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?

Lots of people round here do it, in our city there are 4 catchment comps (the sort that most mumsnetters would chew their right arm off rather than send their children to) and a "church" school which creams off the middle class parents who go to church for a couple of years beforehand. It's not hard to get a place if you do that, we're not in a very religious area. Hardly any of the parents actually think there should be religious segregation at secondary age. But they play the game.

I agree Drwhoever, if the church schools were admitting the refugee kids and the kids with SN and the children in care, and the children on free school meals, more than most other schools I would be impressed. In fact they do the opposite, they have lower percentages of all those measures.

Hogsback I'm not criticising all the parents who do this in your sort of situation, I'm just saying I couldn't, personally, cos atheism is very important to me. (I grew up in a strongly Christian family and nothing would drag me back to church, ever.)

In our LEA you'd qualify to apply for the church school even if you went to church elsewhere. It's about parents attending church per se rather than the actual church connected to the school. So in the case of a child spending weekends away with dad, there is nothing stopping the mum attending church. Attending Sunday school is more visible but the vicar at our church knows who attends and who doesn't. He's going to get a surprise seeing me this weekend after a rather long absence (Ds has just started in the church choir)!

I wouldn't, but lots of people do. Lots of new children arrive at our church in the year before they need to make the application, never to be seen again once they have a place!

Having said that, people who live near the [church] school don't live in the catchment for another good school, so they may feel that they have no choice.

i don't mind about that particularly (can see the injustice in having church schools in the first place), but I do think that once the dcs are in the church school, the parents should contribute to the church community a bit and also their children should attend the church occasionally.

To comment after a poster said all the parents turn up in cars to drop off - this happens at out CofE primary too. Many from 3-6 miles away.

It was interesting when we had all of the snow last winter, every school in our town closed apart from ours, no buses in operation and the roads and pavements were full to knee height in snow. But the Head insisted on opening for those that could get there.

The only ones that could get in(around 3-5 per class), were those who physically walked through knee deep snow within half a mile of the school. Most of these the community families who were only granted a place after all of the church references

fennel, in my area the church schools do exactly that - all of them have higher ratio of kids who get free-school-meals, more immigrant kids, and a fair number of SN kids. The Ofsted said that the intake is below average in ability.

As a result the middle-class parents don't want to send them there. But I have to say - as someone whose dd ended up there - the educational standards are still better than the favoured middle-class school up the road. Which is quite some feat in the circumstances.

Our school has just been given an outstanding from Ofsted, and that may change the intake I guess.

Well, your area is unusual then speakercorner, several recent studies have looked into this, and they found the opposite in general in faith schools. And the 2 areas I've lived in since my dc started school have certainly been areas where the faith schools admit those from the higher social classes, almost exclusively.

Nicole12 that's so true and also, if a secular school closed its doors to the offspring of people of faith, what then? Christians, please kindly answer my question.

I can't believe I managed to kill this thread

Some Christians don't like the idea of faith schools for this reason. I am uncomfortable at the idea of say, one village having only a faith school as its only local school. If you were Jewish/Muslim/Buddhist/Hindu/etc that's not much choice, as opposed to an agnostic who could accept it as a peripheral issue. Then again, in some countries in the Commonwealth, they are quite used to this even if it doesn't seem fair to locals of a different faith.

garnish, I don't think you've killed the thread, just asked a logical question to which there is no answers other than 'but that wouldn't be fair'/'depends what the alternatives are'/'what if the nearest suitable school with places is 10 miles away' which exposes one of the fundamental inequalities in the faith school system.

What about adding that even those families of faith are excluded we expect the church and other faith groups to contribute 90% of maintenance and renovation costs, fund all the teachers' training, pay all the teachers' salaries and fund all other resources eg equipment, SEN support? Though of course we're not excluding you because you're the 90th criteria on the admission criteria, below atheists who live the other side of the country.

This is how the current system looks to me (though the other way round), though I'm happy to be persuaded that it's really not as patently as unfair as it seems.

No

My kid do attend a Church school (Sort of, from experience know explaining complicated set up outs us) but whilst it's supposed to be good I think it's beyond shit and wish there was something else available.

IME, which is fairly good as I have 4 kids, 'good' school has ne bearing on what they are like if for some reason your kids need some extra help or support. Refusing to assist Sn kids? tick. Shouting at a child whose dad died for refusing to give dad's mobile phone number to you? tick.

Gimme the shite reputation inner estate school we had before we moved here any day.

Look at the schooland talk to parents whose kids have difficulties not the rep before you make any massive lifestyle changes is my advice.

Soundofthethames that's my take absolutely- although follow a Quaker path so in reality whilst Christian, it's not the right Christian IYKWIM

Be careful!!
We moved to this area when DC was in infants. Our chosen local community school was full (wouldn't even invite us to view), so went to nearby faith school to look around. We were very honest with head teacher, told him we weren't religious but believed in good ethical and moral standards etc etc. The admission was no problem. We felt very welcome and that is how DC got into a faith school.

The problem came when DC wanted to move on to the feeder high school with friends. The admissions policy was a totally different ball game. This raised a lot of issues for us as you can imagine, so be aware that it's not just primary, but consider the next stage too!!!

Faith schools do create segregation! We have learned so much from this experience and in hindsight would make different decisions.

First, I would suggest ignoring the faith issue altogther-actually go and look at the schools, decide what your basic standards are (this is not the same as the 'best' school-many schools are brilliant in many ways and few are poor, and some faith schools are more 'faithy' than others in ways you might be unhappy with) and see how likely you are to be admitted on current residence. Then you can start thinking about whether faith criteria matter (and look carefully-one VA school near us uses parish boundaries ahead of church attendance so going to the local church but living out-of-parish is never activated as a criterion, the other gives priority to out-of-parish church attendees within an evangelical group of churches-so going to a distant church gives priority over children in the parish).

If you then 'fake God', it's dishonest and prejudicial, a reward for your luck in being settled and organised, but only you can decide if those means are worth it having looked at the schools.But don't worry that you will be judged by schools-the Head of the VA school I work for was utterly open about this-he knows many parents aren't religious, but can blame none of them for doing the best for their children. Mind you, he gets a really nice catchment as a result, managing to avoid kids such as mine...