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.

I dont know. I see a time when this may happen, but I am not sure that time is now. I do see school closures happening if we ban church schools. Maybe its because I see thing from a more rural persepective. A couple of local village schools are current being threatedned with closure in our area (one church, one non-dom) and there is huge local uproar as they are the only village schools, so the kids will have to be bused to the next bigger village because the council is talking of them being unviable. The school is one of the key community foundations within village life and to loose it would change the villages forever. I think many church schools (certainly in our area) would be unviable if they were not church schools so it may be the death of small village primary schools in some areas. I think that will be a very sad day but I am sure eventually it will happen, large town schools are more cost effective.

I know, stuffit, I meant qualitatively poor, too. and my answer is... perhaps they are under-resourced etc.

That is very sad Playing.

But do you mean that this would happen more if faith-schools were to be phased out? I suspect that there is an agenda to consolidate schooling and that it will happen regardless of whether they are church schools or not, as your post seems to suggest? (one church, one nondom)

Would it not also be easier to protest, if the relationship between citizen, the education system, and the state, were simple and clear?

Why not try to analyse what makes faith schools better schools, and replicate it. Underfunding is not the whole answer. One of my children attended a faith school and there was no evidence of better financial resources. There was however enormous parental support -- enormous. This made the difference. Firstly, in the classroom; secondly, with children at home; thirdly, in fundraising. There was virtually a three-line whip on fundraising events and reading rotas, and so on. This made an almost unquantiable difference, I feel.

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

I sincerely hope not.

If faith schools were predominantly in deprived areas and they were turning around problem kids, I would think they had some special quality. I don't think this is the case.

okay stuffit, let's tell everyone who can't/won't provide parental support that we're not prepared to educate their children.

The bottom line is that we all (regardless of faith or lack of it) pay our taxes to fund state education. We are then not able to go to certain schools because our faith or lack of it does not allow us to. I'm not just talking about being allowed through the selection process, I'm saying that many people would not find it acceptable for their children to have an education with an exlicitly Christian, Jewish or whatever influence. This cannot be right.

I wonder how people if people were prevented from accessing other state funded institutions or prioritised according to their faith. So for example, you can only get on the C of E bus into town if you're an atheist if there are places left after all the C of E people have got on? Or you are given priority for a kidney transplant based on your faith??? So why is it different for education?

As to the question of why faith schools are perceived as better. This is obviously partly because the middle classes are always going to be in a position to work the system and overcome hurdles in their way (by buying up houses, adopting a faith etc). LEague tables also make schools which appear to be slightly more highly achieving than others more popular and therefore making them more oversubscribed and more exclusive. But also there's a clear link between churchgoing and class.

v g point madamep

in my East London gentrifying/deprived area, the state school is the one doing the turning around.

the church school takes a group of unchallenging kids and succeeds in educating them.

welcome fivecandles, v g point re nhs..

Said this earlier onebat:

Quite often it IS to do with their more traditional approach
Now things are different I know, and a lot to do with property prices and so on..

The one thing I would say is.. that if you are prepared to jump through those hoops then you are probably also prepared to jump through hoops to support your children at home and to support the school through parent help, fundraising etc etc. All of which make a school better.

I'd qualify all of this by saying: there are people who with the best will in the world will find it immensely difficult to support their children through school and to support the school because of their own circumstances. These are the people who really do need a good school to support THEM, and these are the people who lose out.

fivecandles, because religious teaching is part of childrens' education for people of faith.

Your bus analogy is apartheid.

Sorry, I havent trawled through the whole thread. But I think my two main gripes with the system (in our area also, all the better schools are faith) are that
1.the system has achanged, so that being in the school nursery is no longer a criteria for reception - so ds1 is bottom of the list 2. the nearest school is superb, and totally open to bribery eg just go to church (forgetting the twice a month for a year prior to school application rule), and my neighbour's 'my husband does xxx and can do it for the school for free'. That changed a rejection to an offer of a place in under a week.

"fivecandles, because religious teaching is part of childrens' education for people of faith."

yes, Cam, when privately-funded.
When state-sponsored, it is discriminatory. I wouldn't go so far as to say apartheid, but there are certainly crossovers.

Quite, apartheid if it was on a bus or in the NHS but perfectly acceptable to prioritise the applications of Christians to particular primary schools over atheists or Muslims. Why?

There are Muslim schools, too that don't accept familes of other faiths btw fivecandles.
Religion is celebrated in state schools too- learning about what others believe in and celebrating eid, diwali etc
Now Batty if you said get rid of all private and religious schools, make the system state and everyone had to go to the nearest school, no religion allowed in any of them I would agree that was an ideal.
That would eliminate divisiveness and hierachy and give everyone the chance of an equal education, yes

I am almost completely certain that OBM's older child goes to a state school (her younger child is not of school age yet). In fact you can stuff me with sage and onion and call me a chicken if this turns out not to be the case.

Agree with her and MadameP on this as per usual. Don't like religion in schools, and really don't like church schools that operate thinly-veiled discriminatory selection policies (and there seem to be a lot of those, according to yesterday's reports). Would also like the CofE to be disestablished.

Must have go that wrong then policywonk. If not get ready for the paxo...

its all part of that perennial way of thinking that if you get rid of something good, then everything else will be better

It never works like that

mrsr - I'm a bit scared actually [mmm]

Cam, I see your point, but I'd argue that schools that achieve better-than-average results through discriminatory selection policies aren't particularly 'good'. If a school goes out of its way to select children from well-off, stable homes, it would have to be really terrible to not achieve better-than-average results.

I wonder what the value-added scores are like for faith schools? (Don't know the answer to this so it might undermine my argument!)

The idea that faith schools are inherently better needs challenging I think.

Essentially the selection procedure of faith schools can have an enormous impact on exam results. Interestingly Ofsted note no significant difference in quality of education between faith and non-faith schools. So the idea that faith schools are better is dependent on your measure.

Some stats for those who wondered.

Free school meals %

C of E 11.3
RC 15.6
Jewish 3.1
Other Christian 2.7
Muslim 31.5

Non religious schools 20.1
(DFES England 2005)

With the exception of Muslim schools the other faiths simply don't take their share of economically disadvantaged kids and all the baggage that comes with that.

Precisely because there are people of many faiths and none is why schools should be free of religious ethos underpinning teaching and conduct. Children of all backgrounds should be given the opportunity to explore all avenues of ideology freely and learn in an objective and critical environment.

Sorry this is another type and run. Bathtime!!!

Sod the bath Slur, look up the value-added

'Children of all backgrounds should be given the opportunity to explore all avenues of ideology freely and learn in an objective and critical environment.'

Very well put. I think this is a really important point (or, at least, it's important to me). I found out the other week that in my DS1's school (community state, NOT faith school), all the children say a bleeding PRAYER at the end of every day! Really irritates me. However, I have canvassed opinion and I'm the only parent I know who cares, so not much point making a fuss about it (although I might write a polite note to the head about it).

mmm PW You are a perv

MrsR "Now Batty if you said get rid of all private and religious schools, make the system state and everyone had to go to the nearest school, no religion allowed in any of them I would agree that was an ideal."

Done! (who said my kids were at private school btw? and thanks to PW for defending my honour)

Slur, brava!
Thank bloody god. A huge 'Precisely'.