Does anyone else find the anti denominational school stance depressing?

[Plaza]

I recently read a thread where the majority seemed to agree that state schools should be secular and denominational schools done away with altogether.

I found this pretty depressing, no least as it would have been my personal view about a year ago... I have since moved my DC to a COE school and cannot praise it or the Christian ethics enough.. What do you think?

So if it's oversubscribed it uses its faith criterion.

I went to a very active CofE primary school. I have such fond memories of trooping up to the church for special services, and I know many hymns and a great many carols off by heart. Am I religious? No. But I appreciate my cultural heritage and feel sad that my dcs, who attend a secular school, have what I consider to be a sad hole in their school experience.

So some say, "Well, go to church then," but that involves getting off one's arse on a Sunday and doing the whole religious and church community thing. But that is no replacement for the obligatory "He who would valiant be" sung, croaked, or growled by a whole school. And the language: Jeanette Winterson in her autobiography regrets that children's language is now the poorer for having no experience of hearing fine - and complicated - words. All children, no matter what their background, would by osmosis absorb certain phrases. This is now a privilege of some CofE-schooled, but mostly privately-educated children.

Also it's baffling how my dc's secular school treats Christianity almost as if it's something that came out of 1930s Germany, but has no problems with just about any other religion. Ds came home one day chanting, "Hari Krishna, hari hari..." in the style of those people who trundle up and down Oxford St.

Martorana: no, St B's uses distance from school, not faith as its next down the line criterion after living in the village itself. There is literally one family who have started going to church to get their dc in to the school - much more frequent is the pattern of the dc going to St B's, the family getting to know the vicar and church, then starting to go to church subsequently.

So there is a mechanism for a church handing an individual school over to the community, then? I wasn't aware this could happen.

iain, as has been mentioned several times on this thread, if your DC are in England, they are not at a secular school. They may be at a non-faith school.

"create a new ethos for the school along principles you disagree with, and write new mission statements."

Really?

Principles you disagree with?

Are they proposing standardised bullying and sacrificing goats in the lunch hour?

Or are they just trying to create a friendly, inclusive school which provides all its pupils with a good, rounded education?

Boulevard, I think so, although I've never seen it happen in practice. There's certainly the provision for a non-church affiliated school to become a church school. I'm not sure at what level that decision would need to be taken, either.

Some church schools have become academies, although the number is dwindling now that the benefits of being an academy have lessened. I guess a church school could start down the process of applying to become a free school? It'd be a long process though.

And yes, I can see how some Christian governors would feel that a school that had been a church school but no longer is, is against their principles. Of course the bullying policy, absence policy etc are going to stay the same - they're all downloaded from the same website anyway! - but if you firmly believe that an explicit Christian faith should be at the heart of a school and that is taken away, it'd be hard to embrace a different philosophy of education without having to change your principles. If that makes sense. In reality though, I think it'd more to do with relationships ans loyalties - people would most likely feel that a relationship has been severed and loyalties broken, so there is no place for them any longer. IME relationships and loyalties are all bound up with principles, and it's hard to disentangle them.

I think so, although I've never seen it happen in practice. There's certainly the provision for a non-church affiliated school to become a church school. I'm not sure at what level that decision would need to be taken, either.

My understanding is that its up to the governors.

So it is possible for governors to change the religious character of the school. BUT while for community schools, governors are appointed along secular lines (ie democratically which could lead to a set of religious governors - they don't have to declare their religion), VA schools have a quarter 'appointed by the relevant religions authority' and VC it is more than half. For free schools/academies, if there is a sponsor they can appoint all of the governors; for a free school the organisation setting it up can appoint all the governors. If the school has a 'faith ethos' then governors may be appointed for religious reasons.

So in practice, it is possible for a group of governors to stage a coup and change a non-religious school to a faith one, but it is extremely unlikely to happen the other way around because of the way governors are appointed.

The other thing, I guess, is that the Chair of Govs and Head at a church school are in those roles because they are, at the least, committed to the idea of church schools, so people in those key roles are highly unlikely to spearhead a secularist movement within their school community. If the vast majority of parents mounted 'keep faith out of my school' campaign in RL, I'm not sure how it would play out wrt the senior leaders of the school - the Chair of Govs and Head might well contest it and if necessary step down, so the community would have to be ready to deal with that.

I have experienced one major and unwanted change of character in a school community - nothing to do with religion - and it was horrible. Most govs, staff and PTA left, because mot people felt so alienated.

lainie there are no secular schools in the UK. All are require to deliver broadly Christian assemblies (not sure of the actual wording). My ds goes to a non-denom primary school and comes home singing Christian worship songs. we also regularly have the local CofE vicar in along with a hilariously inept drama group.

The requirements are:
? schools must provide collective worship daily for all registered pupils,
? most acts of collective worship in each term should be wholly or mainly of a
broadly Christian character. This means that they should reflect the broad
traditions of Christian belief without being distinctive of any particular Christian
denomination,
? collective worship can take place at any time during the school day,
? collective worship can be provided to pupils in any sized group, for example, as a
class, a year group, a phase group or a whole-school community, and
? collective worship should take account of the family backgrounds, ages and
aptitudes of the pupils involved

nameshavebeenchanged - in your semi-hypothetical example, I would like to know why a hypothetical person like me should have to drive their child out of our village to another school to avoid having to educate my child in a CofE school.

Why should your hypothetical school also not be able to have a hypothetical person like me as a governor? I have been a school governor and intend to be one again, I have been a teacher and I now work in a profession which is sought after by governing bodies, but I wouldn't be willing to be a governor in a faith school.

Community involvement is not restricted to those who are affiliated by faith. I was a community governor in a local school and my mother volunteers at a school local to her. We didn't have any other relationships to the schools. We just did it because it is nice to give something back to your local community.

Breathe, if this were your village school: yes, I can see that if you really want to avoid church schools it'd be a PITA. To be fair, you could walk 20 mins and be at a non-church school.

As a non-Christian / non-churchgoer you could still be a community governor of a church school. Let's be honest, church schools vary massively in religiosity - I've known one which is barely religious at all (prayers once a week when the very nice vicar comes in) and others that are much more overtly religious (prayers x3 a day, Bible verses everywhere etc). So 'church school' covers a multitude. Which is why generalising isn't all that helpful, which is why I've chosen to talk specifically about St B's.

Whilst I could be a community governor of a church school, I fundamentally disagree with their existence and given that I wouldn't be willing to send a child to one, I wouldn't be willing to be a governor of one either.

In my completely non-hypothetical life we have had to restrict which village we live in to avoid having the choice of sending our DD to a faith school and having local school friends or driving our DD to the next available community school and not having local friends. We are lucky to be able to choose where to live, however those housed by the council may not have a choice. We are also lucky that our area has a mix of faith and community schools in the villages, some areas are dominated by CofE schools.

if this were your village school: yes, I can see that if you really want to avoid church schools it'd be a PITA. To be fair, you could walk 20 mins and be at a non-church school.

In my non-hypothetical case, not only is our village school a CofE, but the schools in the surrounding villages are also either CofE or RC (they're not within walking distance anyway). The nearest non-faith schools are in the suburbs of the nearby town. I'm not aware of any bus routes to those so I have no idea what happens if you don't have private transport.

I would have thought that if you had enough active parents to campaign to get a local school 'un-churched' (which I imagine would be nigh on impossible) you'd likely have parents to join the Governors, volunteer etc too.

I agree that the issues about property and upkeep are probably significant, but given that the church is struggling to look after it's ecclesiastical building given the drop in congregations (and thus income) then the days when the gifts/loans could be given to schools are likely long gone.

I do agree that changes at the top of schools can have a dramatic effect, our local school had the same headteacher for many many years and when he retired the new HT brought new ideas with him, a couple of years later many of the long standing staff had moved on and the character of the school obviously changed too.