Why so many faith schools?

[joannita]

I wonder what proportion of parents and teachers of children at faith schools are actually genuine Christians. It seems to me a lot of people start going to church, even christen their kids just to get in a decent school. I'm sure there are people who genuinely believe, but the ratio of faith schools to practising christians in this country is disproportionate. It annoys me because I'm an agnostic who definitely doesn't believe Jesus was the son of God and I just don't feel comfortable with sending my child to a faith school let alone becoming a churchgoer. The high number of faith schools means less choice for people like me. I'm a first time buyer looking at areas to move to and some have 3 faith schools and one not very good secular school. That doesn't seem fair when you think of how many genuine worshippers there are.

Also I used to be a teacher and when you apply to work in a faith school but say you aren't a Christian even though you support the school's main values and ethos, you don't get asked to interview. If I were to lie and say I was a Christian, I'm sure I would have got more interviews. Where's the morality in that?

i agree with you it is very unfair.

I think that people do play the system but you cant really blame them. My dd goes to a RC school but we do go to church etc - in our area there are several good schools, mostly faith but luckily operate with normal community criteria (siblings/distance etc). However in many areas faith schools are the only option for a good education and so its unfair to judge people who only want the best for their kids.

DDs RC school admission criteria was just to be baptised RC - but if it had needed church attendance etc i would have done it. I can see why people do it - i wouldn't sacrifice/risk my kids education for my principles - its not right but until things change i would have done whatever i could.

Amazingly the establishment want MORE faith schools.

Oh and there is no such thing as a secular school in the state sector, they all have to provide an opportunity to worship 'christian' style.

Joannita faith schools aren't legally allowed not to interview you just because you are not Christian, and I know a very Christian C of E which has staff of other and no faith. I also know one where most of the pupils are Muslim.

So many schools are C of E, because the Church started to provide education for all at least 50 years before the state. A lot of the buildings are still owned by the Church (as shocked a local council when it shut a primary and discovered it couldn't sell the site for housing).

I would also say there is a huge difference between how C of E schools operate to Catholic ones, even when Catholic ones would like to be more inclusive often the diocese over rules.

Why are there so many faith schools? because the church provided education before free education was provided by the state. So it's historical

I can honestly say that while I believe in god I do not accept any religion as a choice for myself, as I believe it is a tool created by man to control the masses.

My dd who is 5 attends a Roman Catholic school, which was our second choice school for her. The first choice was a non faith school with excellent results, OFSTED Outstanding and oversubscribed, then this school which has ok results. Neither myself or her father are practising any religion currently and my daughter has not been baptised. I did however put all this on the additional form we needed to fill in to be considered for this school. Given this I don't feel we were excluded at all, this was our second nearest school. I didn't list the nearest school as an option.

I do not object to my dd learning in a religious environment as long as it a positive experience. I also believe that when she is older, she will be able to make her own decisions about what she does or doesn't want to accept from this faith.

I do struggle when she comes home and tells me things like "When you die you go to heaven" and recently she came home and told me she was giving up chocolate for lent. I told her she didn't have to but she was quite adamant that she wanted too. So we agreed to limit it strictly to Chocolate Bars eg freddo, Milky bars and she did this for the whole of lent.

I think it's hugely unfair on those of us who don't have a faith. Unless we defect to a religion, in our area we have much less choice of school. Indeed the 'community' schools (i.e. non faith affiliated) ones are usually the worst schools.

There is an outstanding Catholic school practically on my doorstep but it's not an option for us as we aren't of the right religion.

Where we live not only do you have to go to church for 3 years but you also get extra priority if your child was baptised before the age of 6 months AND completes First Holy Communion at the earliest age possible (unless there is supported evidence to say why this was not possible).

That has nothhing to do with faith - for decades RC schools had few EAL children, then came mass migration from Poland where it is traditional not to baptise your baby until it is 12 months old - suddenly early baptism is a criteria and the EAL intake goes down again in RC schools.

wigglywoowoo
Are you ready for when they start first communion and/or confirmation classes and she comes home and tells you she will go to hell because she is not baptised?

Disclaimer - I am a survivor of RC education and very biased against faith schools

I am Catholic and my son attends the local Catholic school. A large percentage of the children have English as an additional language (Polish, Phillippines, parts of Adrica) so it's not always the case that they ask for early baptism certs or that the numbers of children with EAL are low.

As others have said it IS historical but I feel that there needs to be more choice. I am a Governor at our shool and recently we were told by the Diocese that the admission criteria had to be changed as more and more Baptisms meant the places would be needed for Catolic children. I would estimate that only a third of DS's class are church goers - the school takes from a wide area.

Our school DOES do things with the church but are not overtly religious - the children are not required to attend Mass and many don't unless it takes place instead of an assembly (about once a term).

saash My son is not yet baptised and has NEVER been told such rubbish.I would hope NO school would allow this kind of thing to be said to a child. On the contrary they are taught that God is Love. It sounds like your experience was crap but things have changed for the better one hopes.
The Catholic church has much to feel ashamed of but from what I can see (am a new Catholic) acknowledges this, although I would still say they have some way to go.

all catholic schools usually accept non catholics in their admission criteria its just the reality is they fill on the first few criteria levels meaning non faith never get a chance.

DDs RC school has very little church related stuff - only been once with the school in 20 months!

Wigglywooowoo my nephew is non catholic in a RC school and he has been told he can be take part in holy communion this year with the rest of the school - they always allow all the kids in the school to take part so may be worth checking. Do consider any future siblings though as my two nephews are in the school but my db and dsil 3rd son (their brother) is not expecting a place this year as its oversubscribed and faith schools prioritise faith not siblings (although some prioritise parish RC siblings).

Whilst the whole thing is an accident of history, it's plain from reading this forum that church schools are something of a blight on some people's lives. As has been said, the CofE was responsible for setting up many schools, as was the Catholic Church and for a long time they have been given money from taxation to do this. County/community schools were built to fill the gaps where church schools did not exist. And therein lies the problem.

I'm in a semi-rural area with a small market town. Every village has a Victorian CofE school. There is even one in a parish that only has 30 or so houses within walking distance of the school. The nearest town only has 1 CofE school too - and in the 70s it got so crowded that they created separate infant and junior schools on 2 sites. So the rest of the schools in the town were built by the LEA as the town expanded. 1 in the town centre in the 1920s. 2 in the 50s in the middle of a large council housing estates. 2 in the 60s - 1 in a council estate the other in the middle of a new estate of private housing. 1 in the 70s on a large housing estate where one side of the road was council and the other private housing - the school on the council estate side. There is also a RC school.

Fast forward to when we moved here in the early 90s. Many of the homes in the 1950s and 60s housing estates are now privately owned. The 70s housing estate (council side of the road) is a real problem area with lots of crime and drug use. We know know due to league tables that the school in the middle of the private housing estate has the "best" results - the one in the 70s has the "worst" results. Whilst the 70s schools was built for 2 form entry, not many people want to send their children there. All other town schools full. RC school also full - due to non-RC children whose families do not want them to be at 70s school. The village schools do really well - but of course, they are CofE schools! NB: It costs a lot of money to buy a house in a village and the new houses in villages are generally "executive" homes. Parents at the edge of town who prefer their children to go to "good" schools (and who do not depend on public transport) can drive children to village schools. This is also possible if they live on 70s estate, although things get more tricky as all the other schools get fuller and the 70s school gets emptier.

Another decade passes - Labour Govt has lots of money for schools! The 70s school in town still a disaster - special measures/new HT/freshstart/new HT/special measures/new HT ... But never mind because the village schools can get lots of money from the govt to build new classrooms. Even the village school in the tiny hamlet can now cater for 60 children and carloads are being transported through country lanes so they don't have to go to 70s school. Parents at village school up in arms about the 60mph speed limit outside the school. Council tells them there have to be 10 houses in a row before speed limits can be lowered ...

You couldn't make this up.

Whilst I appreciate this is a different issue to those of you living in London, I think the root cause is the same. I think the evidence that Church schools as a collective group do "better" is as much from the fact that in the main, their locations are not representative of England as a whole as it is from the fact that their "ethos" is different. It's almost like a self-perpetuating myth. In our area if you live in a village, the only choice is a CofE school. If you live in the town, unless you live next door to it, not have no chance of getting into the CofE school - even if you wanted to.

I think that everything Gove is doing is going to make the situation worse rather than better. He is clearly afer getting rid of LAs altogether, at which point it will be nobody's job to make sure there are enough schools in sensible locations. But hey ho.

sashh She has bought home leaflets about where the classes are taking place but I have not acted on it and it hasn't been mentioned to my daughter. As I said in my post, I'm happy for her to attend as long as it remains a positive experience. If she comes home saying things like that, then it will be time to change schools. However the impression I have of the school is that it they are quite relaxed in their approach.

sunnyday123 My dd is an only child so the sibling thing doesn't really matter too much luckily.

Mummytime officially faith schools are not allowed to weed teachers out of the recruitment process based on religion, but in practice if they have enough applications from people who say they are christians, why wouldn't they?

If the only reason there are so many faith schools is historical, that's not really good enough. Schools should reflect the population and most of the population is not practising christian.

Everyone is assuming that Faith schools are unfair on those who attend church or are religious, but this is certainly not the case in West Sussex. It has been mentioned that it is unfair for those who are not religious to be attending the school but what about those who are genuinely religious and have not been offered a place at the school.Two of my local C of E schools are Volountary Controlled which means that the local authority decides not the church or the school and I believe many our like this. Many authories around us such as Hampshire have an oversubscription critera that puts geniuine religious needs over distance (out of catchment that is) which I think should be the case. We have been denied a chance for our son to have a religious education. Wrongly people are quick to assume that you are just saying you are Christians just to get into the school ( and there are many who do, frustrating for the rest of us) they forget that many of us actually want a religious education for our child.

I appreciate that some people are genuinely religious, Katydive but if you are denied entry to a faith school I'm sure you have a lot of ways of making up for that - regular church attendance, church outings, Sunday school etc. Lack of religion in school when you want it is easier to make up for than religion when you don't want it. You don't have to undo any of the school's teachings, or do you? I'd be interested to know your point of view. However, I think more and more that school should be secular like in France where they have a complete separation of church and state. There are so many kids of different religions or no religion that it seems perverse to hang onto a system which is based on what our country used to be like 50 years ago.