Anyone's DC go to Cof E school that is NOT their church school

[CURIOUSPARENT]

We are in the process of applying for primary place for DS. We go to a village church which is also where he goes to nursery. The C of E primary there is outstanding.

BUT we are thinking of putting 1st choice as a different C of E school (good) even though we would like to continue our worship at the church we currently attend as our DC were baptised there and we feel very much at home at that church.

How practical is this? I am thinking that lots of the services, such as Harvest, Rememberance, Christingle, Easter etc etc will also be shared with the church and in a way it will be nice if you can attend your childs school service in their usual church rather than have close ties with 2 church's (one via school activities and the other via usual worship?).

Anyone have any experience please?

I may also post in religion to see if more people see this.........

TIA.

Well I am in the complete opposite situation, in that my children go to the church school that is linked with our own church. And yes, it is nice that they are getting a very joined-up experience. But they are definitely in the minority - there are several children at school who go to other churches on Sundays.

There are also several children at our church who don't attend the church school. I'd say the only thing that is occasionally an issue for them is that they keep hearing about events for "our" church school and I do wonder whether they sometimes wonder why we don't talk so much about their schools.

If you want to be very supportive of both school and church, I guess you could end up in a situation where you attend two Harvests/Christingles/Carol Services in a row, on different Sundays (happens to our school RE teacher every year, as she likes to support the service in the school's church, but her own church does one the following week!) But you could equally have a policy of going to your "own" church on Sundays and the school church only for specific school occasions, which are much more likely to be on school days. Certainly, all our "official" school services are in school hours. Children are invited to other church events, but it's entirely up to their families whether they go or not. And it's fully understood that some children will be part of other congregations.

Overall, unless there's a dramatic difference in style between the two churches, your son isn't likely to be too bothered by going to two different places. One will be part of his "school" community and one will be part of family life. I'd definitely go for the school that you are happiest with. He's going to spend far more time there than in church.

Our C of E school tends to take over the church at 9.30 on a school day for harvest, Easter and christingle. This a pain for working parents, but doesn't clash with the normal congregations services.
School piano teacher is also local choir master so children practice for church choir after school sometimes for main Easter and Christmas services. Those might over lap with things at other local churches.
Mostly things don't overlap, because we are a large group of rural churches which share clergy.
School doesn't do Rememberance Sunday, but church choir and Scouts do- at different churches 3 miles apart. Of course DD1 wanted to sing and DD2 wear her new scout uniform!

Slightly different as my DC attend the local RC school and we go to the linked RC church. there are close links and I think as a family we all get more out of both school and chuch because of the link. When there are events such as First Holy Communion I do feel a bit sorry for the children who go to other schools as everyone else knows each other.

Howver stuff like cubs and brownies are not allied to either school or church so the DC mix with other local children too.

Yes to the multiple service attending, bit that is not simply caused by school, plus church, but by senior school also having a Carol service at a different church.
We also had two school linked concerts in different churches as well.
(on of which I didn't get too because DD2 couldn't miss any more rehearsals for another).
In the end DH and I went to 4/5 each and felt we'd spent enough of Dec. taxi servicing to choir rehersals

I think your/your child's experience will depend on how cliquey or friendly the school is and how many other families attend other churches or no church.

We are a Catholic family in the same situation (ie attend a parish that is not the parish to which the school is attached) and it's fine. But it is a very friendly, very ethnically and socially-mixed school which serves two different parishes (neither of them ours). So my dd will make her First Communion at our church while most of her classmates will do it through the one near the school. But she is very outgoing and chatty, so I can't see it being a problem for her.

But I know that in some schools you can get cliques of people who consider themselves the in-crowd, and people whose face doesn't fit for one reason or another can get cold-shouldered. So it might be worth putting out feelers to see how much cross-over there is between parish and school, and how open they are to outsiders.

It will also depend on your and your child's personality - if you/ds are confident and outgoing, then you could end up feeling you have the best of both worlds. If you/he are a bit more shy or reserved, and find it harder to make friends, or have a tendency to feel you're being left out of the in-group, then you might be happier choosing school attached to your own parish/village where you have a ready-made group of friends around you.

Do also think about the practicalities of getting to and fro, and whether there will be lots of driving involved. That can make a big difference with small dc.

Wow thanks all for the responses, much appreciated .

I think overall I do feel as though we will probably benefit more by going to the same school as the church we attend, however somehow I feel like the other school just might suit my son slightly better, although I think both would be brilliant.

We'll continue to consider it, and it'll probably come down to whichever we are leaning towards on the final day for applications to be submitted!

My kids go to a C of E Church school. To be honest the Church and the school are not that closely linked. The school use the Church for their termly services, but during the school week. The Churches special services are advertised at school. The Vicar and other clergy regularily visit, and the Vicar is chairman of governors.
However the pupils come from a wide range of churches (and Muslim, Hindu and Atheist families) including Catholic. Very few children actually come from the school's Church (other Churches are more popular with families). The children actually do take part in a lot of town/Church celebrations, eg. some go to the town Remembrance Service, others go to one at a satellite chapel of the Church at a local Old people's home, and so on.

Actually I think in your situation the real issue is, why do you want to send your DS to a school outside your local village in another village? If you know these reasons clearly, and they outweigh the benefits of local friends and ease of access, then that should make your decision. I think the church one is a bit of a red herring.

Mummytime thanks for your response, it is most helpful.

We don't actually live in the village where we go to church/my DS goes to nursery and that one is further away than the school we are considering as first choice instead.

Our catchment school is not C of E.

I don't attend our local church as it does not feel very welcoming, and part of this may be to do with the fact that it is a very large church and it is also where I held my oldest son's funeral when he died some years ago and the vicar, when he left in 2007 was replaced with one who I never particularly warmed to. When my DS and then DD were born I didn't want to hold their baptism's in the same church where my eldest DS was baptised and in later years had his funeral, hence we attended a different church. We chose this church as we had friends in the village.

Whichever one we attend will be out of our catchment, so it's just a matter of whether to stick with where we go to church and DS goes to nursery or to change to another. My concern about where we go to church is that it is a growing village and I think this may be a problem by the time my DD gets to go to school in 3 years time.

dd attends a RC school attached to a church out of catchment - its no issue as there are few school events - couple a year and we make the effort to go to them. Its nice for dd to go with her friends and tbh we are not regular catchment church goers either. When i have been to church events at the school i would say only about 20% of the school go.

In terms of communion (someone said earlier?)- as i understand it with my dd school, the communion is done as a whole school event so everyone gets done at the parish church even though its not our parish????

Do check your admission criteria in case the school prioritises parish and not siblings - many church schools do not give sibling priority or if they do they only give parish siblings priority and not non parish siblings - numbers can change hugely within a year or so.

just read the bit about the growing village - in that case if they do not operate sibling priority (regardless of address) i wouldn't even consider it.

I'm not sure why you think your church should be linked to your child's education. Surely church is there for community and spiritual needs, and school is there for education. Choose the best church to fulfil your spiritual needs and the best school to fulfil your child's educational needs. If they happen to be a linked church and school, that's a nice coincidence, but would never base my school choice on anything but education.

I lie, I did base my school choice also on location, ie, our local village school, so the DDs would be close to their friends and be able to play with them after school and in the holidays.

Go to the school you want, don't worry about the extra curricular aspect.

I'm coming at this from a different angle. My children don't go to a C of E school, however they do go to local Cubs, Brownies, Scouts etc that are attached to Cof E churches. We are RC, and involved in our local church (DCs not at RC school though). DCs also play/sing in choirs and concerts. Like a poster above we found most of December was spent ferrying them round various Carol Services. We also attend Harvest Festivals and church parades throughout the year.

sunnyday they do have a sibling policy of sorts, it's just that siblings out of catchment come behind everyone else in catchment (which I actually think is fair enough as I dont think it would be fair that children in catchment couldn't get into the school just because another child out of catchment already has a sibling at the school).

Annie one of my other concerns was socialisation outside of school and I thank you for your comments. This would also point us more towards the more local C of E school than the one that is tied in with current nursery/church attended.

Raspberry thanks - your comments are also really helpful.

thats what i meant though - for example, dds school takes 60 every year and they prioritise like this:

1- RC in care
2- RC siblings in parish
3- Rc in parish
4- RC siblings not in parish
5-RC not in parish
etc

If your school is the same (it sounds like it is) then from my experience consider carefully!

Every year, dds school got down to the 5th criteria and when dd1 started in 2010 only 52 people applied and everyone got in. At the time we were category 5.

Last year loads applied and the school filled on criteria 2 and 3 and as such no siblings out of parish got in - 7 families got split and you cant win on appeal because of infant class size and the admissions policy is fair.

DD2 is due to start 2012 and we are in category 4 this time - the head has already warned me it's unlikely she will get in so we are having to prepare her for another school - despite her attending the pre-school and all her friends and sister attending the school.

If someone had warned me there was a chance of her not getting in there is no way i'd have applied out of catchment!

Yes that was my concern that we could apply and just scrape in and that even though we go up a category they fill on a higher category in future.

I think that is more likely to be the case with the school that we attend the church/DS goes to nursery.

I appreciate your comments, as although I'd love to think that it might be worth a chance, I think my head is telling me to apply to the other school, because whilst we are also not in catchment there it is not so likely to happen (although not a definite)

If you want to apply to the one attached to your Church, then I would go for it as your first choice. Then apply to the more local one as your second choice. You will not affect your chances of getting into the second one, by putting the other one first.
However if you prefer the second one anyway, then put that one first.
At all chruches in this town children attend multiple schools (private and state).
And my family is not unusual in that: DH play Organ at Church A, DDs go to Brownies and Guides at Church B, DS went to cubs and Beavers at Churches C and D (joint pack), DD is in the choir at the Cathedral, and I went to toddlers at Chruch E. Its actually nice that there is so much mixing between churches.

I also understand your reasons for not going to the local church, a friend of DH died about a year ago, and the funeral was at another church near where he lived, because the family couldn't bear to use the same one as they had used for their teenage son who was killed in a motorbike accident.
But will you be able to cope with having to go to that Church for special school services?

Good luck!

My son goes to a village c of e school, I didn't choose it because it was c of e but because it was a good school, they do go to the church a lot as its over the road, since he started the school numbers have more than doubled but hopefully ds2 will have a place he starts nursery there in 2013.

My DS goes to our local (village) school, which is C of E. We attend an independent church, so do not routinely attend the local C of E church. This has never caused any problems for us at all. To be honest apart from the occasional field trip to the church or occasional services there, there is little attachment between the church and the school (though the minister will take assemblies in the school). relatively few children in the school go to the local church.

mummy thanks for your response and sorry for your DH's friends family with their losses :(

Thanks also south and baffled, everyones responses are helping me to feel a little more comfortable about possibly choosing a different school than the church we go to.

I would think about what he will feel left out on in church if you do that.

I attended a church which had a linked school I didn't attend (another village). It wasn't dreadful, but most of the other children did attend that school so I never really made friends there because they saw each other 6/7 days a week. Some things like confirmation were done at school, so I was not confirmed because there was no opportunity despite me attending weekly, and others who went to school but not church did. Readings at events were often picked by the school of those who attended church and on at least one occasion they decided to hand the prizes in a school assembly so I sort of got handed mine as an after thought.

None of this was a deliberate slight, just thoughtless because the majority attended the school.