Catchment areas - how do you know where they are?

[threefeethighandrising]

How do you find out what the catchment area is for a school?

Is it published online or do you have to ask the school?

TIA

Are religious schools excluded from all this? DP just asked and I realised I'd been assuming they are, but I don't actually know if that's true? Could we find DS assigned to a C of E school for example? (we're atheists) Or if we didn't put the nearest school down because it was religious would that then count against us for the school bus thing (should we fInd ourselves in that position) ?

Can you see which schools has pupil admitted under allocated? Our catchment primary is c of e, and I will not risk not putting it as one of our preferences. If all the schools around you gets filled up from preferences, including from outside catchment, you might risk being allocated to somewhere far away.

DH and I are atheists too. I'm in the category of not really care either way. DH is very very against religions. We are both Jedis on the census and i don't even like star wars

Faith schools are not excluded. You apply to the LA for places at faith schools just as any other school. They tend to be very popular so it is unlikely you will get allocated a place at a faith school unless you made it one of your preferences but not impossible.

The question as far as free transport goes is whether you could have got a place at a nearer school. So if you could have got a place at your local school but didn't name it as a preference because if is a CofE school that may disqualify you from free transport. Some LAs will still provide free transport but others will not.

Before writing off your nearest school because it is CofE you should check it out. Remember that there is some Christian content in all schools in England with the exception of schools of other faiths. You may even find that there is less Christian content in your local CofE school than in some of the non-faith schools in your area.

Oh, so religious schools are included then, so if our neatest school is C of E then that's seen as our nearest school even though we're not religious? That's bonkers!

3feethigh,

I have been in a variety of C of E schools, only one of which i would describe as being in any way 'religious'. The others were just absolutely normal community-type schools - all of which by law teach RE and have regular collective worship of a broadly Christian character (a definition which is often extremely stretched - but stretched as much by c of e schools as by any other)

You really do need to visit a C of E school to see if it is in any way actively 'religious' in the way you imagine -and also visit community schools to realise just how much general Christianity there is about in them (Christmas Nativity, Easter celebrations, an RE syllabus that is about 50% about Christianity, prayer and christian stories in assemblies etc etc.)

If finding a genuinely atheist school is of high importance to you, then you should make it your critical selection criteria and it will narrow your school choice down to the very very few community schools who actively avoid the law on RE and collective worship - calling community schools with that as a main question should definitely cut your list of choices down nicely!

" You may even find that there is less Christian content in your local CofE school than in some of the non-faith schools in your area."

People keep saying that, but I'm really not keen on sending DS to acreligious school. Granted some "non-religious" schools might be more Christian than some C of E schools, but we won't be sending DS to one of them if we can help it! We've crossed one local "outstanding" school off the list as the ethos is not what we want, particularly the religious emphasis.

Surely C of E schools are reliogioua be definition?!

Stupid phone, I hope you can make sense of that!

Unfortunately, yes. Although practising a religion can give you priority in some non- catchment faith schools, being a non-believer gives you no priority for a place in a non-faith school if your closest one is a church school. Choice is a myth.

Luckily there is actually no such thing as a secular school in this country, as they are all legally obliged to have a 'daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian nature', so in practice there is little difference between standard state primaries and some CofE schools in the amount of religion imposed on your children.

I'm joining the National Secular Society this year, as they are trying to stop even more church involvement in education (one of Cameron & Gove's latest plans).

Nope. Most are 'C of E' for historical reasons (the church being one of the early providers of free education).

Could you list what you would expect to see in a 'religious' school, and perhaps we could point out which of those ARE common in C of E schools, which in community schools, which in both and which in neither?

e.g. Daily prayer in assembly - common in both. Possibly absent in either.
Assemblies on religious themes - common in both BUT in both cases often more 'moral' than 'religious'
Celebration of main Christian festivals - universal in both.
RE taught from a mainly Christian perspective - universal in both
Visits from vicars - variable in both. Vicar used to visit ds's old community school twice a week to take assembly and hear readers. Never had a vicar in the C of E school i work in.
Visits to places of worship - universal in both as it's part of the RE syllabus, and both types of school will visit a range of different places of worship

teacherwith2kids That't useful thanks again :)

I've found a couple that fit that description, so far, on paper at least.

The CofE school (voluntary controlled) my DCs went to was very lackadaisical about religious stuff apart from having a weekly assembly by the local children's minister. No grace before meals, lots of stuff about other religions (it was pretty multiethnic) etc, gay deputy head and his partner (who also taught at the school) very much accepted etc. But the nearby 'secular' school some of my friends' DCs went to was much more actively religious because the head was an evangelical Christian. You really do need to judge it school-by-school. Generally voluntary aided CofE schools are likely to be more religious than voluntary controlled ones.

I think my ideal would be a school which would choose not to deliver "acts of worship" or be a Christian school if it had a choice and so is relaxed or creative in how they fulfil their legal obligations to do so.

I think religion is fascinating and I'd love DS to learn about it, just really not keen on daily acts of worship or DS being in an environment where there are likely to be adults who think that encouraging faith would be doing him good.

Are Some C of E schools actually staffed by lots if openly atheist adults? if so I'm surprised but willing to be corrected about an area I know not much about!

" Generally voluntary aided CofE schools are likely to be more religious than voluntary controlled ones."

That's interesting

Our LA publishes maps of the catchments for primary and secondary schools. The secondaries have designated feeder primaries/parishes so that people living in villages are not disadvantaged.

Don't know about openly atheist, but I was only aware of two practising Christians on the staff of my DCs former school. The head and deputy certainly weren't. But the church has a much more active role in voluntary aided schools so the staff may be partly selected to fit in with that ethos.

Exexpat the aided vs controlled difference is interesting. I checked and my local school is aided. But I'm not surprised about it since the school is actually next to the church.

"Are Some C of E schools actually staffed by lots if openly atheist adults? if so I'm surprised but willing to be corrected about an area I know not much about!"

I would say that, in general, I have encountered few 'openly atheist' teachers in any school. However, I have also encountered very few 'openly practising Christians' either, and probably about as many per community school as per C of e school. Most teachers, of my acquaintance at least, teach RE as an interesting academic subject (using the fomulation 'Christians believe that...'), take assemblies that make gentle moral points rather than being in any way actively Christian, find public prayer a little difficult and attend church when required to do so by the school calendar of Harvest, Christmas and Easter celbrations. I have encountered very few who 'push' either Christianity or atheist (or Judaism, Hindusim or Islam, Jehovah's Witness etc, whatever their personal background might be)

You mention church services, might that be a difference between C of E and non-religious schools (i.e. You can expect to go to church at major festivals in a C of E but not necessarily at non-religious?)

EquestrianStatue thanks for that PDF, it looks really useful :)

I'll have a better look when I'm on a real compiluter, (on my iphone niw) but it looks like the "community areas" in my bit of east Sussex are basically the whole town, i think.

Church services - I wouldn't point to that as a difference necessarily. I can name church schools in my area that don't go to church at major festivals and non-church schools that do.

OK now I'm really confused!

Are you saying there are C of E schools which actually have no church services at all, do not encourage Christianity nor have overt acts of worship and are staffed by people who are on the whole, not practicing Christians?

Are these schools common (if they exist?!)
Do they still prioritise Christians in their admissions?

Sorry to keep going on about religion, it's just it doesn't seem to be at all straightforward and I'm just trying to understand how it!

Okay just to add to the confusion, I know at least one (not an inner city) C of E school where the majority of the pupils come from Muslim homes.
There are probably lots of C of E schools who have few if any strongly practising Christians (eg. much more than major festivals, and weddings). At my DCs very Christian C of E, there are Atheist and Muslim members of staff (as well as Muslim, Hindu, Atheist, Jewish, Catholic and I believe Buddhist background pupils). It does prioritise Christians, but the way it does so effectively means that it much more strongly prioritises local pupils (its just easier for Christians outside the catchment to get in than non-Christians outside the catchment).

I really wouldn't pre-judge a C of E or Community school on religious grounds before looking and seeing how they handle such matters. Catholic schools are quite different, and do for instance prefer teachers to have the Certificate in Catholic Education.

Thanks for the reply mummytime :)

A Muslim friend of mine sends her DCs to a Christian school as she thinks a religious school of any faith is better than one of no faith, particularly she feels where it comes to discipline.

I'm kind of the same as her but in reverse, I would rather DS be in a school with no faith than any faith! I'd be delighted for DS to be in an environment where he meets children and adults from many faiths and cultural backgrounds, but surely C of E schools promote Christianity if only by association?

I'd be interested to know, does the C of E school you mention have church services? How about acts of worship?

Also, how do the non-Christian pupils feel, I wonder, to be in a school where they know the Christians were prioritised? Surely even if the school does nothing else to promote Christianity, just the act of prioritising them for admissions shows that they feel Christian children are more valued by the school / society in some way, even if the teachers don't act like that on a daily basis (Got my marketing hat on now!)