counterforce to extreme neoliberalism in the U.K.

I still slightly balk at actually getting baptised in a faith you don't believe in.

What is “belief”? I don’t believe in God but I do believe in much of the moral underpinnings of Christianity. And they seem to me to be far less awful than our current politics.

My religion is the 🇪🇺

Fuck me- you’re not even Christian and still think this discrimination is OK!

I think it’s fine for Jewish schools to select Jewish DC. For international schools to select international DC. Etc

What is the argument for all schools catering to children regardless of their cultural specificities? “Fairness”. But if you ask children to leave their cultural specificities at the door of their school, don’t be too surprised if those schools become cultural wastelands...

“But if you ask children to leave their cultural specificities at the door of their school, ”

I’m not. I’m asking for children not to be excluded from state education based on cultural specificities.

It’s a two way street, Bertrand. You seem to think that school is a top down cultural experience when all research tends to demonstrate that family background and genetic factors account for about 80% of school outcomes.

I actually think that a good grounding in Christianity is actually pretty important in order to fully understand a lot of Western history, literature, art etc. But that doesn't equal excluding those who don't follow Christianity as their faith.

Agree very much that a good grounding in Judaeo-Christian tradition and history is vital. But people do need to be receptive to learning about it.

“I actually think that a good grounding in Christianity is actually pretty important in order to fully understand a lot of Western history, literature, art etc. But that doesn't equal excluding those who don't follow Christianity as their faith.

I absolutely agree.

“Agree very much that a good grounding in Judaeo-Christian tradition and history is vital. But people do need to be receptive to learning about it.”
I agree with this too. It’s completely irrelevant to selection by faith or worship in schools though.

Like I said upthread my CofE school had a good number of non CofE pupils. We all had to do RE up to O level which was 100% Christianity, there was no getting out of it. But it did mean that we had some very lively discussions in History when we did the reformation and counter reformation.

Not being Christian doesn't equal refusing to learn about Christianity.

No. But you do need a critical mass of students open to the teaching of Judaeo-Christian teaching in order to make a school meaningful able to do this.

“No. But you do need a critical mass of students open to the teaching of Judaeo-Christian teaching in order to make a school meaningful able to do this.“
Really? What % of Muslim children do you need for a school to have meaningful lessons about Islam?

A lot!

Ah. You don’t understand how “education” works. You do not have to belong to a faith to learn about it and understand how it works. You do have to belong to a faith to practice it in full. People too often fail to grasp this.

Ah, I think you don’t understand how education works. School alone is a very weak driver of knowledge and skills within society. Education within schools supports structure and analysis but if what is taught in schools is not practised intensively in RL, that knowledge is not owned by students.

School teaching without practice is mere propaganda.