Catholic School - Primary

[4goingon14]

My DD has been allocated a Catholic Primary school for reception. We are not Catholic, we are not religious and yet this is the school that has been allocated by the council. We live in a terrible catchment area where schools are highly oversubscribed...our lowest place on a state school waiting list is 59 for a school the same distance to us as the Catholic school.

At first I did not mind too much as I did not think that there would be too much difference and I have heard that usually Catholic schools are very good. Both DH and I are expats and the Catholic schools in our home countries do not have the entry requirements that they do here (baptismal certificate, church going, etc) nor do they teach religion classes. They only major differences are more holidays and the option to attend Mass for things like Easter etc.

However hearing other people speak about the Catholic school system here I am getting increasingly worried. I have heard about children praying each day, preparing for Holy Communion, having to attend church services and taking religion classes. Is this true? How do we handle this as non-religious people?

Do we have no leg to stand on with the council in terms of a our DD not attending a religious school?

Fleetofhope - "vaguely practising Catholic". What does this mean in the context of some of your other comments: "hocus pocus" (actually perjorative to Catholics"), "pusing of God stuff"; risk of children becoming "pious" albeit briefly; "you don't have to subscribe to it".

If there is a call for a new catholic school then where do all the catholic children go at the moment? Hopefully when it gets established, religious types will be flocking to the door and you will be able to move your dd to a normal school as places are left vacant. My own experience of religious schools is that oversubscribed means religion saturates the curriculum but undersubscribed means sod the religious stuff we need to get children through the door. So on that basis maybe there won't be too much of it in the first year. If I was in your position I would be really annoyed though that the only available place was a catholic school and there's no appeal on faith grounds. What a ridiculous country we live in.

My ds1 goes to a Catholic school, we are not religious.

Yes they pray and they attend mass sometimes. Yes there is religious education. However, mainly it all translates into a wonderful, supportive environment wher all the children care for each other. I see no problem with my ds learning bible stories. His "jesus book" that he does his work in for religious education includes some bible story based work but also work about family and community. Most religious stuff happens in the run up christmas or easter and personally i think it important to know the reasons behind the celebrations. At home we add other celebrations ans talk about the solstice and so on.

Remeber all schools are supposed to provide a daily act or worship and a broadly christian ethos so really there isn't that much difference.