Priests to control school admissions: Discuss

[TheKingIsInTheAltogether]

So the Catholic Education Service has devised a new admissions process for its schools putting the decision on whether a family is considered "practicing" or not in the hands of its priests. The priests will grant a Certificate of Catholic Practice to families who they deem to be following Canon Law, but are able to apply some professional discretion.

Families will need one of these certificates if they want a place at an oversubscribed catholic school.

However the Schools Adjudicator has thrown a spanner in the works by declaring the new process in breach of the Admissions Code, and that decision is going to be challenged in the courts ...
www.theguardian.com/education/2016/nov/20/catholic-church-court-priests-faith-school-places

It seems to me that the Catholic Church is actively promoting its schools as academically desirable and using that as a carrot to coerce all Catholics into following Canon Law to the letter. In areas where schools are very oversubscribed, families will inevitably need to compete for these certificates and the bar for obtaining them can be raised at the priest's discretion. Families won't dare miss Mass in case their faith is considered questionable.

I can't believe anyone would think that an acceptable admissions system!

FloggingMolly _ they may not want to publish the criteria, but if the courts agree with the Adjudicator that the CCP forms part of the admissions arrangements, they will have to.
And do you think it's fair that a family might be given a certificate by a priest from one church and another, applying for the same school, with exactly the same pattern of attendance etc could be denied it by another priest at a different church? And could do nothing about it, because they don't know whether they should have qualified or not?

If the current admissions rules mean that there are people falling through the cracks then Catholic schools should rewrite them to include these people. There will be a lot of appeals if the rules become wishy washy and Catholic priests will be faced with a lot of emotional blackmail over admissions. I think that there is no limit to how far some people would go to secure a school place.

Headteachers at community schools are not allowed to pick "the right sort of family" and the Catholic Church should not be allowed to do this. It is scandulous that we have state faith schools and that community schools have to be teach and practice religion too. Religious education should be via private education or practiced out of school hours.

I was brought up practicing Anglican and my parents had to produce a reference from the vicar to get me into a catholic school. The school had to take 12% of non Catholics at the time in order to get government funding. I'm now a practicing Catholic and totally agree that you should have a reference from your priest. We get loads of four year olds being baptised that we never see again, just to get into the local schools. As a practicing Catholic I would be furious if my child missed out on a place and a non catholic got one instead.

As a practicing Catholic I would be furious if my child missed out on a place and a non catholic got one instead.

As an atheist I'm furious that my children are religiously discriminated against when accessing local, state-funded schools.

Oh and prh, you have to meet the priest in person to sign the form, obviously, but there's no question of an interview

That's not what the Adjudicator thought nor indeed is it what the CES argued. They appear to have admitted that interviews take place but argued that the CCP falls outside the admission arrangements.

Their reasons for wanting to avoid publishing the criteria are irrelevant. If the CCP is part of the admission arrangements (and it certainly appears to be) they are required to publish the criteria used to determine whether or not one is awarded.

Does this mean that Priests can now discriminate on who gets into their school based on sexual orientation? Isn't that illegal?

It would be illegal if they actually do so. I hope there is nothing in the criteria for the CCP that would allow this but until those criteria are published we don't know.

When I rule the world there will be no faith schools (at least not as part of the state school system). Until that time, I will settle for a system whereby the requirements for meeting the criteria for faith-based admissions are consistent and fairly applied.

It's appalling for one school to allow priority admission for a child whose family got them baptised the previous year but have had no involvement in the local parish since, whilst another requires the child to have been baptised within three months of birth, twice monthly mass attendance and active participation (flowers, bells, teas and coffees etc) in the parish.

BTW, I'm not sure that the Church has any problem whatsoever with the effect being that some families start following the requirements of Canon Law more diligently...

Muslim schools similarly have a requirement for a statement of support from the local imam. There are some practising Muslims who cannot use their faith to get priority admissions to Muslim faith schools because they go to to the "wrong" mosque or follow the "wrong" strand of Islam (notably Ahmadis)

I hope the criteria for admissions are to prove the applicant's attendance and involvement. Recent years in my neck of the woods have just been (apart from proof of the applicant's baptism) at least one parent attending once a month for 2 years.

Does this mean that Priests can now discriminate on who gets into their school based on sexual orientation?

The priest just has to sign his name against the following statement: "I hereby certify that this child and his/her family are known to me and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the child is from a practising Catholic family".

They haven't published the guidance given to priests on how to decide this, but it's implied by the wording in the judgement that it's about adherence to Canon Law, in which case a gay couple might not be sure what view the priest would take when it came to signing the form for their child.

That's the problem though isn't it - nobody will know the priest's view until they ask. They can't just look at the school admission criteria and see whether they fulfil them or not.

I thought they already did?

I had to see the priest and he signed a form saying I and my children were catholic, and noting that we attended x times per month.

In cases of oversubscription it's not uncommon for the priest to decide who is more catholic, based on attendance, or activity within the church for example- so someone who helps out with the flowers or whose kids are altar servers will jump ahead of someone who just attends mass.

As far as I've always been aware (as a Catholic), the term "practising Catholic" simply means attending mass regularly. I strongly suspect that is what it means in terms of school admissions.
No different to the admissions policies of most Faith schools then.

Someone who helps out with the flowers is more Catholic? Surely not? How can the goalposts be moved like this. Can't believe taxpayers money finances this kind of charade.

TBH I don't entirely blame the priests at churches connected to really over subscribed schools. If I was struggling to get the congregation involved in the stuff that needs regular volunteers, and my pews were full of people who did the bare minimum to get me to sign their forms and then were never seen again, I might ramp up the criteria too...

We are practicing Catholics and DS didn't get a place at a Catholic school despite several baptised but non practicing children being admitted. This would have helped us as we were known to the priest and active in the parish community. We had to wait two years until the school got a poor Ofstead report and a place became available. We moved him from his "good" community primary to a "requires improvement" Catholic primary. So yes Catholics are keen to get places even when the school is being rejected by those who just want a good academic school. The parish priests know of dozens of cases like ours for every school and this is why they want more of a say in admissions.

Someone who helps out with the flowers is more Catholic? Surely not? How can the goalposts be moved like this. Can't believe taxpayers money finances this kind of charade.

Yes, because they are contributing more to the church than simple attenders. There are all sorts of "jobs" need doing within a church, cleaners tend to be volunteers, as are the choir, altar boys and girls, eucharistic ministers, admin, ... Who do you think will dress a church for a wedding, or christening?

If you volunteer time to the church then yes, you are taking a more active role in the church community. SO when it comes to a tiebreak with school places, as it often does, if two families have exactly the same mass attendance, the place will go to the family who contribute time to the church as well.

Goalpost aren't moving. It has always been such. Some very oversubscribed school churches have to take attendance registers, as it simply isn't possible to keep track of the couple of thousand mass attenders each week.

If you volunteer time to the church then yes, you are taking a more active role in the church community

But it's illegal for that to be taken into account for the purposes of school admissions. See the London Oratory judgement for that.

But helping out doesn't make someone more Catholic. You might live your life immersed in Catholicism but because you work full-time/have a shed-load of dc you might not be able to clean more than once a week. A sahp on the other hand could possibly take on the whole rota if needs must. And it is moving the goal posts because helping out once a week might be enough in most years but you would never know until allocation day whether you have been out-manoeuvred by someone who managed it twice. I thought admissions criteria needed to be clearer than this.

If a family has to obey canon law to get a place then canon law needs to be scunitised to check whether it is discriminatory.

I would definitely welcome this in our local church/school as this year an awful lot of practising Catholics have missed out on a place as there were only 7 non sibling places. Many of those who got in were simply those who had their child baptised to get into the school and are never to be seen again. It's hard for the priests as they can't refuse a baptism even if they are sure it is just for admission reasons. What strikes as even more odd it that because our parish priest is on the board of governors he isn't allowed to advocate as a reference for practising Catholics during the appeals period. Surely when appealing for a place at a catholic school the first person you would want as a reference is your parish priest?!

But helping out doesn't make someone more Catholic.

If the stay at home mom does the church flowers every Sunday, but the gay couple have to work longer hours and are unable to volunteer every week, guess who will get the place at school and who will be deemed LESS Catholic.

The single mother with three kids, one with Sen will struggle to get to church yet alone help out with the flowers.

Disabled people might struggle with church cleaning or other volunteering.

Guess the white sahm, with time to help out, married to the wealthy white man, who donates to church funds, gets the catholic vote every time and is allowed to send their children to the local school.

Frankly it seems to be a system which puts the priest in an invidious position whatever they do - and an utterly ridiculous system for allocating state educational resources.