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

[hopingforbest]

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

[ExitPursuedByABear]

And the answer is?

[JassyRadlett]

Well, I'd like to see all state-funded schools have the same admissions criteria, and I'd like there to be no faith schools. I know I won't get that, though I think it's a pity faith schools weren't nationalised at the same time as the health service.

But the impact on communities - particularly crowded communities where it is difficult to maintain a sense of community - shouldn't be underestimated, and needs to be addressed.

I'm quite attracted by the 'let the faith schools have a percentage of places based on the amount of annual funding they put in.

Yes, I hear the argument that good non-faith schools have people 'buying' their way in by buying homes in guaranteed catchment at an inflated price. Trust me, I get it, I couldn't afford that option.

But neither am I willing to buy my way in by means of hypocritical churchgoing, which is what a lot of people do and is openly tolerated by the church.

I also quite like the entry-by-lottery to oversubscribed schools within a catchment that you see in some parts of the US. Helps with the buying-a-place argument.

[idiuntno57]

my kids go to an outstanding faith based primary. All the kids go to church every week. All the parents are engaged in the church. This translates to school. Schools with committed families have committed pupils. This translates to attainment.

Ban faith based schools if you like but the value of engaged parents us unquantified yet obvious and this is what faith schools get.

[racmun]

The secular society and British Hunanist society campaign against faith schools.

One of the major major problems in this country is the integration of different faiths with each other- how does that happen if you have faith selective schools.

They should all be scrapped

[AryaUnderfoot]

racmun I take it you mean humanist rather than hunanist. I think hunanists would have a very different viewpoint......

[MaryKatharine]

We are practising Catholics. One of the reasons I pay for school is to ensure a secular education. Religion and especially religious instruction is for Church and home and has no place in school. Plus, it is very important to me that my DCs are educated alongside children from a range of different faiths.

[GreenEggsAndNaiceHam]

Oh prh47bridge, I so wish I had rocked up to church with a Vanilla Latte and the Sunday papers.

[AryaUnderfoot]

Mary we are practising Anglicans and always have been.

When I applied for primary school for DS I had the choice between my local 'just below average' community school or my not-so-local outstanding faith school. I chose to send DS to the community school for several reasons:

1. as a local school, I can walk there in less than one minute
   
2. DS could make friends that lived locally (something he couldn't do at nursery
   
3. DS could make friends that were from a different ethnic and religious background (his best friend is JW)
   
   At secondary school, however, he is lucky enough to have the choice between the local outstanding faith school or the local sink comp (on notice to improve). This sink comp is crap in every way - results, value added, progress, you-name-it.
   
   We can't, realistically, afford private education. Given the fact that we do fulfil the faith criteria, where would you send your child to school?
   
   I would gladly send my children to a local comprehensive if it wasn't so absolutely and utterly awful. If it was merely average, I wouldn't mind. It isn't.
   
   Principles are great for those who can afford them.

[MaryKatharine]

Arya, absolutely, in your shoes I would opt for the faith secondary without a doubt. I know I'm lucky enough to have the choice. I would never sacrifice my children's education for my principles.

[wonderingagain]

Why should children have to be taught within the context of a religion?

That's not even a question - there is absolutely no reason why they should.

Keep religion for saturdays and sundays please.

[JassyRadlett]

Idiunt, I'd challenge the idea that only faith schools, or church communities, have engaged and committed parents.

It's great that your faith school hasn't attracted a lot of churchgoing-until-school-place-is-confirmed parents. Really, it is. But the idea that a lot of us who aren't of a particular faith aren't also likely to be committed parents is a little off; without the distorting effect of faith a schools I think you'd get a much better idea of those engagement impacts.

Because, invariably, the commitment of some parents leads them to fake faith for a school place. It happens, a lot. I'm not willing to, but that's me and I'll make it up to my kid in other ways. But meanwhile, my son has half the options when it comes to choosing a school as another child whose parents have chosen to belong to a church.

[GreenEggsAndNaiceHam]

What is hypocritical church going? No one says you have to believe in anything in particular, the admission criteria should be objective.

I am more fed up with the "sibling rule". Where are only children supposed to go to school, I can't borrow a sibling for an hour a month for a year. Hmmm

[wonderingagain]

There is no reason to have a religious context to schools. It adds nothing but confusion. People can do religion at home. Schools are for learning, let's just leave it a that - it's hard enough without these extra layers of philosophical complexity.

[idiuntno57]

jassy not mutually exclusive. I am not saying that just because you are not practising you are not committed at all. Just that the rigour of regular worship breeds a certain type of person. No value judgement made or implied. I am sure that some do it 'just' for the school but as a means to an end they are signing up to something pretty big. I speak as a non believer who is married to a devout believer and for whom church is non negotiable.

[LizzyDay]

"Idiunt, I'd challenge the idea that only faith schools, or church communities, have engaged and committed parents. "

Absolutely. On these threads you always get someone saying 'well why are all you non-Christians so keen to get your children into a faith school anyway' - with the implication being that the faith schools are good because of they are run by and attended by 'principled' Christians. As opposed to the local non-Christian or atheist who are unprincipled, uncaring, phillistine skanks, obviously. It makes me very angry indeed.

[idiuntno57]

not good because of the religion but the rigour. read what I actually said FFS.

[LizzyDay]

And to those saying 'well all you have to do is go to church, it isn't so hard, is it?'

Well it's pretty tricky if you're Muslim or Jewish, for a start.

[CouthyMow]

Yes, but those of us with more than one child DID have to, at first, have to get our eldest child into the school first. At that point, we had just as much chance as someone with an only child of getting that school.

Even parents whose subsequent children get into a school under a sibling rule had to get their first DC in under the same criteria as a parent with an only.

And not having a sibling rule is absurd - parents can't get two children to two different schools two miles apart AT THE SAME TIME, can they?!

And when WE got our oldest child into that school, our oldest child would have been further down the admissions criteria than those in that year group that had older siblings...

[JassyRadlett]

I grew up with the 'rigour' of regular worship. I went to a (private) faith school for 11 years, some of those years as a boarder.

I ultimately reject the notion that regular acts or worship 'breed' greater rigour or commitment than many, many other life choices including but not limited to higher or further education, volunteering or a number of other activities that demand commitment and ultimately benefit society.

Churchgoing with a deadline of your first child getting into a good school is frankly hypocritical, but I can understand why people do it. I don't think it necessarily makes people better or more committed parents than those of us for whom that is an absolute red line.

[ljny]

You pay taxes to have your child educated, and educated they will be. Just not at the school over the road, but the one a few roads away.

A few roads?? Are you joking?? Often, it's many miles. Or an hour's travel.

Bring back neighbourhood schools! Let our children learn togther, let them about each other, and each other's faiths.

It's a sad reflection that any church fills its pews with non-believers who simply want a school place.

[LizzyDay]

If that FFS was to me, we cross posted so no, I hadn't actually read what you had said.

[LizzyDay]

It is utterly ridiculous that children are being driven or bussed miles just so that they can be religiously segregated from children that live in the same street.

[wonderingagain]

I wonder what God would make of it if he came down from the sky and found all these children being educated in a place without His Name on the Front Gates.

I'm surprised they haven't yet been zapped from On High into piles of rubble.

[idiuntno57]

no system is perfect but look at any school and those with the most engaged parents tend to have better outcomes. It is likely, but not exclusively so, that those actively involved in the wider community e.g. (but not exclusively so) are faith based. Because it is a big committment. End Of.

[LizzyDay]

Actually I think being an engaged, caring parent in modern Britain is not likely to be correlated with how religious you are. Yes perhaps more of them might be prepared to do the hypocritical 'bums on pews' thing but their 'rigour' isn't likely to be coming from god. None of the engaged parents I know are genuinely religious.