Religious schools in the UK

[Flangelica]

I just saw on another thread somekne saying that C of E schools aren't faith schools.

I was wondering if there are religious schools in the UK - for example, Christian schools which only accept practicing Christians, Muslim schools that do thr same for Muslims, etc. Where the faith element is an important part of the school and teaching will reflect this?

I live abroad but am considering returning at some point in the nesr future, but realised I have no clue about British schools anymore! I left quite young.

(In my husband's home country, people generally attend schools associated with their faith as it's quite a religious area, although people don't all have the same religion. Schools are run by people and attended by students who share the faith, but schools and communities from different religions have events where they get together to share, learn about, experience and celebrate each other's festivals which i think is nice.)

It depends on the admissions citeria for the individual schools which vary from school to school. My understanding is that most religious schools in the UK prioritise children of their faith in their admissions criteria. So a RC school will accept applications from RC pupils first, then children from other Christain families, then children from other faith families and then children of no faith at all. If all the places are filled by RC children then others do not get the chance to attend.
Some faith schools have accepted that this policy will often favor middle class/well organised families at the expense of less organised families and have changed their admissions criteria to say eg 20% of places for children living nearest to the school irrespective of religion. You have to look at the individual school.
These schools do teach their own religion but families can theoretically withdraw their child from religious events eg Mass in school. But they also have to teach British values - so they can for example tell children that their religion does not think abortion is a good thing but they have to make it clear that a woman has the right to an abortion under many circumstances in English law.

Some faith schools will be more full on with religion than others. It depends on the area they are located in, the mix of families at the school etc. C of E and RC schools located in deprived inner city areas may actually have very few children from C of E or RC backgrounds. Some may be full of children of no faith or of children from eg Muslim families - it all depends. Muslim schools tend to be mainly full of Muslim families as few non Muslim families want their children to attend and will appeal if their non faith child is allocated a place at a Muslim school. Some high performing Jewish schools can be very sought after by families of other/no faith.

Where in the UK are you moving to? Its different in different places.

There are NO non-religious schools in England, as they are all required, by law, to hold daily acts of "collective worship". If there is no designated religious affiliation for the school, these are required to be ‘wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character’.

Admittedly this is ignored by many schools, but it just takes one religious bigot in a senior position and it's forced down every child's throat...

CofE schools are ‘schools of a religious character’ and are open to all faiths and none. Daily worship will be Christian and RE will focus heavily on Christianity. Depends on the headteacher how much they emphasise the Christian faith.

Faith schools (Catholic, Jewish, Muslim etc) are those where pupils are expected to provide some proof of being ‘of the faith’ and education there will include faith-specific education and worship.

All state funded schools are expected to teach about all world religions and adhere to British values.

Absolutely.

There are no state run non faith schools in the UK, and only a few private ones.
The majority are " non denominational", whicjh in practice gives the head teacher power to give as much or as little indoctrination as they see fit.
The head of my kid's school was very religious, and there was a lot of indoctrination, it isn't so easy to remove a child from that aspect of the teaching day- the whole school day was peppered with christian messages , even throwaway comments by teachers like " Look at the rainbow children, isn;t god wonderful".