Faith Schools: Are you choosing a religious primary school for your child in order to obtain the best local state education?

[rcc16]

1. Are you in a situation where you have chosen a religious primary school for your child in order to get the best state education for them? (regardless of whether you are religious or not)
2. Are you attending church and/or baptizing your children in order to get a place at a faith school when you wouldn't have done so otherwise (regardless of whether you are religious or not)

I'd like to know how many other people are in a situation where the best local state education is available through faith schools.

rrc, come back and I'll give you my dull dull answer including a move of country and splitting the family up for a year.

No 3 nearest schools, at least, are C of E. Never been asked if DDs are christened. They aren't , I couldn't make the promises, DH could.

I'm a practicing catholic and applied for a place at our local catholic school (which I attended and is also attached to the parish I have been a member of for 30 years). This year we were refused a place along with 33 other 'committed catholics' due to distance criteria. We eventually won our appeal and my DD will be starting in September.

Our catholic diocese was gravely concerned about the number of catholic children not having a place at a school to cater for their faith. The trouble is the school is massively over-subscribed because it is rated as 'outstanding' rather than for genuine faith reasons. There are many mothers who freely admit they only attend church to obtain a place at the school and will just get up and walk out if our parish priest is not taking mass on Sunday as they see it as a waste of time if there attendance is not going to be noted. This year so many families who have been members of the parish for years were denied places including the altar servers son.

I understand every parent wants the best for their child but people need to think about attending church solely to obtain a school place because ultimately it will be to the detriment of a genuinely committed family.

Serious question to Demsy: as a Christian ought you not to be pleased that children who don't come from a genuine faith background will be given the faith-based schooling? I know that for you your faith is something precious/special that you want your children to have - but they can get that from you at home can't they? Whereas these other children whose parents are going through the motions can't? Wouldn't it be more appropriate for the churchgoers to give up their places?

I am not sure I follow your logic TBH lingle.
I am curious about why the OP hasn't come back BTW.

I understand what lingle is saying.

Why is it important to have a school cater for a faith when the child can have that catered for at home and in Church? Demsy could send her child to another school without detriment to their religious learning.

I also wonder if there is another available catholic school that is not so outstanding and therefore not so heavily oversubscribed, that committed catholics could send their children to.

Serious question to Demsy: as a Christian ought you not to be at least uncomfortable with a situation where the offspring of non religious tax payers are denied the school of their choice on the basis of what their parents believe or don't believe?? Would a secular school ever get away with closing their doors to the offspring of religious people who fund the school through their taxes, simply because they go to church???
Religion should stay at home.

CecilyP - we live just around the corner from an 'outstanding' non-denominational primary and chose to go the primary attached to our Catholic Church which is 'good' rather than outstanding and a little further away.

I am a practicing Catholic and DD is also baptised. The nearest school to us happens to be Catholic and OFSTED-rated outstanding (the best in the borough in fact). It's heavily over-subscribed but it will be my first choice when admissions open next month. The other Catholic school in catchment is rated good so another outstanding non-faith school is our choice above this.

Demsy, if you live in a grammar school area and your child gets into a non-religious one, will you have a problem with this? I presume you'd reject that place in favour of a catholic school, even a one that is not considered particularly good?
And later on, would you want your child to take up their Oxford place or will you try to find a Catholic academy of tertiary education?
I don't know, it just seems so strange to me that it's so vital to people that their children go to religious schools and yet nobody feels they have to have a working environment that caters for it or a university.

Lingle - ideally it would be fantastic to offer places to children from non-christian families and some years they can. However their admission policy will offer places to baptised committed catholics first, what doesn't sit easily with me is gaining a place under false pretence.

ChinaInYourHands - I understand what an awful situation it is not to get a place for your child in your chosen school, as I stated before we were refused before going to appeal. I empathise with any parent in this situation. Catholic schools do not close their doors to people who don't go to church - if they have the space to admit children not of the faith they will, however priority rightly or wrongly will be given to practicing catholics. With regards to your point that religion should be left at home I respect that, however it is really important to me my daughter goes somewhere she can celebrate her faith with her peers openly and without causing offence to anyone.

CecilyP - There is another cathoilic school in a neighbouring borough which is rated 'satisfactory' where my daughter did get ofered a place along with many other children from the parish but it did mean a 30 minute car drive.

PollyParanoia - if my DD was offered a place at Grammar School I would let her decide whether she wanted to go there or our catholic secondary as she would be at an age where she can make a decision for herself. Catholic children can chose for themselves at 12/13 whether they want to confirm (confirmation) their religion or not, as when they were bapised they did not have a choice. Religious or not everyone's child will make their own decisions in life whether it be university or work and as a parent you hope to have put them in good stead to make good decisions. At that time they are at an age when they can make informed decisions and as a parent you have to respect that. I think most parents would agree when your little one starts school that school will be an incredibly big influence in their life. Every parent wants the best for their child and for me that means sending her somewhere her faith can be supported and celebrated. When she is older she will make her own decisions in life until then I will try my best in the decisions I have to make for her.

thanks for answering

I think its not a problem if you support the ethos of the school and you have some faith yourself. However if they are recieving different messages from school than home it could be very confusing for a young child. The problem with the very overscribed schools is they tend to be much stricter on admissions and therefore the school tends to be more religious and therefore even more confusing for the child. I know people who have gone to church only then to take them out saying its too over the top.

Parents and children need to be able to respect their teachers and if they just think they are talking rubbish it dosnt create much respect. I would always say go to a school which you are comfortable with because then the child will be as well!

flyingsaucer Much as I agree with your points, people in areas where the only school, or only school their child might get into, is a religious school, are a bit stuffed.
In my borough, we are about 500 short of primary school places, so portacabins and bulge classes are being squeezed in wherever they fit. The chance of you being assigned to any school other than one of the closest is minimal, unless you qualify on religious grounds. About 2/3 of the schools are Christian, half of them Catholic. Probably under 10% of locals are practicing Christians of any sort, let alone organised enough to get to church regularly.

Spot the problem! Ds will almost certainly have to go to the local VA CofE school as if I turn it down then the borough don't have to offer him a place at all. It would make slightly more sense if people who hadn't applied for any religious schools were prioritised for community schools, but they aren't.

I'm told that despite the local bishop turning up regularly, the school respect the fact that under 10% of pupils are from CofE-practicing backgrounds, but if that turns out not to be the case then they will have to put up with me raising a stink if they even suggest that my ds and I aren't supporting their 'Christian ethos'

Dd1 was on the waiting list for 8 schools. We really didn't want the Catholic school, as it is a mile away and there are four nearer schools, but it is outstanding rated and she was offered a place.
It does seem a lovely school though, if a little small.

Notcitrus I agree with you, it dosnt sound right that people who dont want one have to send their child to a faith school. I suppose the problem works both ways if the community schools are excellent there is the opposite problem. Maybe there should be a box to tick for people who want to abstain on relgious grounds. The only consolidation is that vc schools tend to limit relgious teaching and if there is quite a few children who have been allocated it but didnt want it on faith grounds they will probally cater for it!

I'm very annoyed that I will have to send my babies to the CofE school because it's the nearest and has a good ofsted but we are aetheist and I worry they will be indoctrinated against our will

Still no response from OP to journo question???

My 2nd closest school is C of E and is one of the worst in the borough. If it was the only good school in the area, I might have considered rediscovering the faith I was brought up in. (But not convert if it was Catholic)

However I left my "good" C of E primary school not knowing my times tables, and only starting doing well at maths at my (actually really good) comprehensive Catholic secondary school. Despite having a really good Ofsted grade, my old primary school would not admit that my colleague's daughter had any sort of special needs until her last term at school there, and was just labelled as nothing wrong with her just naughty. She is now being looked at for being on the autistic spectrum at her secondary school.

So slightly biased, but just because it's a faith school doesn't mean it's the best!

I'm catholic, my daughter will go to a school that isn't very good. So thinking about doing the opposite to most people

In case you are a journalist or researching for some other reason, I think people who pretend to be religious to get into a school are not unusual, but even on MN they probably wouldn't admit it. But you can find references to 'the church of the holy pushchair' and so on. I think that if faith schools receive x % of their funding from the state, then x % of their spaces should be allocated by the local authority. But even this wouldn't be completely fair: after all, the C of E has had a lot of its resources from the state historically. Alternatively, people who choose a faith school first could have a lower priority at non-faith local schools to even it out. As it is, it's so unfair: people who are of a relevant faith or are able to pretend to be so have more school choices in many areas (particularly London) than those who either aren't religious, or are visibly of a background such that they wouldn't be able to or comfortable with pretending to be CofE or Catholic.

It does infuriate me that specific philosophies or religions can be imposed on young children as truth and I am then pitched against my childs teachers at home on issues like religion and science. State education should be non denominational and religion should be a matter for home.

My children go to a VA C of E infant school, OFSTED outstanding, oversubscribed, because it's our closest school. We did not lie to get them in; we are in a rural area so we got in under 'living in the parish of X' criteria as we are not churchgoers.

I would prefer that our closest school was not religious; I do not believe it's a good school because it's a church school but because it's well run with good teachers in a nice area, and also because it can select motivated parents who have their children admitted under faith criteria.

I am very grateful that our closest junior school is non-faith as I'm frankly a bit pee'd off with the amount of god rammed down their throats at the infants, but I will put up with it as the benefits of going to a local school outweigh the religious aspects for me.

My dcs do go to a faith school but they did fit the criteria before I thought about admissions. You often have to had had your dcs baptized early in their lives (therefore not doing it just before they start school), church attendance for x amount of years is another usual criteria so is difficult to decide just before you start applying for a school.