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

[hopingforbest]

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

gruffalocake, have you read this thread? Your points have been pretty much dealt with already. The proposal is not about abolishing all faith schools but making admissions fairer. People of faith currently have far more access to schools than others in that they can opt for a faith school if that is their preferred option, but if there is another better non-faith option, there is nothing to stop them from going for that instead. I doubt if atheists particularly want to send their children to faith schools; I think BayJay has really hit the nail on the head with, 'it will be the agnostics and non-church-going believers who will benefit most if admissions are opened up.

As an atheist, I do not wish to send my child to a faith school - and if I was forced to by dint of it being the only school the council gave me a place at, I would be having a fit at the slightest attempt of indoctrination.

What I do want is to have a real choice of 6 local schools, not find that my child is automatically excluded for applying for 4 schools that my taxes go towards funding, thus leaving me with a very real chance that she could be sent to a sink school miles away.

The idea that religious ethos = good morals is frankly a joke looking at all the poor children who have been beaten and buggered at faith schools. Not that it doesn't happen in non faith schools, but claiming the moral high ground is a bit rich.

It is the covert selection which leads to some faith schools having better results and being more desireable, not the praying.

Pyrrah, as you said, abuse can happen at any type of school. In the past most schools for the poor and vulnerable were church schools so its tragic, but possibly not surprising if those types of school hid a lot of horror stories.

Gruffalo, if you live in an area like mine (rural) there's basically a choice of good faith schools and not so good faith schools, or having to travel quite a distance. So people have to play the game simply in order to not end up with their child at a poor faith school or a school way away from their local community.

Secular schools are not a neutral thing
yes they are - that's exactly what they are (or would be, if they actually existed!). Secularism is not anti-religious. It is merely 'no privilege, no discrimination' - and no indoctrination in any direction.

grimma I could have written your first paragraph only replaced central London with the rural. The problem must be very wide spread.

Gruffalo - "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?"

Probably not - as others have said it's much more likely to be something to do with middle-class selection by stealth in areas where school places are at a premium.

As a matter of interest though, would you be in favour of state-funded faith schools of all flavours opening up in your local area? For it to be fair, major faiths would have to be represented in each area of course - maybe Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Catholic, C of E, Sikh, Evangelicals, Jehovah's Witnesses? And if they did, would you not feel a leetle bit pissed off if all your nearest ones were not of 'your' religion and rejected your children because you didn't subscribe to their beliefs and attend their places of worship, leaving you to travel miles to a school which deigned to let your child in despite their being a 'child of a heathen / person of the wrong religion'?

Totally agree that, if we are stuck with faith schools, then access should be much, much fairer.

Yes Whickles, I think that's what is genius about this campaign. It's not asking to get rid of faith schools (although obviously there's an argument for this), it's asking them to open up their admissions. I think it's much harder for anyone to argue against this in a convincing way. Certainly nothing on this thread has done so.

There are plenty of faith schools that don't perform as highly as community schools, so the argument that somehow their 'ethos' promotes achievement is a nonsense. If you eliminate some of the harder to reach pupils (recent refugees, those from chaotic families etc) then it's not surprising that the academic achievement is higher. If the admissions were opened up fully (or at least 50% open places would be a start), then the results might prove this to be true.

It's unfair that community schools are under such pressure to take on more classes and more children in each class:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23006196
www.standard.co.uk/news/education/london-primary-schools-places-crisis-8671272.html

I was thinking that there should be a financial incentive - where church schools open up admissions and/or expand the number of community places the government could waive the VAT they are meant to pay on building costs which can also be expensive for LAs. But many voluntary aided schools have converted to academy status (248 primary schools and 169 secondary schools) which means they get 100% of capital costs funded by the state. So no more VAT problem yet no equal access or advantage for the wider community.

Yet they are NOT subject to the 50% cap on faith admissions and many have the most selective admissions of all (Cardinal Vaughan, the Oratory, etc). And because they are not maintained schools the LA cannot even ask them to expand. This is a real scandal and the next government must close that loophole as quickly as possible.

My children attend a Catholic school in Northrtn Ireland. We loosely practice, attend mass infrequently. The school criteria does not mention religion at any point. Criteria ia roughly 1, siblings, 2, first borns, 3 identufied radius x, identified radius y. In case of over-subscription randomised alphabetical surname e.g j, k, a...which is provided to prospective parents pre-application. The school is outstanding, massively over-subscribed and attracts non catholics because of this. Everyone accepts the Catholic ethos and in return get a first class school.

My point is that if i, or my neighbours, choose this faith school for reasons other than faith (geography, quality, whatever) then we are accepting that ethos but are not obliged to follow it ( or even pretend to, there's practising muslim children in this school) I wonder would this approach be more acceptable in the rest of the UK?

Sounds good HappyHugs. Very different to here! Which Diocese is it? (if you're able to say without identifying the school)

Down and Connor Bayjay.

An admissions policy like that wouldn't be allowed here in England or Wales. This is the national policy of the Catholic Education Service (see pg 14):

"To ensure that Catholic children are given priority in the allocation of school places and benefit from this provision, the admission criteria of Catholic schools should be formulated in such a way that Catholic children and young people are always given priority in the allocation of school places over and above all other applicants: ?A Catholic school is never simply a school for those who choose it. A Catholic school is always, first of all, a school for Catholics. Of course, others who seek a place at the school are most welcome as long as space permits. They are fully part of the school community and greatly treasured."

But if legislative changes required it then thry would surely have to change their policy. Isn't it peculiar that the only part of the uk where evidence of religious persuasion is not required is NI?

"But if legislative changes required it ..."

Yes, I think it demonstrates why the current Coalition policy to "facilitate inclusive admissions in as many of these schools as possible" isn't enough. If its not going to happen voluntarily then it will need legislation changes. They won't be easy, but if politicians start to realise that popular opinion is behind groups like the Fair Admissions Campaign, it's a step in the right direction.

All the militant ant-faith language that sometimes surfaces when the subject is discussed, and the defensive reaction to that, doesn't help because it muddies the waters and scares the politicians away from what is otherwise a popular and worthy cause. If change is going to happen it needs to be handled sensitively and respectfully.

By the way, research conducted for the OECD looked at 32 countries and found only 4 that apply religious selection in schools: England (& Wales), Estonia, Ireland and Israel.

What Would Jesus Do? I suspect he would want all children to have access to brilliant education & wouldn't give a toot about their faith. But obviously the catholic church knows better...

Ithaka, I think its fair to say the main motivation of the Catholic Education Service in having that policy is to ensure that there are enough places in Catholic Schools for all the Catholic children that want them. However, it does represent a privileged position over everyone else. There's no equivalent means of making sure that there are enough schools with a Science specialism / Outstanding Drama department / Fantastic sports facilities / [substitute your own preference here] for all who want them, and it would be chaos if such a mechanism was introduced. The Free School policy does go some way in that direction, but has been very controversial and certainly can't satisfy everyone.

I think if the Catholic Education Service used the Free School policy to create new schools in fair competition with other groups then that would be fair enough, but they've rejected the idea on the grounds that it would tie them to 50:50 admissions.

Ithaka: quite. And at what age do we determine the faith of young children below the age of voting. Surely Jesus would want to encourage young children into the fold rather than writing them off at age 5 before they are mature enough to decide what they believe in just because their parents ended up not bel

onging to an organised religion

Just adding to my last post to say that there are parent and teacher groups that are setting up Catholic free schools, with 50:50 admissions, so it can be done, but when its the Catholic Church authorities that are setting up new schools they insist on the traditional Voluntary Aided model that gives them up to 100% Catholic admissions.

for all the Catholic children that want them
(or rather, for all the children of Catholic parents who want them )

To be honest, BayJay, I feel even 50-50 admissions are unfair, particularly in a free school which will be completely funded by the taxpayer - ie, the Church will not be able to say that i donated the land/has maintenance costs etc. Clearly, basing school admissions on faith is pretty insidious and I can't understand for a moment why this government - or any other - is allowing more schools to open on this basis.

It's not just unfair, it's downright discriminatory and should be illegal. No other publicly funded service would be run in this way.

But it seems that because of the monolith that is the religious establishment currently in place, the 50:50 'concession' is all they are likely to make anytime soon.

it's bad enough that the 'old' system worked this way, but it is a scandal that new schools are being opened up and allowed to follow suit - it's blatantly obvious that the faith groups are motivated by the desire for political power and influence and not an interest in children or teaching.

As someone mentioned schools in Northern Ireland, I thought people might be interested to see wha t Barack Obama had to say about them on his recent visit. This particular section of his speech doesn't seem to have been widely reported in the media (at least in GB, maybe has been in NI?).

This is of course one of the reasons for wanting fair admissions. There are schools in mainland GB which are also hugely racially segregated because of the religious selection, with predictable results for community cohesion.