Madness!? My atheist friend had her daughter baptised to get her into a faith school

[oliviasmummy]

This is a story about my good friend (you know who you are!!) who recently had her dd (aged 1) baptised. The best school for dd in her area is a C of E primary, and, after enquiring about catchment areas etc she was told that the child should also be baptised to assure entry. This she duly arranged, although feeling, that on the basis of all probability, god does not exist. She does not worship or pray to any such god.
Her argument for doing this is that she wants the best for her child, and if that includes putting dd through some silly ritual that involves water over the head and a nice frilly dress then so be it!
I think that this should be discussed, is she jumping through hoops, as it were, to secure a greater good, or is she being a hypocrite, ignoring her beliefs when it suits?
While I write this as a gentle little probe to annoy, I wonder how other MNers would respond?

But if faith schools didn't exist, imnot27, would it be necessary to invent them in order to have schools with a sense of community and cohesion? A good school will achieve this in other ways, and without any need for supernatural scare-stories.

That's true, I agree, but for now faith schools do exist!

Sorry, had to finish that message early, had to pay window cleaner. I think the whole issue of faith schools is very tricky. I had always thought it was great that my childrens local primary was CoE, also they really do get a lot out of the festivals and prayers etc, thinking on a different level. But, recently I have seen that Faith schools can create extensive division and discrimination. The case in Ireland last year (?) where the children going to Catholic school were shouted at and threatened was terrirying. Should we have faithfree schools, to end division in society rather than create it? Or should we, as a society, be more accomodating to different faiths, to the extent we accept tax payers money can be spent on a faith education? Is all very poltical for a Monday morning, am going back to the Harry Potter thread!

ALSO, though, unquietdad, is a bit rude to call religios beliefs supersticious scare stories. We are all entitled to have our individual beliefs respected.

I know, I'm being a bit sarky. Apologies for that.

But if we accept taxpayers' money should be spent on faith-based education, should we also expect faith-based segregation in hospitals, on buses, on trains, and in other public-sector, tax-funded aspects of life? That's the simple way of looking at it for me.

christie1-i was only stating what i had been taught at catholic school,and the very fact you were so defensive and came out with 'please no catholic jokes' just goes to show you have been scared into believing ,which is what catholic schools do.maybe not to the extent of when my mother went to one,but the teachings are still the same.

i agree with UQ tbh,i think in this day and sage there should be no such thing as faith schools.it was fine when the majority of people in this country were christian,but times have changed,and maybe the education system should too.

Is okay about sarky. Yes, agree is tricky issue with tax payers money. I don't know one way or the other. I assume that the child in the start thread is going to school in London? Where I live, the local comp where my kids will all go, is non-faith and very good. All the high school round here are the same. there is no need to lie your way into a school as the locals are all great, friendly, high achieving schools. There is a catholic school in the city (10 miles), which takes non-catholics, and there are plenty of great options otherwise. I think this is a real 'London' issue. Not only does there seem to be a higher concentration of faith schools there, but the comps also seem comparitively bad, meaning parents often have to go against their own principles to get a good school for their kids. Don't know what the answer is, but is interesting no?

Its not just an issue in london.
Im in the midlands and the 4 choices of primary school for my DD consist of the following.

1x RC school, great key stage results, excellent ofted reports, huge catchment, strict criteria.

3x community primary schools, high level of SENS children (way above uk average), high ethnic mix (mostly muslim - again, way above uk average), increadibly poor key stage testing and 2 of the 3 are on special measures (other will be next year if it dont sort itself out.)

The biggest problem is that the local muslim community is SO large that they are failing to integrate and are failing to teach their children even the most basic level of english before sending them to school. This in turn drags the whole class down by up to 2yrs!

I am an athiest.
I am going to have my daughter baptised.

I do not care what anyone thinks of that, I REFUSE to send my daughter to a grossly inadequate school.

It's not just a London issue. Where we live (Exeter) there are 4 mediocre 11-16 comps, and a XofE state 11-18 school. Which creams off the middle class children from across the city. It's the only secondary school which can select, so in effect it pinches the best children from the other catchment areas. And surprise surprise, it gets the best results.

most middle class parents seem to rustle up some dormant religious beliefs, or they can write a nice educated letter saying why they support the school's values.

It's not just a London issue at all.

Snap

xposts minx69

BTW, I just want to state for the record..

Im working class and proud

Okay, soory, obviuosly not a london issue, then. But, why are faith schools better than others? If it is because ethics of having religious faith then presumably non-faith pupils will not share same ethics? I have heard many times of issue with children not speaking good english, and whole class suffering, also teaching has to be at lower level to cover lack of language comprehension. Should there be minimum language test or something to get into primary school?

Also, Fennel, interested in what you say about schols in Extere, we are moving down to near area at Xmas, thought Teign/South dartmoor schools looked good? Or are you talking about schools specifically in Exeter centre?

Round here its purely because the children at the RC school are all taught in english before they go to school.
I do have to say tho, at the toddler group we go to some of the asian mothers are 3rd/4th generation now and are using english as their first (and sometimes only) language but there are still alot more who dont speak a word of english and therefor are unable to teach their kids any either.

They're better because they can select. any school which is permitted to select does better than one which has to take all children.

religious state schools take fewer than average chidren from the poorest backgrounds, fewer asylum seeking children, and fewer children with special needs. this came out of a report published last year. whatever the official selection criteria, parents and schools can manipulate selection and this results in children who tend to do better academically.

Imnot, Teign/Dartmoor area has different schools. there's a couple of mumsnetters in that area who know about them, there was a recent thread about it - maybe that was you under a different name, perhaps? I was talking about the Exeter city educational area which has 5 secondary schools.

Ref: minimum language test, I believe that already occurs but because of the sheer volume here (40%+) its impossible to teach them seperately.
They just get a SEN statement and are bunged back in with everyone else.
Ofcourse then half the class are bored or mess about whilst the other half struggle further due to the background disruptions.
Viscious cycle unfortunately.

Speaking as a person who went thru "mixed ability" education in her GCSE years (something I also detest with a passion) I can say that boredom was the key factor that left me with poor grades. I was also labelled disruptive and ended up not bothering to go for weeks on end (what was the point? I wasnt "learning" anything).

I am so desperate to make sure that doesnt happen to DD its untrue. I dont mind if she really isnt a great acheiver, but I want her to get the best chances to see what she can acheive.

So the problem is selective schools, not necessarily faith schools?

Oops, crossed threads. Yes, we were all 'streamed' through high school, is much better i think

minx-u have a good point.where i live now there is not a multi-ethnic community,and the population of the town is dwindling so there are plenty of school places,so all u need to get into a faith school is to live in the catchment area,which i didnt when i applied for ds1's place but i moved to be nearer the school(they were already attending the relative infant school).
i grew up just outside london and even then parents were struggling to get their kids into the catholic school i went to cos of the problem of non-english speaking children in the state schools.

An Ofsted report carried out in February 2006 said: "Most of the children are of Pakistani or Indian heritage, and a few are from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, including white British. The first languages spoken by most children are Panjabi, Gujarati and Urdu, and many children are still learning to speak English."

The inspectors gave the school a "Notice to improve" and said: "It is an inadequate school, providing unsatisfactory value for money. Significant improvement is required in relation to the inadequate standards of achievement reached by children and their slow progress over time."

They went on: "Children's speaking skills are poor and this holds them back in most aspects of their work."

This is regards the school that the teacher who refused to take of her veil works at but its very very similar to the 3 poor schools in my area

minx69, your local schools sound the same as ours, we live in a predominently (sp) muslim area which also has a high number of asylum seekers. Most children starting the local infant and junior schools have never spoken English and as no-one at home speaks English or wants to learn they are very slow at picking it up. This in turn drags the rest of the class down and the ofsted reports are horrendous, they are way behind average in just about every subject. I'm panicking like mad about schools for DS (19mths) and am considering selling our nice 4 bedroomed house for a 2 bed flat so he can go to a decent school, either that or having him baptised.

I'm surprised the Vicar agreed to the Christening. Our local clergymen have wised up to this trick and refuse to baptise unless you have a track record of church attendance, for this very reason.

We have at least two families in DS's class who produced fake addresses to get their kids into his Catholic school i.e. they were Catholics but lived to far away. Parents will go to any lengths and who can blame theme?

Maybe they went to confession afterwards anyway

having given this issue more consideration i dont think its the fault of parents that they are being driven to lie/be hypocritical etc to get their children into a decent school,obviously i didnt realise how big an issue this was in other parts of the country.

I'm more than 90% sure that Catholic priests aren't allowed to refuse Christening. Big deal here about original sin.
As feenel says, religious schools select and statisitcially are observed to take in far fewer kids who require more work.

An effect that isn't their fault is that they get more pushy parents like umm... err... us. Being smarter and more committed to our kids education we play the system, buy houses in the right place and support the school and the child.
Parents who just take what they're given are more likely to have kids that you don't want in the same class as your kids.