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

[hopingforbest]

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

[PostBellumBugsy]

Gwendoline - even if you do go to church that is no guarantee you'll get into the school. I live in the very populated SE of England & despite going to church every Sunday for 4 years, my DS didn't get in to the school because there were 26 siblings in the year he applied, meaning only 4 places available for non-siblings & there were 4 other church attenders who lived closer to the school than we did. We lived less than one mile from the school and of the 4 local primaries to us, it was the 2nd closest. The nearest was also a faith school, but a different denomination to ours, so we didn't stand a hope of getting into that one.

For the local faith secondary school, it is not enough just to go to church every Sunday you have to be on the Anglican electoral role to stand any kind of a chance of getting in!!!!!!

There are also areas, were the only local school is a faith school meaning that even though you are of a different faith or have no specific faith, your child has to go to a faith school. That is not right either. Faith is a personal or family matter - it is not something that the state should promote or pay for.

I have long since stopped practising any kind of faith, but all those examples just highlight to me how absurd it is that the State makes provision for this kind of exclusion, when it should be about fair access for all children.

[prh47bridge]

All schools are required by law to have a daily assembly of a broadly Christian nature. Many schools, including faith schools, ignore this. But it is quite possible that the "endless assemblies and praying" that you complain about would also happen in the local community schools.

Given how few people are Christians

According to the British Social Attitudes survey around 45% of the population consider themselves Christian (that's actually lower than the census which came up with a figure of 59%). You are on stronger ground regarding Church attendance - only around 6% attend regularly although over double that regard themselves as practising Christians.

[Blueskiesandbuttercups]

People put CofE down out of habit.

[CouthyMow]

Titchy - in some areas, there is ONE village school, which is CofE. And often, the nearest community school is 15+ miles away in the nearest town.

And these schools often give priority to those worshipping in the local CofE church, then to those of other faiths, then and only then, IF there are any places left, they will be opened up to others in the community. Often the school in the next village is the same, too.

Not everybody lives in an area where there is more than one school, or a community school anywhere remotely close by.
You are obviously only thinking about London.

[prh47bridge]

ReallyTired - I'm not sure what you disagree with.

I did not say that LAC children do well at school. I asked for justification for your statement that a huge proportion of them are statemented. You have not provided anything to support that statement. I can provide sources to show that LAC children are heavily outnumbered by statemented children.

And your last two paragraphs really don't make sense. First you say that LAC children have been unlucky which is clearly true. Then you go on to ask why it is important to me that LAC children are top of the list. To state the obvious, because they've been unlucky and this goes some small way to redress the balance.

[Blueskiesandbuttercups]

Prh I'm sure there would be collective worship but I'm suspecting it wouldn't be CoE,bible biased.I'm suspecting there would be less praying, less utterly tedious sermons from the local vicar(which my dc sre training themselves to tune out of)and more quiet reflection.

I suspect children will have a balanced and equal amount of time spent on all religions as opposed to a CofE bias.

[ReallyTired]

Would Jesus have wanted faith schools? Surely faith schools should love their neighbours and allow them to attend their nearest school.

love your neighbour as yourself

Incidently my family has excellent church attendence but we have chosen to send our children to community schools. Our community primary school was until recently more religious than any faith school.

[CouthyMow]

Blueskies - I wouldn't count on that. My DC's currently attend a Community School, and the local vicar comes and does sermons assemblies on a very regular basis.

My DS1 upset the HT when, in one assembly, they were asked if they had any questions, and my DS1 asked why, if they were taught to only believe what they had proof of in science, and that anything else was a hypothesis, why should he believe in God without any proof..."

He also asked why the school explained to them in science that the universe was created during the Big Bang, yet then invited in the local vicar to preach about how God created the world, and did the HT not see that as a little confusing and contradictory for the DC's...

My DS1 is a git when it comes to religion. His description of religion? Something dreamed up by man to explain scientific phenomena before science had caught up and found the real reason, it's just a construct to allow people who didn't have scientific answers to their questions to feel a bit if peace, it's no different to having an imaginary friend"

Gah.

[PostBellumBugsy]

arf @ ReallyTired loving thy neighbour!

[ReallyTired]

I can give you some sats for West Sussex.

"The proportion of LAC in West
Sussex who have a statement of special educational
needs has fluctuated between 30 and 40%, and has
consistently been higher than the national figure.
In the last eight years the proportion of LAC
achieving five A*-G GCSE grades has also fluctuated
between 30 and 50%, whereas the proportion of all
children in West Sussex achieving the same has
consistently been above 90"

see page 5

www2.westsussex.gov.uk/yourcouncil/ppri/sci/PDF_files/needs_lac_summ.pdf

I am not sure what the national figure is for the proportion of LAC children nationally who are statemented. Anedotely the special school I used to work at had a lot of LAC children.

[tethersend]

ReallyTired, I am an advisory teacher for LAC, so I certainly appreciate your point- however, prh47 is simply pointing out the letter of the law, which is that statemented children get first priority.

In practice, I have never known a school to be full of statemented children, so the children I work with can obtain a place at any non-faith school we choose. The fact that statemented children get first priority (or have a school named on their statement) is academic, as it does not affect a Looked After Child obtaining a place.

As far as faith schools go, I would like to see them forced to waive the faith-based entry requirements for LAC, whose early childhood is often chaotic (ruling out baptism) and frequent placement moves can mean that a sustained period of attendance at a particular church is impossible.

But then I would like to see faith schools abolished, full stop.

[Blueskiesandbuttercups]

Couthy we had that assembly,the amount of parents shaking their heads and raising eyebrows really makes my blood boil.Why do we have to put up with this shite?

I'm particularly annoyed that as unmarried parents my kids have to go to a school which believes they(and a large number of other kids) shouldn't exist.

The year 2 mock wedding my dc had to take part in was the lowest point- wrong!

Oh and the funniest thing.After our shite Ofsted the church sent it's own team to do their own inspection which they rated Outstanding.Guess which report is all over the school website?Isn't dishonesty wrong,even for Christians?

[mrsshackleton]

Completely agree, faith schools are a shocking, divisive anachronism that are allowed to exist because politicians send their dcs to them and then play the "my child is state educated card."

[Strix]

Jesus did preach love your neighbour and did not preach exclusion. Speaking of which, he absolutely did not say anything about excluding the neighbor's neighbor. So let's talk about "community". I don't think my faith school / community should have rigid geographical boundaries. That seems unchristian and is seems discriminitory on the basis of class.

At least with some faith schools and some "community" schools we have a balance of selection criteria, which on the whole makes our opportunity for a better education fairer across the board.

[Blueskiesandbuttercups]

But many areas only have church schools.

My community only has a church school.It is my community,the church doesn't own it.

Also wondering what church schools have done in a positive way for communities in say Northern Ireland.

[prh47bridge]

Blueskiesandbuttercups - I should introduce you to one of the community schools near me. Lots of praying (more so than in any of the local faith schools) and plenty of sermons from the local vicar or other ministers. No idea whether or not they are tedious, though.

[Blueskiesandbuttercups]

I've taught in several non church schools that have a very balanced approach.

[AryaUnderfoot]

Totally agree on most points, tiggytape.

I would say, however, that I think MN is far more 'anti' faith schools than the population as a whole.

In my (limited) experience, the vast majority are totally ambivalent towards faith schools unless their children don't have any access to 'good' or 'local' schools themselves.

[Blueskiesandbuttercups]

I think ambivalence is being confused with resignation,if you have no choice or anybody to do anything about it you poke up with it.

[AryaUnderfoot]

I am not confusing ambivalence with resignation.

DS' school (about 350 on roll) has an intake which is enthically very representative of the population as a whole. In DS' class alone, there is a JW, several HIndus and several Muslims, as well as Christians and children whose parents have no faith.

The school has an assembly, once per week, which is most definitely Christian in nature. This is a community school and not a faith school. No children in the school are currently withdrawn from collective worship.

That is what I mean by ambivalence. It would be resignation if the children couldn't be withdrawn.

[Abra1d]

Lots of the Catholic schools I know were built by communities who were often very poor, sometimes barely literate themselves. They were not part of the Establishment, but enabled children to better themselves. Land was bought by the church (ie, the congregation) to build on. Attributes such as discipline and hard work were encouraged.

So why don't those who don't like faith schools come together and start their own schools? It's never been a better time, what with Academy status being available n'all. If a community of barely literate Irish builders and their families could do it 150 years ago, why can't C21st media savvy, generally better off and very literate middle-class people do this?

[Blueskiesandbuttercups]

Agra not all church schools are like that.

And re starting up your own errr most of us work and pay taxes to have our kids educated.Why should we have to start up our own.

And don't get me started on free schools which are a complete mismanagement of funds and resources.

[JassyRadlett]

I just want my kid to be able to go to one of his local schools, but all are so massively oversubscribed that he doesn't really have a monkey's. the two nearest to us are faith schools, one with a 50% non-faith intake but last year after siblings and churchgoing children there was zero children accepted on distance alone.

The other is very similar.

Further away schools all have a tiny catchment, we haven't got a chance. A friend has just been offered a place at a school 6 miles away. In suburban London. That's how faith schools distort communities and catchments.

I grew up in Australia. I still find the idea that the state funds faith schools and is allowed to select on that basis quite bizarre. I know it's a legacy of decisions made when compulsory education was introduced, but it's still abhorrent to me. Where I grew up, if you wanted a religious education you paid for it.