New to the GB education system (minefield) as I'm from the US, and with a 2 1/2 year old living in the City of Westminster. Non-Christian.
I'm doing some research on primary schools in our area and horrified to read the Ofsted reports and other data associated with the non-denominational primaries, which barely seem to have achieved a Satisfactory rating. That said, the faith based schools aren't too bad--some are looking quite good. What angers me is that we are Muslim, but my child will be placed in the bottom priority bucket for all of these schools because of that fact. So, despite being a higher rate tax payer, the government kindly allows these schools paid for by me as a tax payer to put my child at the bottom of the list when picking and choosing for admissions.
Has anyone had this problem? I refuse to pretend that I am Christian to get DS in as I think that is completely unethical--however I would very much like for him to attend one of these schools; their ethos and academics are exactly what I'm looking for. How would I go about getting him in????
And for anyone that suggests a fee paying school, I don't believe that I can afford it, despite working for an investment bank; I cannot trust that redundancies in the coming years won't include me as a casualty, and sending DS to a fee paying school would make any possibility of baby no. 2 an impossibility. State school, it must be...