Appealing against a faith school place

[thisgirlrides]

Just wondering if anyone has successfully appealed against a school place purely on the grounds of it being a faith school when you are not of that faith/no faith. Any help or suggestions much appreciated.

[quote sashh]@prh47bridge

They have a helpline which can give the OP options, practical advice, not just, "no you can't"[/quote]
The OP is after advice about winning an appeal on the basis that she doesn't want her child to go to the faith school offered. Any advice that says anything other than, "you can't win an appeal on that basis" is wrong. The correct advice has already been given on this thread. The OP needs to appeal FOR the school she wants.

If the OP wants advice on how to frame such an appeal, she will get plenty of advice on here. I don't know if the NSS also provide such advice.

If it were possible to appeal against a faith school place, I would happily advise parents of this and help them to do so. However, it is not possible. It would be wrong to give parents false hope by saying otherwise.

@user27378

I don't understand why so many posters don't understand your question. One poster said: If they granted appeals on the basis of religious prefence then that would open the floodgates for everybody to get a place in the best schools by just arguing that they wanted a certain religious or non religious school.

Which is actually what schools already do. Religious schools offer priority places to those who are religious yet live further away. But if you live close to a substandard religious school it's tough shit of you'd prefer a non religious school. Unless that school becomes outstanding and then they don't welcome none religious pupils anymore. It's grossly unfair to allow priority to religious children in schools but not allow parents to request only non denominational schools. It should work both ways. As far as I have researched before OP, I don't think you can appeal it. But I think the humanitarian website has some info on it.

But what you've quoted as wrong is actually correct. It's true that granting appeals on the basis of a non-measurable faith preference (e.g. 'I want a CofE school' or 'I don't want a faith school') would potentially open the floodgates for parents to avoid bad schools. Yes, parents are already avoiding bad schools by applying for faith schools - but this is based on measurable faith criteria (e.g. baptism, regular attendance confirmed by a minister etc) which are set in stone in the admissions criteria. That's not the same as allowing appeals based on totally non-measurable faith preferences (e.g. 'I want a CofE school because I like the Church of England' or 'I don't want a CofE school because I don't believe in god'').

I totally agree with you that it should in principle work both ways, and I also don't like selection by religion. But stating the facts about how the system works, however unfair the system might be, doesn't mean that posters haven't understood the question.

@thisgirlrides, if it were possible to sucesfully appeal against a faith school place then I expect Alice Roberts, the president of Humanists UK, would have done so, but it isn't: humanism.org.uk/2018/11/18/response-to-sunday-times-piece-regarding-alice-roberts/

But don't despair. It may not be a very religious school, but if it is then your child will be able to provide some much needed diversity. At first they may come home asking all kinds of questions about what they've been taught, but you can encourage them to think critically about it and even to challenge things they don't agree with (respectfully of course). It can be a very formative experience to be in a minority.

My 2 children went to a CofE primary. I told them they could make their own mind up about what they believed and they both independently decided they were atheist.

... as did many of their friends. It was only the kids who had very religious parents who really bought into the whole experience. The Head once said in assembly that she feared there were some "shrivelled mustard seeds" in the school, which my son thought was hilarious.