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?

QuintessentialShadows, I could make a good case that the values at the base of most religions are dangerous to society besides being offensive to me.

Now it doesn't matter that you disagree with me. It doesn't even matter if I am right. The very fact that I can feel that way is a reason to keep schooling (which is compulsory) separate from religion which is up to the individual family.

Bearing in mind that the family can instil the religion at home or in church, but the atheist who has no non faith schools in their area is legally obliged to send their kids to that school.

By keeping faith schools you are in effect making it compulsory to teach your faith to my kids. Surely you wouldn't want that would you?

You see I still don't get it. If a there was a school that taught tolerance and to love thy neighbour but only admitted white children it wouldn't get funding and people would find it morally repellent. As I said in the previous post how do you feel about the segregation in Oldham?

Did faith schools have much to do with the segregation along religious lines in Oldham? Or was it selection by postcode?

Genuine question. I don't know the answer.

I don't know the answer TFM. Just trying to say that I think segregation is very bad for a community.

Hmm. I think that depends on so many other social factors. I think it's likely that most faith school in England are likely to be CofE or RC. And I don't think the effects of separating these two denominations is likely to be interdenominational conflict in most areas. Obviously in other parts of the UK that isn't the case.

Looking at Oldham, I suspect there are other factors behind the schooling segregation.

I don't disagree about faith schools. I just think that most people's experience of faith schools involves conflict due to religious segregation, and therefore it perhaps isn't the best argument to use for their withdrawal from the state system.

personally i think christianity has hijacked many things beneficial to soceity, frinstance..yuletide, communal singing, beautiful wedding venues, teaching morality, these things are not so readily available anymore to none believers, so I say send youyr non believers to the faith schools, why should these things be just for the religious. I shall send my lo to the local c of e because its the best in the area, he can take and leave as much as he wants. I might even go to church. I think the only way is to dilute with rational people

Ooops - I just don't think most people's experience...

at beautiful wedding venues

churches

So you did atually mean that christians had hijacked churches?!

Well all those things existed before christianity so Cosima has a point

Churches?

There are so many inaccurate statements/cheap generalisations on this thread that I can't be arsed with it.

Well I wasn't exactly sure about the word church so I checked and sure enough.

"A church is an association of people who share a particular belief system. The term church originated from the pre-Christian Germanic kirika. The term later began to replace the Greek ekklesia and Basilicae within Christendom, c300 AD"

Duchess, why not challenge them if they are wrong?

Yeah, I think cosima's talking about the actual buildings. As in "beautiful wedding venues". Not the word 'church'.

Not that this has anything to do with faith schools...

Faith schools are fine if not state funded.

State funded education that admits on the grounds of religion is fundamentally wrong, imo, and there is no justification for it whatsoever.

Religion and education should be entirely separate - there is no reason why faith cannot be practiced in the home and at a place of worship only. No need for designated schools. It's very devisive.

I do think that all faith schools should be private.

oh this is so uppity and finickity, uptight, nit picking . it stinks of organised religion.

Cosima, you are hilarious! Just the kind of rational person to dilute those uppity churchgoers .... [hmmm]

But when Faith schools starts admitting children not connected to their Church, there are all sorts of problems, which in turn downgrades the educational value to all.

Children whose families are not of the Faith will not want to take part in the religious life of the school, such as Assembly, Harvest Festival, Lent, Beginning of term Mass, etc, and may boycot the Nativity as it is of too religious nature, etc. This is not beneficial to the children, and the school needs more resources to deal with having extra staff making substitute lessons to cover for those who wont take part. This is where you actual find segregation within the school, this is when it makes sense to talk about segregation. In a faith school, the children themselves are blissfully unaware of any segregation, they go to school with children they see during Mass, during Sunday school etc.

Bearing in mind that a large chunk of the funding of a Faith school comes from parental involvement and fundraising by the schools PTA, such as baking and making things, organizing summer and Christmas Faires, where parents give up a lot of their time, donate a lot of things to sell, and generally work very hard for their school, you wont get the same involvement from parents who dont share the faith. The income of the school will go down, and this again has a detremental effect on both the children and their education.

My sons school has been raising money for a new playground for the last few years, and finally this year they could, as the Summer Faire brought in 4k, involved parents worked hard for months! We made £101 on the last bake sale, which were spent on new books for the library. Also, money has had to be raised for a bike shed, for new sinks in a class room, etc, as they dont get the same funding as a regular state school.

Instead of abolishing, why not simply copy the formula of a well run Faith school and apply it to a state school?

Theochris, your argument still does not hold, you dont chose to be of a black or a white family, but you do chose your faith.

Yours is an argument against changing the selection criteria for faith schools, but not for faith schools per se.

And our PTA does all that too. An active PTA is not the preserve of a faith school.

so what i meant was all the pomp ceremony granduer tradition that you get from having a traditional church wedding existed when weddings were invented , christianity came later. in pagan times everybody had a ceremonial wedding, nowadays peckham registry office is just not as nice, alright i know you can have posh hotels etc, but its not that straighforward and the legal service is a bit boring.. BUT ANYWAy, if you prefer ignore what i said about beautiful wedding venues and get on discussing this instead of being pedantic. I love hymns, church weddings, harvest festival, community living, discussing good and bad and i listen to the soundtrack of joseph in my car, nativity plays, but i don't believe in god, or heaven as anything other than a loose metaphorical concept for humanity. I told this to the vicar when requesting my church wedding.

Cosima you are very funny. So was the vicar cool with your world view? Did he let you take the vows?

Quintessential Shadow faith schools do allow children of other or no faith in - but only after they have first selected the children they want, ostensibly at least on the grounds of the parents' faith.

What we are suggesting is that the choice (such as it is) should be with the parents, not the headteachers, ie that these schools should abide by the same selection criteria as others. I don't see that this would increase internal segregation in the school in the way that you suggest.

At my catholic secondary school, there were a number of parents who chose the school because their children had failed the grammar school entrance exam and it was better than the secondary moderns. Most of these children participated in the complete life of the school, including mass on days of obligation, but a reasonable number didn't.

The parents had chosen the school knowing its ethos, had a choice of other schools (although not the ones they really wanted ), yet still objected to their children being party to the religious aspect of the school.

I'm not sure that you can assume that parents who select a faith school (particularly a high achieving one) will be happy with the faith part of it.