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!

I think Jesus would be utterly horrified by church schools both RC and C of E.

I had to change Church because some stupid bitch of a priest refused to baptise my child. She put so many obstacles in the way as to make it impossible. Both my husband and myself had to attend classes. We were expected to attend a service of thanksgiving which we missed as dd had a really nasty stomach bug. We were told that we would have to attend the classes again. At that point I made a formal complaint about the stupidly that they would not baptise my daughter. The church wardens were agast that the priest was being so unreasonable. They managed to get the priest to agree to baptise my child, but at that point I wanted someone else to baptise dd.

We had excellent church attendence but she took a dislike to our family. We were on the electoral roll. I had no desire to send my child to the church school and her elder brother attended a community school around the corner.

A minority of priests are nasty and vindictive. At the moment they have far too much indirect control over admissions to c of e schools. There is no means of appeal when things have gone wrong at a church level.

The nasty priest was Church of England, and all the catholic priests I met have been lovely. When I decided to change church I did give serious thought to attending the Catholic Church as it's nearer than my current church. I decided that RCIA was too much of a faff.

That is not a new thing confused. Why shouldn't practicing Catholics get priority at Catholic schools? It's the way it's always been, no surprises there... The RC church used to provide 50% of the funding, now it only provides 10%

Some Catholic schools do require baptism within a certain period, but not all.

Usually the ones where recent immigrants are from a tradition of Baptism at 1 year, or who return to their originating country so grandparents, friends and relatives can attend and in some cases so a family member can conduct the service.

The only converts I know are married to Catholics
Anne Widdecome?

Then there is this

www.ordinariate.org.uk/about/about.php

now it only provides 10%

Actually it's only 10% of the capital costs, which works out as a very small amount indeed - in fact if you do the maths on a per-child basis it is approximately equivalent to the £30 - £40-ish annual voluntary (or in some cases not-so-voluntary) contribution the schools request from their parents.

And of course many VA schools are now converting to academy status which means they are fully funded by the state at the same level as any other academy.

Of course the church does own the land and buildings in many cases - that is why the Govt can't just convert them all to community schools, even if it wanted to.

It doesn't need to create more of them though - the main driver for that is that they need trusted sponsors for new schools and the churches have a good track record.

So a parent just has to pop into the church every Sunday and sign a register? Maybe for a year? and their children can attend a Catholic school. Would they be given priority over someone who only managed every other week for a year? That explains how so many people are able to fake it. What a corrupt system!

Ah if only it were that easy. Attending mass is not just popping in to the church to sign a register. You actually have to attend and participate in the full Sunday service which is about an hour to an hour and a half long - so prayers, gospel, sermons, hymns. It's not enough to start 'popping in' the year before either and attendance has to be maintained throughout primary in order for the child to receive Holy Communion and if they want to attend a catholic secondary school.

I am amazed that some people would go to such lengths to fake being a Catholic in order to obtain a school place. It really takes some steely determination.

I know at least 2 families (maybe more) who have faked it they kissed the priests ass like their was no tomorrow. Its sounds like a hassle but it has saved them hundreds of thousands of pounds, so I guess it was worth it.

I would have faked it if I had got cash in hand.

As soon as they got their children into the school they were out of the church like a fart in the wind and were telling everyone in the community how morally bankrupt the priest was. Its just a corrupt system. Illuminati confirmed.

I think it is utterly disgraceful for public money to be used in this discriminatory manner.

These schools are not funded by the churches. The churches permitted the use of the land and buildings, and passed on the majority, if not all of the maintenance costs to the state, decades ago. These schools are funded by all tax payers and should not discriminate on intake.

Sure I'm repeating pp but the whole system of faith schools receiving public funding is an abomination and discriminatory.
Either they're self funding or they're an academy/state school with L.A. admissions.
Counting faith schools as part of the state provision can leave pupils with no local choice.

Also, any priest who welcomes the idea of sitting in judgement on who gets into the local school isn't deserving of the position, imo.

How can they possibly know that their judgement is the 'right' one, and that one family is more Catholic than another. Judging the family as a whole on this subjective criteria is pretty dubious practice too.

Some Catholic schools do require baptism within a certain period, but not all.

*Usually the ones where recent immigrants are from a tradition of Baptism at 1 year, or who return to their originating country so grandparents, friends and relatives can attend and in some cases so a family member can conduct the service.&

That's exactly how it is around here, sashh. I am not Catholic so don't understand the ins and outs, but the practical effect is that it specifically seems to exclude a lot of the practicing Catholics who live around here who are originally from Eastern Europe.

Why is the faith of the parents the issue?

They won't be attending the school.

I propose that all dc's be put through a lie detector test. Do they really believe in the catholic doctrine.

Believers get in. All the rest can feck off.

I will run brainwashing tutorials in Catholic dogma from my front room for hopeful dc's.

Why is the faith of the parents the issue?

Because Catholic schools exist to help parents hand on their faith to their children. That is their core purpose.

Which begs the question why they prioritise the most faithful and not the least faithful, who arguably need the most help.

Which begs the question why they prioritise the most faithful and not the least faithful, who arguably need the most help

I'll answer my own question ... it's because having strict faith-practice criteria for entrance to a popular school is the single greatest incentive for ensuring that the local population follow the rules set out in Canon Law on religious practice.

It is coercive.

Not really correct, that. Canon Law states that Catholic DC should be educated in the Catholic faith. The fact their schools can be educationally the best in an area is neither here nor there.
If someone is coerced into becoming Catholic or reigniting a passion for plonking their bum on a pew every week then that's down to that person, not the Catholic Church. The Church is merely offering an educTion grounded in that faith, as laid out in that Canon Law.
It is very interesting to ponder why they should be the best in an area and see what it is they are doing to make them so good.

The Church is merely offering an educTion grounded in that faith ..

No, it is also creating a hierarchy of admissions criteria which encourage people to, for example, go to church once a week rather than once a month, baptise their children at 1 month instead of 12 months, etc.

If all it was doing was offering an education as you say there would be no need for such criteria.

Putting down a lot of entry hoops creates a competitive "admission to the fittest" culture, and it is the most disciplined that will do best in the competition. It also helps to keep out the riff-raff, which in turn helps to make the schools "so good" as you put it.

I'm a bit lost OP as to what has 'in practice' changed.
Priest previously signed the form, for primary school and secondary school applications, confirming if you attended enough to qualify, in his opinion as practising.

What's changed?

Oblomov, it's the form that is changing (from SIF to CCP), and therefore the criteria too.

Previously (and still in most RC VA schools) the school would put the practice criteria in its policy (e.g. attendance at mass once per week for 2 years), and the priest would sign a Supplementary Information Form (SIF) to corroborate that the parent had met whatever the criteria were.

However, going forward the practice criteria will simply be "family has Certificate of Catholic practice".

The priest can use his own judgement, guided by Canon Law, as to whether to give the family a certificate or not. It is that element of judgment that has been ruled in breach of the Admissions Code. The code says that criteria have to be clearly stated in the policy so that families can tell whether or not they are likely to meet them.

To me that reads that instead of having individual SIFs per school it's a standard one. But under the current system of priest signing the form, make no mistake, it'd down to his judgement. The new version seems to standardise that.

'riff raff' keeps being mentioned. What does it even mean? A churchgoer is a churchgoer, surely.
Yet that seems to be resented by so many, if there happens to be a school in their area they find they are way down the admissions criteria for. If that school offers good or outstanding, that is. They aren't that arsed about the bad ones. How bizarre.

A churchgoer is a churchgoer, surely

No Saucery, not if the (existing) policies have several categories of church goer.

And, under the CCP system, not if two different priests have a different view of whether two families in similar circumstances are "practising" or not.

But under the current system of priest signing the form, make no mistake, it'd down to his judgement. The new version seems to standardise that.

Yes, I agree that is probably the case. But by making it explicit it has enabled the adjudicator to rule it as unfair. Previously it was only implicit.

The fact that the Diocese told the schools they didn't need to consult on the changes backs up the idea that little has changed in their view too.

I am 100% opposed to this. Incredibly anti-democratic, to put our state resources in the hands of priests.

This is a tactic dreamed up by the catholic church to reverse, by other means, the ruling about The Oratory, presumably.

If you doubt it is about keeping out the riff raff, check out the FSM % and the low-attainer intake at the Oratory (and other elite catholic state schools) . Nowhere near , nowhere NEAR the London average. And this despite the fact that bus fares are no deterrent in London because the kids get free passes, and the fact that catholic families in local areas do include a reflection of the poverty in our city.

The Oratory were fiddling their intake, got challenged, lost the case - so now this.

The proposal is going in the wrong direction , in my opinion. We need less religious control over our state purse.

There's another difference. Under the SIF system, if a priest refuses to sign the form but the parent has independent evidence that they met the criteria, then they can appeal.

Under the CCP system they can't because the criterion is just "do you have a CCP?".

So no independent accountability at all

This is like something from The Borgias.

(Hopefully without the murdering and incest)