How "religious" are C of E schools?

[TabithaTwitchet]

Hope this isn't going to end up being a contraversial subject.

Basically, bit of background, we are planning on relocating to a different part of the country for DH work, meaning we have to think about primary school for DD (now 2) earlier than we thought we would.

The place we are planning on moving to has only one Catholic school nearby (not all that near), whose latest Ofsted report wasn't particularly glowing - mainly grade 3, satisfactory.

It is v important to me that DD goes to a Catholic school, if it were just up to me she would automatically go to nearest RC school (unless I looked round it and hated it, of course!)

DH isn't particularly bothered about the faith aspect, it is important to him that it is a "good" school ie good Ofsted report.

We realise compromise has to come somewhere, so I was wondering whether I could be happy with a C of E school - it's either that or move somewhere else!

I don't really know anything about them, but my impression is that they are religious in name and funding only, and they don't have the things that I would prize about a catholic education, like regular masses in school, doing First Communion all together etc (well, obviously they won't have those) - but do CofE schools have regular religious services, spiritual/ religious ethos underlying things etc? I personally don't think it's enough to just have a prayer in assembly and a harvest festival and that's it, so I feel they don't really have what I'm looking for, but as I say, I really know nothing about them.

Yes they do.

I went to a C of E school and we had:

• morning assembly with hymn and prayer
• the vicar telling us bible stories once a week
• childrens festivals like christmas, harvest festival in the school.

It is not as religious as a catholic school, and it is not as religious as my dd's catholic kindergarten.
For example, there were no crucifixes in the school, and no references to Christianity in the day to day lessons.
But Christianity was there, as the background to the school calendar.

sorry, I meant festivals in the local church, not in teh school.

They are not now very religious imho. We have experienced two (one with a reputation of being very CofE) and although lovely, there are many many parents who are atheists there who like the fact its a good school. Consequently there is little that obviously makes it Cof E apart from school prayer in assembly, visit to church for termly service and harvest festivals. They seem to make more of other festivals such as Diwalli (cant spell it so apologise if that offends anybody) when they came home with great stuff and had done quite a lot of celebrations and cooking.

They do vary a lot, but generally don't do much more than you describe. You might want to look for ones that select their pupils themselves, using some churchgoing criteria, rather than ones where the council's computer programme automatically does the school allocation.

May I urge you to please not just go by ofsted grades when selecting a school though - if you think that you have found a suitable area to move to then go and visit the school - how it feels is much more important than whether it got a 1 or 2 from ofsted or what its SAT results are like. Especially since some ofsted reports will be 3 years out of date, and a lot can change in that time.

Of our two local C of E schools, one is much more religious than the other. Voluntary Aided schools tend to be more religious than Voluntary Controlled schools.

The diocese does the equivalent of a "church ofsted" inspection, you could always ask to see a copy of that.

My children's religious education comes mainly at home or at Sunday school. My daughter made her first communion in the C of E, at the age of 8, but that was done through the church doing instruction classes.

Ah yes, that's the term I couldn't think of MaryBS - voluntary aided vs voluntary controlled. The VC ones are the ones where the council does the selection aren't they?

DCs went to a VA primary. The vicar came in once a week/fortnight for assembly. The vicarage is right next to school.
They have a termly service at church usually easter etc and I think they used to say a prayer at the end of the day.

Thanks, have seen the terms voluntary aided and controlled but didn't know what they really meant.

Cantsleepwontsleep, I agree with you re the Ofsted grades - and a lot can change in the 2 and a half years anyway before DD will be due to start.
But we don't want to make the decision of moving somewhere where neither of us are happy with the available schools - I need to be clear in my head whether the school not being catholic is a complete dealbreaker for me or not.

Its really a 'how long is a piece of string' question tbh.

It depends alot on the staff, if you have a religous head and class teachers the religous aspect of the school is far stronger, if the head isn't Christian it is diluted somewhat.

THis has been my experience, although i admit i was looking for the opposite to see if the C of E schools were less religously driven.

I would second (third?) the above advice about reading the Ofsted report in context.. I'm a Catholic and have just chosen a CoE school above a nearby outstanding RC school! I realise it sounds mad but I just got a better feeling about the CoE school - much smaller, more pastoral care, local, we can walk etc etc. I don't mind the religious aspect as we intend to instruct our children separately anyhow and in our area, first communion tuition is done outside school anyhow on the whole.

I teach at a Cof E school and we have Collective worship each day which is generally of a christian nature, although we do celebrate important religious festivals from other religions. The Vicar attends once a week ( or sends the curate!) and we also have other speakers from other local churches on a fairly regular basis. We have prayers before lunch and before we go home ( when we hold the cross as a symbol of reflection) and we have a cross ( but not a crucifix) on display in each class. We attend church once a term and send the school choir etc on a more regular basis. We follow the Diocese RE syllabus-which is similar to the Government one but we have more focus on the christian religion and a little less on others.

Primarymum, your school sounds just the sort of thing I would be looking for

It's good to know that they are out there, now just need to find one!