Religious schools discriminating against atheists

[MNersanonymous]

Dh and I are just having a discussion about this. The best state schools in our area are all religious and we, as atheists, feel discriminated against.

Could we take action against our local council under the religious discrimination legislation?!

Just curious really.

What? Of course they attend church. Well the catholics I know do. And that includes severely disadvantaged children, and very well off children.

There are many organisations within the catholic church who support those particular groups

'Sheesh' yourself

You are missing the point.

• going to a church school involves jumping through hoops. You need to know the system, which forms to fill in, how long to attend the church, whether your kids have to come too, be known by the minister, etc, etc.

• historically, the middle class are (in general) better at working the system and jumping through the hoops.

• those with parents who are prepared to jump through hoops, deal with the forms and the procedure, are also more likely to have involved parents who will help them with their studies at home. Hence they will be more statistically likely to do well at school.

• church school hence has more kids who do better than the general intake. Gets better SATS/league table results. Becomes popular. So more people want to join it, faith criteria get stricter as it becomes oversubscribed and the success becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

• an oversubscribed school will generally get more money than an undersubscribed one (schools get paid per pupil), plus parents who are involved more with their child's education tend to help more with fund raising etc. So church school gets more money.

• more money in general means better equipment than the undersubscribed state school down the road. Gap gets wider

• rinse and repeat.

onebat, you resent the fact you pay for it.
My friend who is childless has every right to resent the fact that she pays for schooling, part of the system she never utilises. She is excluded form using their facilities becasue she is childless. She is discriminarted against.
Maybe you better live in a non religious country - actually I can't think of one.

Then you get troublemakers that have been expelled from other schools - where do they go? To the only remaining school who has any places left, of course. So the "popular successful" school gets less of the problem kids, and the school which is already struggling has a much higher percentage of disruptive children without really the extra funding to support them.

Yes MRsR, the severely-disadvantaged do attend church, but in such small numbers as to be totally disproportionate to their place in the general population!

Church schools therefore do not have to cope with the same proportion of socially-disadvanted, non-English-speaking or marginalized pupils..!

Okay, I have to go, but I will try and find some statistics.

RubberDuck You put it perfectly. So simple when you see it written out clearly like that.

But what to do to make it fairer?

Not just the middle classes attend church. Some are diadvantaged. And some have less money than others. There is a variety.
And our school takes disadvantaged and SN children, as a criteria, above all others.

ABOVE ALL OTHER CRITERIA

Quite rubberduck.

Oblomov I really don't think the example of your childless friend helps here.

The selection procedures of faith schools are forcing a wider gap between well and badly performing schools and increasing social segregation, in the way that rubberduck has outlined.

And we're paying for it.

RubberDuck precisely, that is the wider point I have been trying to make with my self-selecting argument.

I acknowledge, potpourri, that I have had in mind CofE schools when I have been debating this point. The Catholic schools in my area are all underperforming, so they don't loom so large in my mind.

This fact adds to my argument, though. Schools which weed out social disadvantage tend to do better for the reasons that RubberDuck articulated. Those that don't, don't, whether or not they are religious.

That's ridiculous batty.
Our local RC school has South Americans, Polish, Fillipino..and many more. Lots start school wiith no English

It stands to reason that CoEngland schools wil not have many children without English. Or did CoE get exported along with the Empire?

I think most village church schools (that I have come across in my area) have more non-christain kids then christian kids. Maybe its different in larger towns where there is fierce fighting for places? I do have a problem with the selection criteria though, but I think it is a misconception that you have to be Christian to go to a church school.

My friend is a teacher in a C of E school and is not remotely christian as are most of her pupils. In fact the C of E school is less Christian than our local state school. They only have one assembly a week where they sing hymns and pray our local state primary sings hymns every day!

I think Rubber ducks point are very valid.
But why are we focusing on faith schools in this.
This is going on in all schools irrespective of faith. It is an inherent problem of our schooling system. Pupils are being expelled, form the good schools and are being sent to he worst, widening the gap.
But you can't blame faith schools for that.
That is an problem thrroughout our school network, surely ?

MrsR see my post to pot-pourri just above your last.

In any case, language is simply ONE element which, combined with others and over generations, can contribute to social disadvantage.

Because your local Catholic school has non-English speaking parents doesn't mean that the overall truth of my point about social disadvantage is undermined.

choccypig: "It stands to reason that CoEngland schools wil not have many children without English."

Yes, that is precisely my point.]

I have to go to RL.

And feel I must point out that all these sub-arguments are footnotes to the fundamental injustice of selection on the basis of religion.

A question for you all. If Church schools had to select kids on the same basis as state schools would you still be against them? Because in my view selection is only one part of the argument here concerning church schools.

With regards to the Athiests saying that they pay tax and don't want it to go to the faith schools; are not the people of faith paying tax also? Surely, for every faith school, the is a non faith one.

What I meant was that, say you lived in a village and you only had one catchment school. Now lets say that catchment school was C of E, the admissions process was the same as state and your kids got in. Would you want to send them there if you were and athiest?

there darn it, there.

I would be equally happy with either, Playing, all other factors being equal.

scatty, only one set of schools excludes the other's children, though.

playing, no, I wouldn't. I am opposed to faith in schools.

I would too. But, I am not sure the OP would and I have one or 2 friends who I know would not be. I got the impression that she was anti church schools in general not just the selection criteria.

Actually I would not mind. As most people have already said, the faith schools seem to do better.

Having said that, you have a point in this particular situation.

OBM, when you put it like that - not a lot one can argue with