FAITH SCHOOLS! If you don't agree with them, step this way, my dears.

[onebatmother]

What can be done?

It seems to me that many of us don't agree with them, and some of us (not I) are quite knowledgeable about the ins and outs.

Could we not start a movement?

It's all so wrong, really, isn't it?

I agree Threadworm

I agree, Threadworm - beautifully put.

Threadworm, I completely agree with your last post, for that is also the education I had. In my village the C. of E. church was the centre of the community and a force for good. I went back there to be married by my vicar (who came out of semi-retirement for the occasion) even though by that time I was definately agnostic, and his presence, and the religious rituals have been greatly comforting at family funerals. I believe that my cultural life and understanding has been greatly enhanced by my immersion in the Christian faith from a young age (Dad's family is all Catholic so I had that influence as well)

But I think the world has moved on from the relative innocence of rural Christianity I grew up with. I sent my dd (and ds will be going) to the village school (C. of E, as are all schools within 2 miles, and I wanted my children to have a local education), thinking they would have a similar experience to mine. Even though I am now decidedly and somewhat defiantly atheist I still wanted them to grow up with an understanding that Noah's Ark is more than a toy, and Joseph something other than a musical. Unfortunatly the religious education the school provides is significantly more "hardcore" than I remember. DD came home telling me that God doesn't think girls should marry girls (2 days after we'd attended my cousins civil partnership) and the vicars sermons have included attacks working parents (yes it would be nice if more parents/dads turned up to harvest festivals but at 11am on a Thurday many people have to be out earning money)

Sorry for the multi posts btw - my Pc is playing up

I've had very interesting discussions with dd about how volcano's were made (no darling, God didn't just create them) and she also told me I was wrong, people didn't come from monkeys (I'd done a simplified evolutionary story) they were born from a lady called Eve. Now I understand that a lot of this is a 6 year olds distortion of and literal belief in stories. I'm pretty sure the school doesn't actually teach Creationism and I can deal with most of it by trotting out the "yes Darling, that's what some people believe" line. But I'm increasingly thinnking that I would like the religious messages in school to be left to a time when children are old enough to appreciate the difference between fact and allegory, and to be taught alongside (though I do think that Christian culture should be given more inmportance given it's place in this countries history) other faiths.

And on a practical level, being a church school sucks. OK so our land belongs to the church (though it was donated to that church by a University college many years ago for the church to set up a school). Normal running costs are met entirely by the state. The church contributes only 10% of the cost of repairs and capital projects. Yet because we are a Church school, we miss out on huge amounts of council funding. In this area there has been lots of new build houses, and each of these developments ahs had to pay Section 106 (or some other number) money to the council to provide local facilities. Even though developers have paid money for developments in this village, the school has not seen a penny of it, as these funds go into council coffers, and the amounta llocated to education is only allowed to be given to non Church aided schools. We desperately need a new building to house the after school/pre-school and provide facilities for the school to do cooking/accomodate SN pupils, but the Diocese cannot afford to pay for it, and rthe schools Church status measn we do not have access to lots of grants that we could otherwise get

I'm profoundly against state funded faith schools. Count me in.

Congratulations onebat on your new niece/nephew! And good luck with the blanket.

Threadworm, what good words - must send that doctorate...

Prufrock, interesting posts. I didn't realise that was the case about council funding. Also it is a shame that someone at the school seems to be taking a very hard line on these issues - is this something you can discuss with the headteacher do you think?

Threadworm
I agree with everything you have written in your beautifully constructed post but your lack of belief would preclude you from gaining a place at some faith schools. My two school age sons attended a C of E primary and they were definitely enriched both culturally and by what what John Humphreys called "the gentle courtesies" of the Anglican faith. However, I didn't have to provide evidence of belief in order to get them a place.

Faith schools should not be abolished IMO. People should not lie to get in. But they should not need to lie. All state schools, including faith schools, should be open to everybody, with the school applying the same LEA admissions criteria as non-faith schools where there is over-subscription.

There is a faith secondary school in my town. It is hugely over-subscribed. It is necessary to make both an LEA application and a separate application to the school (with evidence of your faith from a known vicar/priest). Interestingly (and laughably really), entrance for their sixth form is different. Instead of faith it's GCSE grades that get you a place. I keep meaning to write to the headmaster and the chair of governors for an explanation.

Aunt Onebat - Congratulations on the new arrival in your family.

We could 'tell' all schools that from a certain date all religion must be left for the church and parents. We could also forbid exclusion based on faith etc. However we have seen that current rules on exclusion are not working. The schools just disobey the law.

Now if a headmaster refused to implement any other rules (safety regulations for example) you'd simply remove him from the post.

Putting aside the faith part for a moment (though I think it's vitally important) if we cannot make a faith school obey the law we should withdraw its funding and remove whatever licence it has to act as a school.

Now that leaves us without a school so we have to accept that faith schools can break the law and we can do nothing about it... is that ok?

I think that's not ok at all. I think if that's the position we are in then we have to either (a) take direct control of faith schools or (b) replace them with new state ones one at a time.

(b) would be more expensive and we have 'nationalised' vital industries in the past so we certainly could do that.

Some have said that even if we had all the schools we cannot afford to run them without the churches money. I suspect that the church mostly gets by on the state funding anyway, but suppose they are correct? what kind of a country does not have enough money to pay for schooling for all children? That would be a terrible admission.

Quite Swedes.

The behaviour of your secondary school regarding admissions is quite shocking. You must write.

it is simply untrue that schools could not operate without the churches' money.
it is much more accurate to say that the churches could not operate the faith schools without the state's money.

Haven't read all this ginormous thread but as a woman who went to a catholic secondary (I'm C of E) and now has 2 children at a grammar with christian leanings I can honestly say that I have only experianced tolerance at church schools, at DS1 and DD1s school there are many muslim, jewish, sikh, hindu etc children and in their RE lessons they are encouraged to debate the similarities and differences between religion, especially christianity, Judaism and Islam, no one religion is painted as being better and my children are learning tolerance, they have had one session for children and parents where the local priest, Iman, rabbi and vicar all came in, DS1 said it was great, all 4 agreed that while religion is great etc etc ultimately God/Jesus/Allah/any other divine being you care to mention wants everyone to abide by fundamental principles of tolerance, humanity, kindness.

What I do have a problem with however is schools which can select ONLY children of one faith, from what I can gather christian schools have (these are the % for mychildren's) 70% christian, 15% other religions, 15% no religion. Some maybe more, some less, but all have to accept children of other faiths. Jewish and Muslim schools however don't need to take any children other than Jews and Muslims. I think that is wrong. I know I wouldn't want my children at a school where everyone is CofE, I do think that is dangerous.

Having this "evidence of faith" criteria for admission to faith schools creates an opportunity for manipulation and colonisation. Which is of course why comprehensive faith schools often out-perform comprehensive non-faith schools.

Faith school places by ballot would be a good idea.

Zog, there is a big difference between going to a celebration/commemoration event at a temple/mosque/church/stone circle when you don't buy that brand of mythology or any other, and having to play along with the daily waste of educational time that is a compulsory ass-kiss-of-an-imaginary-being.
When you go to someone's wedding or funeral, you're going along as an act of friendship - unless the people whose ceremony it is are mad bucketheads who won't mix with 'unbelievers' whether or not you believe what they believe is of no importance. Or are you really trying to say that Sikhs should not attend Jewish weddings, Christians should not go to the funerals of Muslim friends, etc, etc, etc. Bearing in mind that not everyone is going to know all the words to the songs sung, anyway.

Yes, of course there are lots of religious schools (and other instituations, rligious organisations and individuals) which are ever so benevolent and have all this lovely culture and great paintings, and good stories, etc etc etc. But the trouble is, by priviliging superstition and allowing people to use it as a get-out clause for almost anything ("but Great Spaghettiface Says So which means I have to refuse to sit next to boys/ullulate for 15 minutes a day/set fire to your chair because it's the wrong colour") is that you minimise the amount that can be done to stop the wackos filling DCs heads with poison: racism, homophobia, misogyny, sectarianism and the rest. Because the wackos can just plead religion.

I understand ( I think) the arguments of those who wish to abolish faith schools - but it also seems to me that you would need to change the law on a number of other issues to satisfy many of you i.e the requirement (often more observed in the breach in secondary schools where it is frequently impractical) to hold an act of daily worship of mainly Christian character, and the requirement for compulsory religious education. In which case you are presumably all for the Disestablishment of the Church of England. I don't think this can be successfully tackled piece meal!

The state provides the funds for the running of faith schools, but in many cases the buildings and land are owned by the church/held in a trust.

The state could cut the funding and effectively close down the schools, but then the state would then have to buy new land and build new schools.

This is possibly a stupid question, and bear with me, becausee I dont understand OPs position.

Why abolish faith schools? Why not focus your efforts on finding out what you can do the help improve the state sector?

There are plenty of people who have faith, who love their faith scool, and the education the child gets, because it is mostly superior to state schools. Why not try to learn from this and recreate it in state schools?

girlfrommars - and that's why so many faith schools still have their playing fields, if they were state-owned the local Councils would have flogged them to developers.

The way I see it (and i'm not getting in too deep because I don't know alot about school funding) is if you view your tax is paying for your childs schooling, my tax is paying for mine... and so the balance between people paying taxes for faith schools and people using the faith schools is balanced. Unless faith schools were filled with people whos parents are solely on benefits. Do faith schools receive less funding than state? I have a feeling (not 100% sure though) my old VA school was only partially funded by the state, so in effect my mum was paying more for other children in state schools than me to go to a Catholic VA school... do you get what I mean? These are totally wrong figures, but, if say you pay.... £100 a year from your taxes for schools, but faith receive half of what state ones do, in effect parents of faith school children are being 'robbed' of £50.... (totally made up figures, and ratios, just an example). Obviously, as I said I don't know anything about funding, it's just the way I think it is?

I don't understand why other people can't see that it is weird or wrong to educate children according to their religion (or rather their parents). It just doesn't matter whether any individual school is tolerent or not.

Many different races have different histories and sometimes values but if I suggested we segregate according to this criteria I would be roundly denounced. So why is OK on religious grounds?

Quite apart from the fact that religious school do not apply the government criteria correctly. They do not put looked after children first and have fewer than expected children on free school meals. This just tells me that they are selecting their pupils and that is why they achieve better results.

One of the key findings of the disturbances in Oldham was that education had become segregated along religious lines. Is this really what we want?

I would understand that argument Theochris if the values and ethics taught at a faith school was actually wrong, or bad. They are not. There is a great focus on respect for others, and I think this is possibly one of the most necessary "skills" a child should be taught, aside from the curriculum subjects.