Ending Educational Hypocrisy on Mumsnet

[zanzibarmum]

Do you think we might end educational hypocrisy on these threads by having to declare what type of school our DC go to - you know the sort of thing the mumsnetter who wants to abolish faith schools on the grounds of fairness while sending own DC to private schools or the mum whose children are in high-performing postcode protected state schools and wanting to abolish GS.

Or is the apparent inherent hypocrisy ('do as I say not as I do') so favoured by politicians and some MNs part of the fun.

I'm with fivecandles on this. For us the faith schools were a total no. I wouldn't (and didn't) even consider one, and as an ex-Catholic (confirmed in my youth) we almost certainly would have got a place. I disliked the amount of religion at the children's primary school (community), and I really don't want my children to go to a school with a pervasive religious undercurrent, even if they don't really go in for anything formal. My experience is that people with faith don't keep it to themselves (nor should they) so their beliefs come out in all sorts of things, often without them really being aware of it, so all of the PHSE, mentorship and pastoral care gets flavoured with a particular world view. Apart from anything else I think that both Catholic and CoE hierarchies at present are both sexist and homophobic, and so not in any way benign to me.

My children have exposure to religion through family, and that's fine by me (my parents are quite strongly Christian and my sister is a chaplin). School is for education not indoctrination IMO.

Oh, and my memory of primary school is of spending a great deal of time preparing for First Holy Communion/First Sacrament of Reconciliation, learning about a host of saints and martyrs, and generally Catholicism being at the heart of pretty much everything (things like being told that Mary was very upset when we did anything wrong). An excellent school for Catholic families, just not suitable or appropriate for anyone else.

Hey!You all seem to be flaming the Catholics - the burning of Guido was a few days ago.

What is interesting however is that while some of you damn the Catholic schools many of you send your DC to private.schools.

Catholic schools have been around some time - they were amongst the first schools for working class children, such as those of Irish immigrants, in this country - so. Whatever the failings of community schools the blame can't be hung at the door of 'faith schools'.

My sense is that you are all old lefties - like myself - but you can't quite get over the fact you have opted out of state education unlike those of us who continue to choose state schools including those of a religious character.

My children have gone and continue to go to state school (just no longer in the UK now). I can only talk about Catholic schools, because that's what I have experience of, but my views apply to all religious schooling.

Zanzi, my sense is that you haven't really read or understood anything one this thread.

All schools should be doing RE until GCSE, not just faith schools. It required by the national curriculum

Independant schools don't have to follow the National Curriculum though, so not all schools.

Yes I did think that after I had posted, I was thinking of state schools which is where most of us send our chilren. I accept it may not be most mumsnetters though.

I was just being pedantic really. I think many independant schools do more RE than required in any case.

I do think lots of independent schools do keep the compulsory RE, but I may be wrong.

Lots of compulsory chapel & the like.

Fivecandles - you are just annoying me now.

Leaving aside your poor grasp of English ('less summer holidays'- and you a teacher) your recipe for improving state schools strikes me as odd: I am certain the selective and socially exclusive school (with longer holidays) your DC go to don't communicate with students and parents by SMS. And I bet it does as much to get its fair share of A and A* for league table purposes.

Perhaps you should get your 'improvement' ideas implemented in the private schools you DC go to before you and some others dismantle some of the better state schools. I am comforted by the fact though that your campaign against faith schools has little or no political support.

What rubbish you are spouting zanzi and how many weird assumptions. As it happens I've been emailing dd1's teacher this very evening!! She sent out the parents' evening appointment via email last week and so on. She gave out her email on the welcome meeting for dd1's class and she checks it daily and responds immediately. And many independent schools don't do SATS and therefore don't appear in many league tables. My dds' school does not have longer holidays than state schools but I still think they're too long. They do offer all sorts of holiday clubs and summer schools though. But that's completely missing the point. The school gets 100% A-C at GCSE so these are not the sort of kids who would particularly benefit from less holidays. Now the kids at my dp's school (for students with severe Emotional and Behavioural difficulties) many of whom have chaotic home lives and difficulties with basic literacy and numeracy very clearly do not benefit from 13 weeks holiday a year. And again, research suggests that 6 weeks is too long for all children esp. for example in the transition between Yr 6 and 7. You are trying to sound knowledgeable because for some reason you don't like me but you just sound a bit pompous and a bit stupid.

And how very depressing that, after everything I've said and all the links I've posted, you find the idea of faith schools 'comforting'. So it doesn't bother you at all that many of our schools are entirely segregated? Because I'm not the only one on here to find that deeply shocking.

Yep, that's right I have a really poor grasp of English. And you can judge that through a typo that I make on a website

Fewer holidays! Now text that 500 times to your socially segregated school.

We get emails from our state school. Granted half of them are to tell us that ds is in trouble (again ), oh and we have a 10 week holiday in the summer (nuts, but for North America this is actually quite short). We don't have publicly supported religious schools in my province (the only private schools are religious schools where I live, but they are very different from in the UK, relying on fund-raising and volunteerism), and it seems to work just fine, happy children, high standards.

Just because we have a particular model in the UK it doesn't mean it couldn't be changed or that there aren't other options. Most of them unfortunately would bring some disruption and there probably would still be children who lose out. I suspect here is no magic bullet on that.