Faith Primary - is there any point appealing?

[happyheathen]

Our first choice and closest school is a voluntary aided C of E primary.
Its abridged criteria are as follows:

1. Children attending church 1 and living in parishes A B and C or their siblings.
2. Children attending churches 2 or 3 and living in parishes A B and C or their siblings.
3. Siblings.
4. Children living in parish A
5. Others

Church attendance is defined as at least twice a month for at least a year prior to application.

My child falls with category 4 and has failed to gain a place. Although we attend Church A we only attend the family service once a month and did not lie. In other years children in category 4 have got in. We are top of category 4, in fact we are so close to the school I think if it had been done on catchment we would certainly be in the top 5 of places.

My issues with what has happened are as follows:

1. I KNOW other people have lied about their church attendance. I know of at least one case where someone was told to cast their mind back and see if they could "remember" some dates prior to the start date that they put on the application form as it didn't meet the qualifying period and so submitted a letter after the application date to that effect. This was the vicar's idea.

1. It was strongly suggested at church services that parents of pre-school children in the congregation might like to complete a direct debit form. We refused on principle. I would like the LEA to look at how many of those people who got a church reference also did the Direct Debit - I bet it's all of them. Even more interesting would be how many churchgoers who failed to get a vicar's reference (like us) had not completed one.

1. Oversubscription this year was mainly caused by a high number of siblings. However, many of these siblings no longer live within parishes A B or C or even the wider area. It is not fair that people can move away from the area and still be considered above those living next door to the school. I do not think that it is unreasonable to say that if you move house and are no longer in the area (I cannot say catchment because this concept doesn't seem to exist for this school) you should either move schools or take the risk that later children may not get in.

1. All I want to be able to do is walk my children to school.

Environmentally it is insane to prevent people walking to their local schools and forcing them to drive to other schools as we will be forced to do. Parking at the faith school is already a huge issue. It is gridlock outside our house and I have had to ask people to move off my drive a number of times. The school I will be driving to is the catchment school for the vast majority of those people parking outside my house.

But I know faith schools are a law unto themselves so is there any point in appealing - the criteria suck but they will say they can set what they like and they have abided by them.

Is this a lost cause ?

I would not want to send my child to a school which colluded in practies like this.

A friend of mine attended the 8am service every Sunday to ensure her ds got a place at the local faith school. She didn't go to the family service as she figured by going to the smaller earlier service she would have a better chance of the vicar knowing she was there!

Our church attendance this year has been very haphazard but I recall that last year there was a big fall off in numbers at Sunday school once admission forms had been submitted and there doesn't seem to be many children attending Sunday school who are school age (mostly pre-school even though our bit of Sunday school goes up to aged 7!).

Ds enjoys going and so do I when we make the effort but I'd hate the idea of having to be seen to attend church.

I doubt it will make any difference, but you should kick up a fuss.

I too would have liked to be able to walk DD to school but the village school is CofE ... with masses of cars blocking up the road at hometime. The schools in the villages all arounds are all 'faith' schools too - no none-hypocritical option except to join the school run.

Your case sounds particularly bad, so although its a major PITA you're probably well out of that place.

The whole faith school system/idea is grotesquely corrupt as evidenced by this thread! However for some reason parents seem determind to support it and therefore it is a vicious circle. You have seen first hand how corrupt the system is yet still want to support faith schools by sending your child to one.

Faith schools will continue to operate like this unless parents wake up and twig on that faith schools per se are not in anyway better and virtually all the benefits ascribed to them are simply a result of the fact tjhat they are selective by the back door.

Faith schools are often much better than the local comp as the parents are normally middle class. I am going to make some sweeping generalisations here which won't be popular with many but I am afraid it is true : middle class parents "tend" to nuture their children much better than the chav class. I am not going to say working class, as I know most working class bring their children up well - but by chav I mean those that wont work, have few morals, let their kids smoke/drink/wander estates cos they cant be arsed looking after them. And I am afraid there are far too many of these in the local comp disrupting the rest of the childrens learning and bullying in the playground - I know, I have worked there.

I have just been through the whole "faking faith" process myself - I am now teaching at a very oversubscribed church school - is the best in the county gcse result wise for a comp and often gets higher results than private schools - and have just secured a place for my second son by attending church for 2 years. Why? Because I want him to be able to learn, to mix with other children who have been instilled with morals, so he can learn without disruption, and go about without being bullied.

If this means being a hypocrite and sitting in church for a few hours once a week, then so be it.

For what its worth, I am a christian, but I dont believe in many of the doctrine of cofe - however i can live with this knowing that I have got my kids the best education I could. If it makes me a hypocrite I really couldn't give a stuff - the system is corrupt so you HAVE to play it - if you don't, then your kids suffer. I think that is worse.

Well done for not lying. Shame on the Church. Support your new school, help it have a sense of pride. How do the clergy live with themselves about this? Surely they should be reaching out to all of us, not focussing on creating a privileged education for an already privileged group.

A Church group comes into our (non-faith) school to teach Bible stories. I wish they wouldn't - but I can respect the fact that this activity is consistent with their Christian faith.

Pooodle, at least you have a clear insight into what you have done.

Poodle and thats exactly why many parents continue to support and want their children to attend these schools.
I think it is a tough choice to make a stand against the system if it will be detrimental to your childs education.

My younger two dcs attended faith schools both at primary and secondary level. Clearly they are not as over subscribed as some of the faith schools in the country as I did none of the things that seem to be required of other parents on here in order to gain places for them. We are not nor have we pretended to be Catholic and I was never anything but honest on the application form which was the standard lea one that you complete which ever school you wish your child to attend.
I accept that in some cases the reason that some faith schools perform much better is due to "backdoor" selection processes. However I can only speak from experience and that is certainly not the case with the schools my dcs attended and still attend. Yet they still consistantly out perform their non faith counterparts. The local non faith high school was reopened recently in a brand new state of the art building that has cost millions. 12 months later it has been placed in special measures. Until the discrepancies in performance are addressed the better performing schools (and where we are these are faith schools) will always be over subscribed. Dd's high school have a strictly laid out admissions criteria and none of the criteria require letters from priests about church attendance ...if they did dd wouldn't have got a place. I agree with Lilyloo's post..... "I think it is a tough choice to make a stand against the system if it will be detrimental to your childs education."

Kiddiz and poodle - Your posts sum up the problem. Faith schools are not intrinsically any better but parents like you look at the results etc and jump through hoops to make sure that the faith schools maintain their nice middle class intake, nturally they then get better results and the cycle continues. Other local schools naturally look poor in comparison when the faith schools are creaming off the middle classes. The problem is no one wants their child to be the one that starts the change.

No faith schools, no academies, no selection by the back door then you might be able to compare schools in a meaningful way.

Londonone ..I can assure you that while I am quite nice I am most definately not middle class!!!!!
As I said I am speaking from my own personal experience and I certainly jumped through no hoops to get my dc's school places. I also looked at far more than exam results when choosing a school. Dd's school does not operate some of the underhand selection processes described above ...my dcs wouldn't have got in if they did. Their intake is far from middleclass and there is a fair representation of non Catholic children too.
I still standby the opinion that it is very easy to take a stand against the inequalities in the education system until it is to the detriment of your own child's education. Personally I think these are both difficult if not impossible tasks, but trying to address the inequalities in the education system is a more realistic aim than expecting parents not to want to send their dcs the best school possible. The lengths to which some parents are prepared to go supports this I feel.

My children go to a RC faithschool and we go to church MORE often than we did when we first applied. My dh has changed his views on churchgoing too, when it used to be entirely my problem...They see their friends there, and it is part of their life now. It has been a struggle to get to this stage, and I too felt angry at having to drag them to church when they were little, just to be seen. But that was my take on the situation, in the end I had to WANT to be there in the first place, or why send your child to a faith school at all and tap in to a faith community?
Why would you want to send your children to a school full of liars and hypocrites if that is what you feel them to be?
Why not just put your all into your child's education at another primary. Lots of motivated caring parents send their children to our local non-faith school, which is going from strength to strength as a result of their commitment. It didn't happen overnight, but a result of a seachange, when some parents revolted against being bullied by faith school admission (both Protestant and RC) criteria.

I don't see how you can expect a church to operate without people giving generously, and presumably you could decide to give only a £5 a month if it was for a direct debit, not for a specified amount.

Why do people always expect something for nothing? DH and I send our DTS to a church school because we want them to have an education in line with our principles. We are also active church members with roles and we do stuff in the community too.

It does irk me that many people who send their children to the school only want what they can get out of the school without actually putting something back in. I really don't understand how they find it so easy to lie just so that they can get their children in. What message does that send to their children? As long as you get what you want it is OK to lie, cheat and deceive. Don't they realise that the school is successful because of Christian principles inculcated throughout the ethos of the school?

It is the same situation with all schools too. Only a few parents make the effort with the PTA to fund raise for the benefit of all the children but you can guarantee that most parents will not do anything to help but are quite happy for their children to benefit from the effort of others.

HappyHeathen, you may well find you do get a place after all, as a lot of waiting list places do come up, as parents apply "keeping their options open" but move, or send to different school after all. So don't despair, but just keep going to church if you and your family get something from it ANYWAY. In our oversubscribed RC primary school, children often got places when they were yr 2 upwards, as it was Reception that had the most applicants. In year 5 we have a practising Sikh pupil, because there was a place available and he applied.

It's the implication that faith schools are only accessible to the motivated middle classes with a aptitude for lying that upsets me tbh. I am not middle class (though why that should matter if my child satisfies the admissions criteria for the school I don't know)or a liar and went through the same admissions process as every other child. I was never asked to donate money to the school or the church and there was certainly no admissions catagory that involved the parent's class, bank balance or educational achievements.
After the cared for children and sen catagories the top catagory was baptised catholics, living in catchment area with a sibling already attending, so as long as your child satisfies those criteria he/she would get a place regardless of whether they attended church, what job their parents did or their social standing. If a catagory is over subscibed then places are decided according to the distance from the school a child lives. My dcs fell into the 9th catagory and because they still had places available after those in higher catagories had been accomodated then they got a place. It may well be in some schools church attendance and financial donations are required but that is not the case here.

I think this is dreadful - by being 100% honest you failed to secure your child a place and parents not being 100% honest DID secure their child a place - christian behaviour???

Another live thread at the moment cites that independent schools sum up all that is wrong with this country - well to me it is lying and cheating to get into a "good school" that sums up all that is rong about this country.
I am truely sorry for you but at least you can hold your head up and know you are honest

wrong not rong - and i was faith school educated

My son goes to the local C of E junior school which gets it right

Criteria 1 - attendance at 1 church (very few get in that way)
Criteria 2 - catchement area
Criteria 3 - other churchs

It has just got Oustanding in everything in its OFSTED - but I am also proud that it has a higher proportion than average of children within this area for special needs and ethnic minorities.

Though I am a athesist I support and help out the school and they really value my contribution. Certainly, in reference to an earlier post being involved in the school and community is not the sole remit of religious groups. In fact in my experience the whole "church" thing can be incredibly divisive.

This sucks.

I have no advice as my ds is only 18mo but I just wanted to say that you should be proud of having some integrity.

Its just a shame that it cost a place at your local school.

What the hell is wrong with this country? I am dreading this process when ds is older.

Can someone please explain to me how faith schools are legal? I just don't understand this. It is against the law to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their religion. So how come my child isn't allowed to attend a local school because he isn't Catholic?

They are, only 25% of pupils at our local RC school are Catholic.

happyheathen: Like most other posters on this thread, I'm shocked at what's happened to you.

I think you should complain to the governors (in writing) that the vicar may be 'having trouble' collating church attendance figures to help him write his references.

I'm a governor at an oversubscribed CofE primary school and we require the vicars of our catchment parishes keep very detailed registers of attendance. In fact, I think the diocese requires it, too.

No one should be allowed to get away with lying about fulfulling ANY school admissions criteria.

Furrycat, in exchange for their "independence", faith schools (ie: the parents) do have to pay for a proportion of building costs that the school might incur. We are asked to provide £30 per family a year. Some parents will donate more, some will pay nothing. No-one forces them to pay. But they are gently reminded (and I'm not being sarcastic) that they chose a faith school, so should be able to make a few sacrifices. Money might be loaned from the diocese to pay upfront for building projects, and then parents will pay back in due course. Original money from diocese would of course come from parishioners' contributions.
So although state does fund most of school, parishioners, parents do have to support it financially.

I am amazed that the vicar would lie. Our vicar is very much by the book. The criteria for a foundation place is the same as yours (twice a month for the last 12 months) but he doesn't lie and he doesn't encourage people to lie. In fact, I know some people have been upset with him becaue they didn't get in. But he himself said to me that there wasn't anything he could do. Those were the rules and he couldn't lie about it.

It's all well and good saying you just want the school next to your house. But the only people who say that are the ones who have a good school next to their house.

It's not that you aren't ALLOWED, it's just that the school may be oversubscribed, and allots(sp?)places to those who support the school ethos (ie: catholics who want their children to have catholic education, prayers, assemblies, nativity plays the works) first. How do you measure commitment? Parents who make time to take their children to church. You may agree or disagree with this test of christian virtue, but for catholics at least attendance at mass IS an important part of being christian, as well as untestable good works, kindness to others etc.

I remember one mother telling me that HER mother said that in the past the local RC school could sometimes be worse than the local state primary, but people chose the school because they wanted a Catholic education, for other than academic reasons.