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?

I've not had any experience of schools not letting children in who aren't of that faith

Then try empathising with those of us who have then. My area has an overabundance of faith schools - lots of rural CofE and some RC. The selection criteria means that the good ones, which are oversubscribed, can exclude children whose parents are not (or won't pretend to be) of that faith. The poorer ones which are undersubscribed are legally obliged to fill their places with those lower on their priority lists (not a matter of 'letting').

You seem to have a blithe assumption that faith schools are good and non-doms are poor. This is untrue. Scanning league tables for my wider area, faith schools and non-doms appear all through it - faith ones low as well as high. The ones that are high (hence oversubscribed) can maintain and improve their position because their ability to select favours motivated parents. The ones which are low can't do this selection and their 'ethos' somehow doesn't magically help.

'You seem to have a blithe assumption that faith schools are good and non-doms are poor. This is untrue'

Further; the OP seems to think better results are inherent to faith status.

OP, you have to understand education as a market. No Govt is going to build and run enough schools for everyone to be able to choose the faith school of their flavour within their community - that could only be achieved with massive over-supply.

The picture varies across the country, but several posters have explained to you that in parts of the country your child's choice of faith school is only achieved by restricting others' choice of ANY local school. I wrote on the other thread that I felt forced to move because the two schools IN MY STREET were barred to use for faith reasons, and of the five secondary schools in the borough, FOUR were oversubscribed faith schools. Which means lots of kids travelling long distances, past schools that are mainly funded by the general taxpayer. How can it possibly be fair to offer more choice to one set of children by restricting the choices of others?

The other thing you need to get is that, in many areas, faith schools basically achieve better results because they are socially selective. There is plenty of evidence that, overall, state schools take in fewer children on FSM. There are of course some fantastic faith schools, but the assumption that these schools are better because they have a faith ethos is very dodgy.

I wrote on the other thread about faith schools where looked after children - usually top priority in admissions - come way down the priority list unless they are also of the faith. There are really good reasons for giving looked after children priority for school places and I find it disgraceful that so many faith schools say, in effect, "We will only open our doors to troubled children if their parents have been taking them to the right church." Which, if you think about it, is kind of less than likely...

You asked for a compromise solution. Well, my first would be to end discriminatory admission policies.

I should add that I am lucky to now live in an area where all the primary schools are excellent, and the community schools slightly out-perform the faith schools. But our house prices are beyond a joke. It is ludicrous to suggest that people who want their children to go to a good community school can just move.

I am catholic and grew up in a small catholic community/ village. My schooling was all catholic. Religion has given me great strength in very difficult situations.

Now my daughter is four years old and I want catholic religion thought to her. It is nearly impossible! The closest catholic school is oversubscribed and should she not get into this catholic school there are no Sunday school I could let her attend for religious studies.

Therefore I do not understand why catholic schools should accept children which are not catholic unless there are free spaces.

Why not have Tory schools, UKIP schools, and Raving Monster Loony schools?

I would like a vegetarian, socialist school for people who don't have Telly, hate hair dye and designer anything, like rude jokes, and play stringed instruments.

Why do religious people get all this help in brainwashing their kids, and the rest of us nutters have to go it alone?

Why not have Tory schools, UKIP schools, and Raving Monster Loony schools?

I would like a vegetarian, socialist school for people who don't have Telly, hate hair dye and designer handbags, like rude jokes, and play stringed instruments.

Why do religious people get all this help in brainwashing their kids, and the rest of us nutters have to go it alone?

So we need more secular schools, so that people have a choice as to whether their DC are raised within a faith environment. I see this as a better option than doing away with faith schools.

That would be true if there were any secular schools.

I remember before I had children I made the decision that I would like them to be educated against a background of religion (and that's just what it is, a background. It's an important ethos that runs through what they do, but it doesn't overtake the serious business of learning. I just find it makes for a very caring atmosphere. I never saw any bullying at either of my schools and it is very rare at my children's school too, which I believe has a lot to do with Christian attitudes towards one another)

At my RC school it was far from a background, it did interfere not just with learning but with attitudes. There was a lot of bullying, there was no caring attitude and a lot of the bullying and lack of care was based on the ethos of the school.

I haven't read the whole thread. I would love my daughters to go to the Ofsted outstanding catholic school 10 doors down from my house. However, non practising Catholics have priority over us, even though we are practicing c of e. So we'll have to drive across town instead. It's incredibly wasteful and inefficient. Not to mention infuriating.

Jaabaar, because a child should not have to be bussed miles across town when there is a school on their doorstep because their parents happen to believe in the wrong deity, or no deity. Primary schools are the cornerstone of local communities, funded by the taxes that all of us pay, and should be open to local children. Quite uncontroversial view really, and amazing that it is not the case in the UK today.

I would be delighted if the faith based criteria were dropped from the admission code of voluntary aided C of E schools and C of E academy schools. Then schools could serve their local communities as they were intended to do. But this isn't just about oversubscription of a minority of schools.

That schools have to teach RE which includes Christianity is something that upsets some atheists.

That all schools have to have a daily act of worship that is broadly Christian in character is something that upsets some atheists even more. The fact that most schools ignore this even thought it is required by law isn't the point for the campaigners.

So part of the heat of the debate is about some atheists wanting all religion out of schools.

Bearing that in mind as far as I can see the faith based criteria only becomes a problem when there aren't enough places at a 'good' school and that happens to be an aided or academy school. Not all C of E schools have a faith based admissions procedure for oversubscribed places; voluntary controlled and community schools don't unless their local authority lets them and the vast majority don't.
When my children were small I couldn't have got them into the outstanding primary as we were outside the catchment area and we didn't want to move.

A very long time ago I was the chair of governors of a voluntary aided church school. We were not oversubscribed and we did not have a faith criteria in our admissions procedure. The reason we were not oversubscribed was that we were in an area of social depravation. It was a good school according to the parents who went there, OFSTED disagreed. The high achieving mummies shunned the school because we took anyone in the catchment area and that included poor children, children with special needs, children of parents with problems, children with English as a second language in fact anyone who wanted to come.

I suspect that if at my next job as vicar I'm I find myself as chair of governors of an aided or academy school and I start the debate about removing the faith based oversubscription criteria I will find myself on the receiving end of a huge amount of bile and hate as I will be seen to be threatening the education of children of motivated parents. I've seen it happen and it is not pretty.

If all schools were perceived to be good there wouldn't be this debate except for the atheists who want all religion out of schools.

Why do religious people get all this help in brainwashing their kids, and the rest of us nutters have to go it alone?

I thought that was the promise of free schools?

As said earlier, you can only have choice in schools if it is feasible to over supply the numbers of places available each year. It isn't so you don't.

I went to catholic school - I didn't meet someone from another religion till I went to university - that's a well rounded eduction isn't it?! Lots of bullying went on - the nuns and the teachers joined in for good measure. I saw nothing of this caring Christian attitude you speak of, a Hail Mary before every lesson, hardly life altering.

ban faith schools completely. if parents want to indoctrinate their chi;ldren then that's what church is for. There is too much worship going on in non-denomoinational schools as it is. we need less not more.

I think the entire problem comes from people not understanding the education system. There are still people who think that England has secular schools, there are people who don't understand the meaning of non denominational and there are are a lot of people who appear to have no knowledge of the various education acts and think that schools can choose whether to have collective worship or not.
All state schools in England have to have daily collective worship of a broadly Christian nature. It is the law. If they want to opt out there is a very complicated and long drawn out procedure and they quite probably wouldn't qualify for it anyway.
There is very little difference between a faith school and a non denominational school, and the latter can be even more religious, therefore I can see why people get upset.
I would recommend that people google education acts and collective worship and then they might understand the problem.

Absolutely delphinium. My kids went to a non- denominational state primary school There was daily prayer, bible study in class, religious assemblies, visits to church for services, local ministers coming to lead sermons in school. really hacked my off the level of indoctrination my kids were subjected to in a non denominational school.

But as you say all schools have a legal requirement to have "collective worship"- even don doms- there is no escape !!!!!!

No, I don't find the anti-denominational school stance depressing. It gives me hope that one day we can make the change to a non-discriminatory state school system.

What depresses me is that children are discriminated against, being barred from their local schools because their parents happen to not believe in the required brand of superstition. I'm also depressed by the fact that these organisations, which generally spout on about how caring and morally correct they are, will quite happily accept the money provided by these non-believers in the form of taxes while excluding their children.

I'm annoyed that all English schools are forced into daily acts of worship - there is no choice to opt out, only to change the religion involved. Forcing children into religious compliance is, in my view, a breach of their human rights.

I find it scary to consider the outcome of increasing sectarianism in our society, where communities are divided along religious lines.

It stuns me to think that people don't realise that some faith schools achieve good results because they are highly selective - even selecting for church attendance means that they'll get the parents who take action to influence their child's education.

It isn't as simple as telling people to use secular schools - there are none in this country; a headteacher who wanted his school to become officially secular and use the same advantages afforded to faith schools was not allowed to do so. And anyway, increased division is not the answer to ending discrimination. I have no religion, but I don't want my children to go to a school which excludes the religious any more than I want any other kind of discrimination.

If you want to worship, use the provision afforded by your religion. Schools are for educating children (and that includes learning about all religions).

It is a specious argument to claim that faith schools out perform non faith schools. Any indications of better performance are every thing to do with selection and nothing to do with religion.

Educationally minded parents will jump through whichever hoops are required to gain access to the best school in the area. If that requires religious display then that is what they will do.

To my mind it is a medieval attitude to demand that small children perform worship to be allowed to participate in school.

To save you googling it is here - a whole booklet of 63 pages!

Worry quite! It's as if people believe that the good results are rained down from heaven as a reward for keeping the faith pure and keeping out the dangerous doubters, rather than a result of a tight selection process which means that only children and parents with documented history of toeing the line get in.

"That schools have to teach RE which includes Christianity is something that upsets some atheists."

You know, I have never yet come across a single person, atheist or otherwise, who is upset by the the teaching of RE including Christianity. This is a very tedious straw man put up by people who are defending the statutory requirement for Christian worship in state schools

I find it bizarre that studying RE to GCSE level is compulsory and studying a MFL or History is optional - but that's a different story.

I know many athiests and all without exception welcome the objective study of religion in schools. It's the subjective handling that raises hackles.

Inertia and worry- I keep saying that on all theses threads and am always completely ignored. Faith school supporters don't want to look at the undeniable truth that undersubscribed fair schools do no better and no worse than undersubscribed any other sort of school . It is only when they can apply selection criteria that the results understandably improve.

Yes, there is a big difference between studying belief systems (and this will overlap with all the humanities subjects) and a daily act of worship.

A lot of people seem to be having inordinate difficulty grasping that distinction Merry