campaign for fairer admissions to faith based primary schools - your views...

[hopingforbest]

... on this www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22798206?

"If some schools are "faith" schools, then the others must be "non-faith", mustn't they?"

No. Schools are either for the whole community (the "community schools") or for a sub-section of the community (the "faith schools").

All community schools in this country are required to hold a daily act of worship broadly in the Christian tradition - there's a whole separate debate about the rights and wrongs of that, and the extent to which it is ignored (basically it depends on the Headteacher's views). Many community schools also have prayer rooms, or multi-faith rooms, where students who want to practice their faith during school time can do so. Their ethos is one of community tolerance and respect, not "non-faith". RE lessons in community schools teach children about different faiths and encourage them to discuss their own beliefs. The same is true of RE lessons in many faith schools. The difference is that in a community school the voices contributing to those discussions are more varied.

I don't like grammar schools either.

(And before anyone asks, YES my DCs have been given spots at grammar schools so it is not about me being bitter)

Thank you, yet again, BayJay, for a helpful and informative post.

(Clearly, I still have a lot to learn about this country, though I've lived here for a very long time!)

There's a difference between being a
"non-faith" school
and a
non "faith school"

a non faith school is just a school.

Here are our choices in our part of outer London:

1. Take a chance that DD will get into our nearest school, which is a community school. The school is at the end of our road, but I put her chances at about 50% given the massively increasing birthrate and the volume of construction of new housing.
2. Pretend that we have religious faith over an extended period of time, to increase DD's chances of getting into the next nearest schools, which are CofE. That would mean going to church without DH, as he wouldn't be prepared to pretend. We would also (presumably) have to have a christening, at which we would have to lie about our lack of belief and ask two friends to similarly lie about their lack of belief. What a great example we would be setting DD!
3. Pay for a private primary. Even if used as a back up option that means being prepared to pay one term's fees.
4. Move house (ironically we live in an area to which people move because the schools are good).

A significant number of children locally are not getting a reception place at all, or not until after the term has started. As a teacher myself potentially I could have to leave my job if DD is allocated a place on the opposite side of the borough or not allocated one at all.

I will be supporting the campaign and also joining the BHA one, but unfortunately as others have said the more pressing problem is the lack of school places. I don't know why LAs can't require developers to make provision for schools -- didn't Section 64 cover that back in the day? When did that change?

"atheist" schools already exist. All non-faith schools are "atheist".
Completely untrue. There aren't even many properly secular ones (please do not conflate 'atheist' and 'secular') though a few headteachers manage to come reasonably close to this ideal. Most 'non-faith' state primaries still persist in the subtle indoctrination of there being a creator god. And (LEA controlled ones anyway) follow the SACRE for balance religious education - which is generally a good thing but most curricula miss out much mention of non-theistic worldviews. So, even in the 'non-faith' schools its still largely weighted in favour of the theists.

One battle at a time!

Phiney I think the government has ripped up the planning rules and are now making it up as they are going along. Get Boris onto it. Issues to do with London schools tend to be better dealt with by the GLA - they set up the pan london admissions system helped co-ordinate things across councils. Also, Boris won't be afraid of upsetting the God Squad where others might be more deferential.

I'd be interested in getting Boris to do some work, but how?

Whilst not the most pressing issue wrt faith schools, we live in a rural area with about 50% of village schools being CofE. I want DD to go to her local school, but as we do not follow a faith, I do not want her to go to a CofE school. I do not agree with the inclusion of faith representatives on the governing body of such schools and if she went to the village CofE school I think it would be difficult to object to significant faith based activities as I would have "chosen" to send her there. Therefore we had to rule out those villages when choosing where to live.

If there isn't really a choice about school, the school should not be a faith school.

Contact your London Assembly member, make them do some work!

www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/members

cheers wondering

Drives me crazy when people think that morals = religious. I certainly don't need the idea of Big Brother watching to make me behaved in a civilised manner. IIRC, atheists are the smallest category in prisons, and certainly in the USA, born-again Xtians have the highest divorce rates.

Where I live in Central London, there are 6 schools that are reasonably close. Two are CofE, two are RC and two are community schools. There is no chance of getting a place at the CofE or RC schools unless you are baptised and practising - they take children from outside the local area and there are no distance allocated places left. With the two community schools, one we are 250m outside the 'last distance offered' and we scrapped into the other by 20 metres (and it's not even a school I would actively choose to send DD to).

They're currently building a new development of 120 units - most of which are designated 'family homes' - next door to the school we got a place at. As of next year, no-one in my street will get a local school unless they are religious, and I have no idea how far they will have to travel as all the schools in this area are oversubscribed.

Given that this is an area of central London with a shortage of spaces, there isn't much hope of getting another school nearby either as they are also over-subscribed. We're on the waiting list for one of them - number 52 as of last week.

I'm sure that councils could carry out some form of compulsory rental of church school properties. I very much doubt the churches will want to taken on 100% of costs for a lot of empty buildings and so I imagine they would settle for very little.

In many areas it's not a case of wanting a place at the faith school because of the yummy mummies and amazing Ofsted, it's a case of not wanting your child to spend an hour every day travelling to a school that no-one wants, thus excluding the child from their local area, local friends and making family life much more complicated.

If the churches wish to run their schools on a discriminatory basis then they should contribute financially accordingly - a school that takes 50% of children based on faith should pay 50% of the costs, a school that takes 90% should pay 90% and so on. If that is unaffordable then they should open their doors to all.

My daughter started at local rc school, approx 50/50 maybe even 40%rc takes kids from wide area.

For some reason daughters year 2006 born was undersubscribed by 3 had good ofsted at time.

We coe but the 3nearest coe schools were too far away for us to get in and controlled by council lea.

Worked on distance and they were oversubscribed so we realised we stood no chance of coe school.

so eldest went catholic had to submit baptism certificate,

The nearby really welly performing infant/junior 10mins from house less than 1/2mile we stood no chance getting in.

So rc seemedonly optionas nearest community primary was dreadful.

Eventually we did get place year 2 at nearby coe school.

but as im far away i have no sibling link for younger 2 and we cant afford to move.

so we bit stuck.

Im fully aware my church attendance needs to improve as want to sed mine to faith seniors which requires 3years regular church attendance so 3times per month hubby works retail so works weekends and controlling 2 toddlers is difficuly one nativity middle child ran of with baby jesus!

All 3 are baptised but no help with getting them all place at sae primary.

Poor people can go church they cant afford to live in affleunt area near best performing comunity school so think faith as to be more fair than wealth.

Both the rc and coe school had kids of other faiths
learnt about other faiths.

have frends at neary community school anti fath annoyed the school doing so much christian stuff.

at rc school it had high esl due to polish intake.

Poor people can go church
often not so easily as rich people though, and not if they're the 'wrong' faith or none. The original church schools were meant to serve the children of the poor in the parish - it might be good if they could come up with some way of really doing that instead of by church attendance which is self-serving. Discriminating against the children whose parents can't for whatever reason play the game seems pretty unchristian to me.

We have had single parents turn up to church with very ill children with chicken pox. The parents had to attend or their child would be unlikely to get a school place anywhere local. They had no one to leave the children with.

We have nurses who could attend when church criteria was one sunday in four, but not now it's one in two. They work.

"Both the rc and coe school had kids of other faiths"

Mam29, that is good, but its only the case because they were either under-subscribed by Catholics (in the case of the RC one) or had a percentage of open admissions (in the case of the oversubscribed CE one).

Many Church of England schools already have a proportion of open admissions, and they're moving in the direction of more open admissions. All new faith academies must have no more than 50% of places allocated on the basis of religious practice, and some are 100% open. The Diocese of London has said it is encouraging its existing schools to move in that direction too. The Fair Admissions Campaign is therefore pushing at a partially open door as far as the Church of England is concerned.

The Catholic Education Service takes a different view, and will always prioritise places for Catholic children above others (even when that means excluding siblings of non-Catholic children). However, even they are obliged by law to offer surplus places to non-Catholics, so if they're under-subscribed by Catholics then others will be able to access places. Latest figures from the Catholic Education Service show "almost 20% of [RC] schools had more than half non-Catholic pupils". Of course it's not clear how many of those non-catholic families would have preferred a community school if they'd been given the option.

Its really good news that the Diocese of London is moving towards fairer admissions.

Rules must change in London in particular. Interesting that c of e base their admissions points on how long a family has been on the electoral roll. Great solution for excluding all those recently annexed Eastern Euro countries.

I do wish someone had the balls to tackle the segregation by stealth that currently exists. The government has all the powers to do this by setting rules based on social inclusion and aking all admissions rules focus on that. Until we do this we are actively encouraging segregation and inequality. How is that defensible in 2013?

And it's the last thing Jesus would have wanted.

Ah but wonderingagain "suffer the little children to come unto me once their parents have attended church for 40 weeks a year, for not less than two years before the date of application"

Lol Greeneggs!

It seems to have gone quiet since I mentioned Jesus.

Wonderingagain, the Fair Admissions Campaign is supported by religious people as well as non-religious people, for exactly that reason. Here is what the Christian think-tank Ekklesia have to say on the subject: www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/18500.

Few thoughts...

1. the problem people have with faith schools is that they are often better than the other options available. Wouldn't it be better to improve secular school options instead of all this vitriol? I don't think this conversation would be happening if faith schools were primarily sink schools.

2. I like how pps have said 'we are a multi faith society therefore we should abolish all faith schools' do you see the irony? Secular schools are not a neutral thing they are a different option. People of faith should have as much access to schooling appropriate for them as anybody else.

3. it might be worth thinking about why faith schools often do better than non faith schools to the extent that atheists want to send their children there. Might the ethos have something to do with it?

Gruffalocake, others have made the same point, so suggest you look back at the answers.

There are many good community schools too, and in some areas an undersupply of community places, so the reasons why people want to open up faith school admissions are many and varied.

As I said previously, if something is 'good' then it should be shared. If it is fundamentally good (rather than simply 'exclusive') then its ethos won't be undermined by sharing it with people who go to church less often. You'll probably find many atheists won't be interested in the places if they have a choice. It will be the agnostics and non-church-going believers who will benefit most if admissions are opened up.

Completly agree with this, its disgusting. why is a child, who may grow up to be a priest or a vicar or the bloody pope be discriminated against just because his mother happens to be an atheist. If I opened a free school and disallowed anyone with parents who go to church from applying there would be an outcry. And quite rightly so. The sooner this discriminatory and archaic practice is outlawed the better (in a country with less that 10 per cent church attendance, how is it justifiable!)