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?

the thing is that people who don't want faith schools are very vocal about them

and the people who do aren't

so you automatically assume noone gives a monkeys

I live in Brighton where the council has introduced a lottery as method of selecting secondary schools.
The catholic secondary is able to opt out of this method and has it's own selction process but still recieves funding from the council-it makes me furious.

Actually lots of people are quite openly vocal about wanting faith schools, around here anyway.

Nothing wrong with faith schools, but why should the state fund them?

OMDB - you really think if there were no CofE schools Christianity would have died out long ago?
With the number of Churches around and the fact it is the world's larget religion?
Whether people believe in them or not, I really don't think that faith schools are the only reason we have Christians in the UK.
I do want dd to attend a faith school, as it is our faith, but would be perfectly happy for there to be more non faith schools for people that don't want this.

A simpler and fairer system would be to take back control of all schools immediately and assign all teachers (within an area anyway) to a random school. Give them the same resources and everyone goes to the closest school. If one school is better than another then there is something very wrong.

No religion in school except as it arises as part of geography/history. People can teach their own kids what they like at home or at church.

I'm fed up with hearing that there is a choice when in most cases there is not.

I'm also fed up with hearing that I can correct the damage the school has done by tellling the kids when they get home not to believe it.

Suppose the only school in a village was run by racists who said "but you can tell them when they get home that jews are not really subhuman, it didnt do me any harm"

By that I mean I think the way forward (for you OBM! ) is not to knock faith schools or instigate change in them (as many people are happy with them) but to try and get more non-faith schools.

I'm in

My thoughts about them have been further strengthened by all the recent publicity about how effing corrupt the admissions process is (what a surprise!)

greyriverside
if you did what you suggest then the success of the school would surely be determined by the demographic of the catchment area.

GRS - but in many faith schools the buildings/land are owned by the Church - don't think they will just give them away to the government/local authority..?

oh I totally agree
you can have a school for people who believe in chopping their arms off in the name of god as long as YOU FUND IT YOURSELVES

Yes jackstini
but in the spirit of christianity they should hand them over surely

CountessDracula, what factor currently makes schools in certain areas 'worse' is it that poor children are less intelligent or what?

Jackstini, Compulsary purchase/nationalisation. In any case if we remove their licence and funding they have no use for it anyway. I do imagine we could arrange a peaceful changeover though.

I'd be in. Might join the campaign for secular education.

In our area there are 4 catchment comps, all performing below the national average. and a CofE schools which is allowed to select across the city. (guess what, it selects the middle classes, including parents who are otherwise atheist. It's not too fussy if you have the right accent). To be fair, there should be a secular or non-church school also permitted to select on secular reasons.

...but would not want to send him to a faith school. I want my son to learn about and understand all faiths and mix with people from different races and religions and if he chooses a religion, great, if not, just as great.

If I needed another excuse to move to the South of France, then secular education would be it.

I think it is more that middle class parents are more likely to spend time on education with children outside the classroom and are often more educated themselves so can pass on the benefit of their knowledge to the children

or something like that

Clearly this is a generalisation but I think it is widely acknowledged

I think it is more that middle class parents are more likely to spend time on education with children outside the classroom and are often more educated themselves so can pass on the benefit of their knowledge to the children

or something like that

Clearly this is a generalisation but I think it is widely acknowledged

CountessDracula, Just to clarify that. I'm not saying that YOU are saying that. I suspect that currently schools in poorer areas have the least resources etc

I agree that some parents do less to help their kids learn and that is a problem. I have two thoughts about that.

1. All new housing projects should include a range of houses from mansion to shack (we do this a little bit but not enough) so that rich and poor are not in seperate areas.

2. those kids not helped by parents exist right now and need to be helped anyway. Nothing we are doing now is improving that

when one third of school are faith based, there is often no choice.
there was certainly dick all choice for me.
actually, it would be perfectly straightforward to withdraw state funding for faith schools and transfer control to the local authority.
there is absolutely no moral case for continuing state funding.
it would be riotously unpopular though

I am not coming back to this thread because it will just raise my blood pressure

and though I understand a lot of the arguments that make people against faith schools, I do think there is a lot of scaremongery panic

if you don't like the way that a particular school teaches religion then fine; it needs to be taken up with the school. If my child was coming home saying things I was not comfortable with (and I am a dodgy Anglican at best so it wouldn't take much) I would take it up with the Head very, very quickly

but I think to get rid of all faith schools is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater

first it assumes that a basic working knowledge of Christianity is wrong, which I don't believe, that it is in some way harmful to children (and again, if there are instances of religion being taught to children in a frightening or unsuitable way, that needs to be dealt with at school, and does not mean that That Is How It Is).

my dd goes to a church school and the lessons that she learns there through the school's spiritual life work both with and without Christianity. They pray for other people and learn to think about others They give thanks for what they have. They celebrate their life.

I honestly believe that for every mad school that sends a child home spouting indoctrinated rubbish, there are 20 wonderful warm schools giving children a rounded education and not spoonfeeding children a religious absolute. But you don't hear about them. You hear about the mad schools, and then it becomes a rush to shut the whole thing down

I dont know if this is true or if I got it wrong but Im sure that I have heard that there is a state funded school somewhere(possible north) in england where they actually teaches creationism. If this is right then I am appalled that the government is spending taxpayers money on teaching children something that is so undeniable untrue.Has anyone else heard of this school?

I am myself an atheist but I beleive that belief is a personal thing. And if something is believable enough for a person to want to believe in it then they will believe in it without the need to have been indoctrinated in it from an early age.

Well they seem to be doing it in dd's school (albeit badly - she asked me the other day "who created the world" and when I said I didn't know she said "I do, it was the great father". I said "who's he then" and she said "I'm not sure but I think he might be a friend of God's )

However someone said it to her at school and I was a bit

for me it's all about admissions. The fact that 2 out of the 3 closest schools to me are faith schools meant we could only go to 1 (luckily a school where we got a place - nowadays, it's virtually impossible to get in). The other 2 we would have had to be baptised and practising in the religion to stand a chance.

mine get taught faith in their non faith state school but they learn about all faiths

the one i heard about was a secondary school tho i think..teaching that god created the earth etc and NOT teaching evolution.Would like to see how many of its pupils have passed a biology GCSE then!