church schools and their fascist admissions policy

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i am currently choosing a secondary school for my son, i have not bought him up with any religion, he knows i am pagan though.
the only good schools in the area are c of e or catholic schools, it seems like unless you can go private or convert to a christian religion you cannot get a good education for your kids.
after a conversation with one of the schools this afternoon i understand that they do have places for non christian children but you have to be a "world faith" and proof from your place of worship is necessary. world faiths are jew, muslim, sikh, hindu. thats it!
so there are NO non-denom places available at any church schools.

can anyone else see the complete fascism in this ??
i don't exactly want my kids bought up christian but i want a good education for them. it seems like they will be shoved in the local non denom school which according to league tables means theres a good 70% chance they will fail their gcses!
has anyone had this issue before.

do you think they would have to consider my son for a world faith school place if i had some pagan priest write a reference for me.

We let DS1 have a huge say in what school he went to, after all it is he who has to be there for the next 6/7 years

A school should be either able to select or have state-funding.

But as was pointed out earlier, it's a bit of a jumble because of the reason the schools exist in the first place, really.

I'll go and sit in irrelevancy because we homeschool anyway...

I am lucky that I live in a city with decent non-faith schools nearby. But lots of my friends are not so lucky. I can think of one couple in particular whose local village school, their nearest state school, is faith-based.

All very well to say "there are plenty of other schools, choose somewhere else". They are faced with a simple choice: a) lie b) become religious or c) educate their child at a school three miles up the road, out of the community. Their experience is not untypical. It is an appalling state of affairs.

I do not see what is remotely controversial or outrageous about simply saying "all state schools accessible to all state pupils in the catchment". Who could take issue with that? How? WHY?

I am sure that if the school in question was rubbish, UQD, they wouldn't have any qualms about sending their child 3 miles up the road to another catchment whether or not it was part of their community.

Have only scanned the thread but just wanted to say I too object to faith schools for many reasons, but mainly because imo religious belief is a private matter and RE should be confined to RE lessons in school, and young children in particular shouldn't have one faith "pushed" at them over and above all others by the state-funded education system. My DS is at a church school because, other than home educating or sending him to private school (we'd struggle to afford the latter), it was our only option. There are six primary schools within six miles of us and all of them are C of E aided or controlled. So we really genuinely have no choice. We also have to contend with the fact that the school uses a religious curriculum from the local diocese, which is about 95% about Christianity. So DS's teachers are telling him about Christianity as if it is a fact, when it's actually a belief, and I'm in the position of having to clarify certain things his teacher is saying to him about God, heaven etc. (in terms of "yes, some people believe that, but not everyone"). BTW I'm an atheist (having been brought up C of E), in case that hasn't come across from this post!

All I can do as a parent is tell my son about all the other faiths, and about those of us who don't believe in god at all, and he'll make up his own mind when he's older.

I feel very strongly that religion really has no place in our education system other than being taught within RE lessons. But I don't have a hope in hell of changing this situation because the C of E has a complete stranglehold over education in our area (25 primary schools within a 10 mile radius of us, 19 of them C of E, 2 Catholic, 4 community schools). And on the plus side, DS's school is very lovely in every other way and I'm beginning to look on the whole religion thing as a new parenting challenge for me to rise to

mosschops this might be hard for you to believe but my objection to faith schools (and many many other peoples' objections on this thread and RL)have absolutely nothing to do with "I want to send my child to this school" - it is possible to look outside your own particular individual interests and look at the wider picture.
As a matter of principle, allowing schools to discriminate on the grounds of parents religion makes absolutely no sense at all - the only argument I have ever heard is "I want to send my child to a school based on my faith and I don't want to / can't pay...."
which is simply selfish and makes no allowance for the good of others, the good of the community, the needs of all children.
If you can tell me any reason how this type of religious discrimination is good for the community (or in any way fits in with Christian doctrine) then I would be very interested to hear it. In the meantime I sahll continue to believe that the leadership of the CofE and Catholic churches should be ashamed of themselves for hogging limited resources for their own selfish reasons rather than insisting that the resources should be concentrated where they are most needed rather than wanted. because the truth is that "good" faith schools stay that way because they are stuffed with the children of the affluent middle classes.
which of course is just what Jesus would have wanted

Message withdrawn

"and so sayeth the Lord
Suffer the little children to come unto me.
Unless your parents don't go to church every fortnight.
In which case, they can bugger off."

Totally with you- (op) the only primary here is a religious school (I have no issues with religious schools complerementing existing, good rpovision- its when its the only school)- the problems we have ahd have not been related to religious differences, but to getting and retaining palces for our SN children- as the school is otehrwise funded in part they get say on intake, which would be K if there were anywhere else local to access (they're doing a great job with ds2 who is NT)

Keep going Unquiet Dad. You have put it all so much more articulately than I could. It makes steam come out of my ears that faith schools select yet get their funding from general taxation.

And my DCs are at a perfectly lovely non-faith state school but I am lucky enough to live 3 mins walk away.

Am well aware of parents who have to send their primary school age children miles away to school because their local primary is faith-based.

It is a weird anomoly and I think anyone who cannot acknowledge this is being deliberately confrontational and/or obtuse.

My dc went to a C of E school before we moved. Then they went to an ordinary state school. Very, very little difference in the ethos generally and teaching of R E.

The OP says that the religious school is "better". Is she talking about the reputation locally, or value measured by the Ofsted report?

When I was a pupil at a Catholic school in the '60s, almost all the pupils were Catholic. A Catholic school in my area now has little more than 50% of pupils being Catholic. I have rejected the patriarchal, mysogynistic papism myself and am not in the least tempted to educate my dc in a catholic school.

Has any one ever heard of the quaint old-fashioned notion of getting involved as a parent at your local school, to make it better? Perhaps religious parents are more inclined to do that. If not, what is it that makes faith schools appear "better"?
Can some one explain how this "selection through the back door" works in favour of faith schools?

I presume the notion of selection si related to the fact that some faiths chools are outside the LEA admissions policy (ours is) so can choose their pupils- the inference being that they take more academic pupils?

I still parsonally think that single catchment schools (where there is not other in the catchment) should be LEA controlled rather than Church, as to deselect a number of children due to faith, SN, whatever is unfair

Mind you I have no input into our school at all, oh no- I'm just the PTA Secretary.

i'm sure to get shot down in flames but here goes:

historically, i think, 'faith schools' were set up by the church. they were gradually taken on by the state when the welfare state system was set up after the war. the churches fund about 10% of the school. so, while it may seem 'unfair' that the school wants to give places to parents who go to church (and if you do go to church it is expected that you pay at least 5% of your income to the church), these people historically have paid for the school to exist and still do pay more for that school than those who do not attend church.
this seems relevant to me re: hospital/buses argument. if i regularly paid 5% of my income to manintain the transport system, i think i would expect to be able to use it before those who choose not to contribute (not those who cannot afford to)

christian children are not smarter than non christian children. therefore, it must be that there is something inherent in the belief system of the school that gets good results. it does seem a little cheeky to demand to get the good bits of religion while openly dissing it.

i'm sure to get shot down in flames but here goes:

historically, i think, 'faith schools' were set up by the church. they were gradually taken on by the state when the welfare state system was set up after the war. the churches fund about 10% of the school. so, while it may seem 'unfair' that the school wants to give places to parents who go to church (and if you do go to church it is expected that you pay at least 5% of your income to the church), these people historically have paid for the school to exist and still do pay more for that school than those who do not attend church.
this seems relevant to me re: hospital/buses argument. if i regularly paid 5% of my income to manintain the transport system, i think i would expect to be able to use it before those who choose not to contribute (not those who cannot afford to)

christian children are not smarter than non christian children. therefore, it must be that there is something inherent in the belief system of the school that gets good results. it does seem a little cheeky to demand to get the good bits of religion while openly dissing it.

That depends on the faith school- ours for example ios funded by a will that was set ups ome few hundred years ago, and the funds are only managed by the Church, not awardd by them, iyswim.

what depends on the school? if the church has been managing the funds of someone who, 100 years ago, wanted to fund a school with religious teaching, it seems a bit harsh to rip that person's legacy away because we think that most people don't agree with him these days.

but i know nothing about your school and cannot possibly discuss your circumstances.

no, you are wrong about the 10% funding.
the 10% is only to the capital costs i.e. building costs etc. the remaining 90% is funded by the state.
it does not apply to other expenditure, e.g. salaries and utlities for example are 100% funded by the state.
and it doesn't apply to all schools either, only a minority of faith schools.
also, to suggest that every faith school parents pays 5% of their income in tithes is utter nonsense.

whether you believe that those who try to live their faith obey the rules, or whether you think that believing that people will follow those rules is tosh, is irrelevant.
10% of capital costs is a contribution to the maintenance of the school and is still more than someone who does not go to church will pay.

5 per cent of their income in tithes sounds like a GSCE philosophy question.

I wish we could go back to the days before 'parental' (hah!) choice. Then kids just went to their local school - CofE schools did not discriminate against non-believers. Catholic schools did but let's deal with the established faith, that, by canon law, owes a duty to all souls first.

Parental choice actually means schools pick children. So let's abolish it. All it does is cause a load of worry and distort intake by allowing schools to select covertly (or overtly).

I went to a CofE junior school in the 70s because it was my nearest. None of this 'how many times do you go to church' nonsense. I'm very grateful I had the benefit of Assembly, RE and regular visits from Vicar Virtue as it gave me a thorough grounding in the history that underpins Western European culture. Didn't mean I had to believe it.

There are approx 6.5 thousand faith schools in the UK, or therefore just under one third of all schools. Most are primary afaik.

Parent who send their children to faith schools are also paying taxes towards non-faith schools whether they like it or not (same as the other way round).

Question to those who object to faith schools - do you feel the same about ALL faith schools? Ditto grammar schools, single sex schools?

just out of interest, say you were a local catholic school in a middling/ not very well off area, with a history of getting great results for your pupils. and say, since this 'parental choice' was introduced, every parent in your area wanted to send their child to you rather than the crappy school down the road, how would you choose who gets a place?

How would everyone feel about a publicly funded catholic/muslim/jewish etc. only gym?

Same thing, IMO.

I have no problem with private faith schools but cannot see why we pay to run schools our children are not allowed to attend.

Nope, no problem with PRIVATE faith schools. (Would rather see dc raised by wolves than send them to one, mind you).

Grammar schools select according to the educational aptitude of children, not superstitions held by the parents. I do thoroughly approve of grammars, as it happens, but it's simply not a like for like comparison.

Meant to add that I agree with CD's point that many Christian schools are populated by non-believers (CofE in particular)

If faith schools are so popular why is church attendance at an all time low?

People who send their children to faith schools are taxpayers too, of course. But their children are not denied the opportunity to go to a non-denominational school. Children of agnostics and atheists are denied the opportunity to go to one very big category of state school.