Options after being denied place at nearest secular primary school - home ed or attend faith school against our wishes?

[Outdoorsmammy]

not sure if anyone can help as it’s quite niche but looking for any advice. We live in a fairly low population area and generally everyone here gets their first choice of primary school regardless of catchment area (I’ve never met someone who hasn’t). We put the school my son already attends preschool at as our first choice but unfortunately he just missed out on the last spot to our neighbour. The school were as shocked as we were and advised us to appeal which we have but I don’t have high hopes. This school is the second closest school to us but also the nearest secular school. Pretty much every other school near us is a faith school (including the one he’s been offered a place at) but we feel very strongly about him having a secular education. We did have faith schools as our other choices but only because it was so unlikely that we would be faced with this issue that I definitely downplayed it. I feel very stupid about that now and wish I’d just listed every non-faith school within a 20mile radius. I have contacted a couple other schools that are further away than we would have liked just to see but they are full for September.
I know children can be removed from collective worship in school which was originally my backup plan but the school he’s been offered a place at seems to involve religion in everything which makes me very uncomfortable.
If the appeal is unsuccessful then I feel like my only option is to defer his start date and hope a place comes up at some point. I don’t mind the idea of home ed except that I’m also expecting another baby in late Sept/early Oct AND also have a 2 year old who’s only in part-time childcare so it would be a lot.
I believe children can legally stay at preschool until the term after they’re 5 but I’m worried this wouldn’t be fair on him as he’ll see all his friends move up to reception.
looking for stories of people managing to get places at secular schools when originally denied, or being forced to attend faith schools against their wishes and finding it ok, or ideas for doing home ed with other small children in tow.

thanks :D

I was raised by atheist parents but went to the local C of E school.

I also turned out atheist, but did find my biblical knowledge very useful when studying a level English lit!

She said the schools didn't do a daily prayer, which is also my experience. A daily prayer isn't nurturing anyone's spiritual development.

We're in a similar position after moving last summer. Came from a liberal school with a multi faith community which celebrated/discussed everything and everyone, now in quite an extreme c of e school, also in the north east. I feel like we've made it work so far. Early days though. My children are in year 2 & reception.

My kids are naturally questioning souls. We also love stories and my youngest loves to sing. We talk about religion as a collection of stories with morals attached. We talk about how the basis for most faiths is ultimately kindness and living well, which isn't the worst thing. We've talked about the community aspect of religion, and how it brings people together. We've spoken about how in the past community often meant survival. We speak about respecting different opinions and beliefs, what faith means to people. We've had some great chats about the similarities and differences between religions and how some stories appear in multiple faiths, so very likely have some historic basis. My older child and I have also had some interesting chats about how religions have evolved over the years, for example Easter Vs Eostre Vs people who celebrate the equinox etc etc etc. We speak about how uplifting it can be to do something as simple as singing together, and how many people join choirs etc later in life for the same boost and enjoyment.

I moved at a similar age to a different culture with a different language, both of which were quite belittled in my home as the move hadn't been my parents first choice. I found it extremely difficult to settle into school and the community and it took me years to realise that was largely because of my parents prejudice. If I hadn't had this voice in the back of my head that the language was a waste of time and the people were somehow less than us (I know it's blooming awful) I'd have been far more settled and maybe now as an adult would have more of a sense of 'home' than I do. So, wanted to make sure that even though our beliefs at home don't align with the school that the children can still feel like part of the community and all the benefits that has to offer. What they choose to believe is ultimately up to them.

RE will be on national curriculum after 'consensus' reached https://share.google/avH4icBitkbzHeZbf thought you might find this interesting, OP.

Of course we didn’t bullshit our way through it 🙄. Schools (and people) can be kind nurturing places without daily prayer. Not rocket science to understand that.

Sorry quoted the wrong poster! Thank you for the support 🥰

See above.

Spirit development doesn’t rely solely on the observance of one religion - in fact it absolutely shouldn’t which is why faith should not be part of school admissions.

No worries. I don't understand how anyone thinks daily prayers are happening in schools up and down the country, they obviously haven't spent any time in schools since they were a child.

Yes everything you say is true and of course I wish I hadn’t put it as a choice now but we live in a rural area and all schools except this one within a reasonable distance are faith schools so we just chose the one we thought we liked best. As I also put in my original post most of these schools are not oversubscribed as it’s a rural area so we have never known anyone not get their first choice before. The school themselves felt it certain he’d be attending - most of their classes have 8-13 children we are just unlucky that this year they had 18 applications.

I’d just send him to the school and then wait for a space to come up in a non denominational school and withdraw him from the worship etc. I think you are probably overthinking how much “religion is going to be in everything” with 4 and 5 year olds.

I also wouldn’t be dragging him to a school miles away. Walking to school and making wee pals locally is more important than principles. It’s only a primary school he’s not being set up for the priesthood. He’ll be fine.

The horror.
This is a Christian country you know.

A Christian country with about 10% of practising Christians

And about 1/3 of schools that were founded by or are supported by the church! It's a big mismatch.

I agree - the secular school that was our first choice is closer to us and easier to get to than the faith school we’ve been offered a place at. This is a huge factor in our present difficulties.

We're in a sort of adjacent situation.
Had 5 schools listed, a mixture of CofE and secular, because the CofE's we looked round were not very focused on it and tbh the best school was my priority. Though my husband grew up in an extremely christian household and was determined our children wouldn't have a religious upbringing or education but there weren't enough secular school locally (only 2) to rule out CofE entirely so he caved on that, assuming we'd get our first 1-2 choices.

We didn't get any of our choices and were allocated a very poorly rated CofE school (though it was our closest, but we listed 5 choices specifically to avoid it!)

Pretty unprecedented for our area and birth rate but for some reason our area in this year has a huge percentage of second children who took up a lot of 'sibling' spaces that would have gone to kids who lived closer otherwise.

We went on the waitlists but as we knew we wouldn't send her to our allocated school we started looking a bit further afield (already previously considered our 10 local schools and either ruled out or now no space).

We ended up finding a catholic school with space, the school is great, ticks basically every box we had, only thing against it is the fact its catholic... and it feels very catholic to me, but to my husband who grew up in such a religious environment, he felt it wasn't actually as intense as he expected when we decided to visit it.
Talked it through with a lot of people and realised that even at CofE schools a lot of the kids come home talking about god etc as a fait accompli so its unavoidable unless you can get into one of the small number of secular schools.

After a lot of deliberation we've gone with the catholic school because my husband is very education orientated so he's putting aside his faith concerns; but we did consider home schooling and my current feeling is that when my youngest is a bit older, if the school doesn't feel right, we will pull my oldest out and home school them together. But right now I just couldn't manage it with both of them at home. We're tentatively making plans financially (I'd have to quit my job to home school) and looking into the details of home schooling fully though so we have it as a solid backup regardless.
We also have the issue of our preferred schools and catholic school being in totally different directions so all drop offs/pick ups will fall to me now rather than being shared which we hadn't planned for initially, so I share your pain there!

I do think though, that almost all UK kids grew up attending a school that said god exists and yet most are atheist adults now so I don't think it will necessarily mean anything in the long run in that respect, my concern now was if it took time away from other lessons or extra curriculars.

We did actually get offered a CofE from waitlist, but decided to stick with the catholic school because its better in every other way. We're also now considering whether our second choice secular school would be suitable for our daughter after all as we've heard a few reports from people about it now so are anticipating some movement in that waitlist as people react to that.

For some reason I feel more worried about moving my child's primary school and the disruption for her, whereas I don't think she'd be negatively impacted if we switched to home schooling partway through so we feel quite set on either whatever school she starts at in September or home schooling eventually.

Lots of kids of all faiths go, and they all seem fine and some enjoy learning it, really don't see the harm, and don't all state schools need to do collective worship (if it's changed, it's quite recent, as a teacher told us that not so long ago). But if you don't want that, you are free to home school (assuming you don't work or have a flexible job?)and if you feel strongly then you should.

There's the guidance (which is as you state) and the reality (which is that most schools are lip service only unless someone religious gets the Headship/Christmas). The correct phrase is "community school" I think as technically there are no secular state schools.

I am under the impression all secular schools still do C of E worship, just much less. Our local schools all come into our local church three times a year, at least, and have someone from church going into the school at least twice a term. They are all technically secular. Also every single school in the country will teach your child about religion, it's part of the curriculum. I would have said to have steered towards C of E as less than catholic, but I honestly don't think the religion will rub off in reception. Send him to the school if your appeal fails and start his education. You are disadvantaging him much more by holding back his education and with a new baby, him going to school will be a huge help. Then apply to move him to your school of preference for the next year. The worst that happens is they call prayer quiet time for non religious children and he learns how to meditate etc.

Also just to put a very different point of view on this. I have three friends who became vicars. They were the kids who went to secular schools. Two had non Christian parents. I don't know where God was even mentioned in their upbringing. I had three friends at heavy catholic schools, two are atheists. One modern C of E. The rest of us went to C of E schools or private with assemblies, and a mix of atheists and christians and different faiths (hinduism etc). Kids will discover a faith if they go searching, or will decide it's not for them.

I would also ask - do you celebrate Christmas or Easter? Because if so, you are already introducing faith to them.

OP, my DS is just finishing year 6 at a C of E Primary. He has become an atheist! His RE work is interesting to say the least! I went to an independent convent school - also an@ atheist. DH went to a secular school - he's a Christian! I think it's more about your home life and background than school as to whether you are a Christian or whatever. I wouldn't refuse a school place because it was a faith school.