Would you, or have you, attended church just to get DC into a good school?

[Boobz]

I have just started thinking about the school admissions process for DD1 who will be applying for a Sept 2013 start. I have seen many threads on here recently talking about the competition for primary places and the angst that parents find themself with trying to get their LO into a "good" school, and so started to think about my own DD's first school, even though we are a way off applying yet.

I have looked at the criteria in our borough, and for community (state) schools, we will only be able to get into a school due to distance from our front door (she is our first so no sibs priority, no SEN, no medical / social problems etc.,) so it really is about where we live and not much else.

Looking at the Ofsted reports and going by admissions last year (i.e. schools that had high numbers of applications) the "church" schools appear to be of a higher standard (in some, but not all cases I realise) and so out of interest I started to read the admissions criteria for these schools. Most if not all said "6 months - 2years+ regular church attendence and commitment to the parish work" or similar.

Both DH and I have been christened, I attended Sunday school as a child, DH has been confirmed and we were married in a church. DD1 and DD2 were christened in our local church at 18 months and 6 weeks respectively (at the same time, just before we came abroad - we live in Sudan at the moment but will be returning to the UK next year) and the church at which they were christened has a good school attached to it.

I don't worship (although attended Chapel regularly whilst at boarding school) and would not consider myself a "believer". But I think I would be happy to attend church twice per month to try and get DD into a good school as I think we owe it to her to try and do the best for her education (we cannot afford private). I would be happy to take the DC as I think that they would enjoy it (the occasion, the singing, the other toddlers in the Church creche) but I would not expect them to pray to a God every night before bed. I understand this makes me a hypocrite and I'm sure many religous people will come on this thread and tell me I'm an awful person, but I wondered if there was anyone else who, in my position, has done or is planning to do the same thing? Would you ever admit to it? What lengths do people go to get a better education for their child?

Boobz if your nearest primary/infants is OK, considering that your dd will only be going for reception, I wouldn't bother with the church thing.

Put the CofE school down as your first choice, but be prepared to accept a place elsewhere.

CofE schools can have varying entry criteria, from the fairly extreme to embracing their local community.

Those which fall in to the first group will prioritise church going as much as they can, by splitting children in care under the 'looked after children' by those christened and those not, and by not prioritising siblings. These same schools often make no provision for local community children, unless they have any spaces left over.

In contrast many CofE schools are working towards 'serving their wider community' as per the comments made by the Bishop of Oxford over Easter. They will allow a % of religous spaces and an equal number of community spaces. Surely this gives the attending children a more realistic experience of society in general ?

Given the comments about 10% funding by the church and that they are promoting more modern ways of worship eg: the alpha course, l cannot see that using the old historic method of ticks in the box for sunday worship is going to be a realistic option for much longer.

Dd was a school refuser at a not very good Cof E school, school refuser at feeder non Cof E junior, very happy at 'bog-standard' primary with loads of SEN kids. School 3 has a fab Head, strong emphasis on emotional educ. Dd now at grammar school on advice of fab Head which dp & I oppose politically, but caved in after experience of school refusal. So I understand trauma/guilt over this, but warn that church schools are definitely NOT always better

Hi,

I am short on time so can't read replies but I have found myself in this situation where my child has been offered a place at a school 3 miles away after failing to get in 9 schools in our locality 5 of which are church schools. Ironically the school he has been offered a place at is C of E...

I didn't go to church to get a school place as like you thought this was deeply hypocritical given my beliefs (I don?t know if I believe in god but I don?t believe if there is such a thing it would require worship and would certainly not exclude children from a school on that basis, I believe I am a good person and follow a Christian life to all extents except worship and don?t believe my status as a non worshipper should place me below a murderer / rapist or child abuser who prays twice a day and goes to church every week ..extreme example but true).

Being in the position I am in has been horrible for me and my family, if Ds does end up going to the allocated school I honestly don?t know how we will cope financially as it means that one of us will need to be available for school runs as grandparents can?t help us as they would with a more local school. The implications go a long way beyond inconvenience or not having quite what you want for your child.

If I could re-wind 12 months I would go to church ? absolutely without a doubt and I have advised everyone I know in my area with children of pre-school age to do it as well. It is not right and not at all Christian but when the local councils don?t provide enough places at community schools and the school themselves make no provision for non church goers in their admission criteria (allot have policies which admit a set number but none in my locality offer this) it leaves little choice..

I think the big question is, is it right to allocate school places based on religion and should it be legal to discriminate against children based on choices made by their families?

I understand that but surely, it's the shortage of school places that's the problem, as well as the religious school admission criteria? It's clearly not right at all that your child will have to go your 9th school of choice, but even if they were not CoE schools, those children would all need a school place, no?

Sorry to take this thread off a bit on a tangent (you can tell I've got too much time on my hands and am really trying to explore all aspects of this system!) but can you move out of your own place, rent a house with a brilliant school on your doorstep, apply to the school, get in, and then move back to your old house? Or do you have to live in that rented house for a while so that the place your child has been given "sticks" IYSWIM?

If you can do the above, why don't people just rent for a while to get the DC into the preferred school? [ignorant]

Yes you are right BlueberryPancake, Ds has been given 10th closest school - but the nine full up local schools haven't all been filled up with people in my locality - for example the local Catholic school accepted it's last place a 3.7 miles away due to religion - I live 0.4 miles away from it :-( So we could well pass those parents who choose to bring their child to our area on a daily basis whilst struggling to go to our allocated school 3 miles away which we did not choose.

You are right it is not right that there aren't enough places, religion or no religion..

Haven't read the whole thread, but we have this situation here - C of E school 2 mins walk from house. Admissions based on siblings, then church attendance (in theory....although it does seem to be a case of "knowing" the right person on occasion...). Highly fought over school places, as considered by many local parents as "as close to a private school as you can get without paying".

I am a Christian, but not a regular church goer. The ironic thing is that I would have gone to the local church if I wasn't put off by the whole school thing. In fact, two close friends are church goers, but deliberately don't attend that church, even though it is the parish church, because of the school thing.

We applied, on the basis that it was our closest school, but were offered the next closest, which was a five minute drive away (impossible to walk, as down a busy road with no pavement). Meanwhile, the church school carpark is full every afternoon, as all the parents have to drive. None of whom of course now go to church, which is full of parents with preschool age children!

I'm not actually bothered about the school, as I am quite happy with the school we were offered, but I do think it is a pretty stupid situation.

Boobz - I guess with the renting it's about finding enough money to take this action as it could cost £600 -£1000 per month plus council tax just to rent an additional place and keep up all your other commitments going (ie your own rent or mortgage), personally I am not in a position to do this - but would be an option. I also beleive that the school can withdraw a place if you move within a certain time frame.

I would never do this, but we are raving atheists and it would be totally dishonest for us to do it.

I can see how a "cultural Christian" who uses the church for christenings and weddings might do it though. In those cases I don't think it's so morally terrible, but it would be for me. I think the churches are being utterly dishonest on this issue, all the Christian spiel about care of the poor and outcast is the opposite of their approach to faith schools and the admissions policies. So I blame the churches not the parents trying to work the system.

I would move or home ed, possibly, to avoid a school my dc were utterly unhappy in. But not lie. Teaching children a bit of integrity is important to me.

Short term renting does happen - it is expensive though as you need to do it for long enough and show all the bills are at the new address etc

fennel You may not have ties to the area you live in but many people do. We will happily sacrifice a bit of integrity to remain in the village where DP's family have been farmers for at least 300 years. The Church would do well to remember that schools were set up to educate the children of the parish, not blackmail their parents into church attendance. Unfortunately they hold the upper hand and call the tune so we all dance along. How Christian :(

I agree Fennel (and cory).

Bonsoir, like Fennel, for me and dh it would so totally hypocritical, I wouldn't even consider it. I still believe that, certainly at primary school, your parent's attitude to school and education and the way you bring your children up has an enormous impact on your child's primary school education. Secondary school is different but then again, I'm not in an area with church based secondary schools. I'm not sure how many failing primary schools there are? The one that dd would have gone to had been in special measures but is now a beacon school (or something like that). Just because you think you are choosing a great school doesn't rule it out becoming a failing school and vice versa. If you are choosing a school on its current results, you are looking at it at one point in time. It's no guarantee of the future. That's why I think parental influence is so important.

Garnish, the option we had was not very good at all but we would rather dd went there than to the church school by us attending church tbh.

That's just the way I feel. I certainly don't judge others that do differently. if you are happy pretending to be religious, go ahead! I don't agree with the whole system of church schools at all. I think it's ludicrous really. Nowt wrong with 'normal' state schools and children going to Sunday School to learn about religion. The children who speak arabic in dd's class all go to Arabic school on Saturday morning.

So if there were no church schools, do you really, really think that everyone would send their children to the closest school? Or would they choose to send their children to a better/smaller/better ofsted school further out? Then, would these schools be oversubscribed and local people wouldn't be able to get in because of the automatic acceptance of siblings?

Blueberry - I'm sure that people would still fiddle the system if there were no faith schools but faith schools do legitimise fiddling it to some extent. More importantly, I don't like the fact that they blatantly discriminate against families that don't share (or pretend to share) their religious views. In my neighbourhood, the faith schools are terrifically over-subscribed and only take children whose parents attend particular churches on a weekly basis rather than those who would describe themselves as general or cultural believers, much less those with different backgrounds altogether.

Blueberry, I am not sure of your argument because the sibling wouldn't get in in the first place if all was fair and even, so it would be a much fairer system if all (or at least most) schools were open to all and places all based on the same criteria as with community schools. I am sure that the example of the catholic school taking from 3.7 miles away is not the only one like it in my village most of the children at the faith schools arrive by car, they can take children from as far our as they want to, which I don't think is right to the expense of local children. It adds to traffic and childhood obesity not to mention a nightmare for parents dumped off to schools outside the area because of it..

I think it's disgraceful that we allow state sponsored religious discrimination in schools so if I needed to I'd do it - they'll be subjected to religious nonsense in a state school anyway - you might as well play the system, why should the Christians get a wider choice of schools that the rest of us?

If Jesus returned to earth he'd probably sling all the hypocrites out of his schools, but then he'd also probably to suffer his little children to come unto him so he probably wouldn't mind at the end of the day.

Not that I'd like to double guess what he'd do, but my guess is that Jesus would be more likely to suggest a very open admissions policy. From the stuff he said and did in the gospels, it doesn't seem likely he would choose believers first-quite the opposite. That's another thing that makes a mockery of ce admissions policies.

I always thought Jesus would introduce an admissions policy which would specifically help those in most need - the poorer kids from the most disadvantaged backgrounds rather than the kids from the sharp elbowed middle classes.

Plenty of hyprocrisy coming directly from the church schooling system so I wouldn't worry too much about adding to it.

boobz, in response to your query as to whether families can rent near a good school, get their child a place then move...

There's a lot of threads about this, if you can be bothered to search the archives! Basically, different LEAs differ in how long you have to be at a particular address before applying, and after receiving the offer to be considered a bona fida resident. Moving will include transferring all bills and other documents eg driving licence to the new address. If it's a popular school, it will be hard to get a rented flat as lots of other families will be trying to do the same!

It must be hard doing this process from so far away and in such an abstract way, as there's really no substitute for visiting schools and talking to teachers and parents.

Lots of people where we live do this. Sunday school is packed until the month of the school application submission then everyone stops going. I didn't realise what had happened the first year we went to Sunday school. Also you could count on the fingers of one hand those children attending Sunday school whose parents weren't intending to apply to the local church school. People were always surprised when I said Ds was going to a different school.

The year above us (current yr 3) is a particularly big year so not even all the Sunday school attendees got places, despite a letter from the vicar.

Seems a lot of hassle to me to attend church twice a month for two years if you don't have a faith. It must also be hard once your dc is at the school because of dcs attending church services whilst at school.

At our church it is the attendance of the parents that counts, not the child. So child attending church with grandparents wouldn't be sufficient to get a supporting reference from the vicar.