Faith schools to become MORE selective ...

[jailhouserock]

See the original thread in the In the News section for details, but the Gvt is planning to remove the 50% faith admissions cap on new faith academies.

People of faith have a choice of one third more state funded schools than other people. How is that possibly right? Replace "school" with "hospital" and see how that sounds.

bertrandrussell Faith schools do not exclude those of other faiths or no faith. They have admission criteria that prioritises those of the faith, but anyone is free to apply for a place. If for example it has 300 places, and the first 120 go to practising catholics of some permutation then the 180 are open to anyone as expressed in the admission criteria. Now replace hospital with private school or grammar school and its a whole different ballgame of exclusion and discrimination.....

jailhouse All schools have religious activity - its a requirement! So don't get all uninformed and overexcited about catholic or c of e schools.

People of faith have a choice of one third more state funded schools than other people. How is that possibly right? Replace "school" with "hospital" and see how that sounds.

While superficially, this is true, the investment from the church is significant. The state can't afford to deliver state funded education to all without the support of The Church.

Currently, the LA does not pay market rent to The Church for the use of land and buildings to deliver state funded education.

Indeed, the LA don't even employ the staff who deliver state funded education in Church Aided Schools. And most LAs charge Aided schools a higher price than Community schools for administering HR and payroll, if indeed they will provide the service at all.

It's a compromise.

DS' c of e school had one admission this year on faith grounds... Him.
I think it varies from school to school but admission criteria is:
Looked after children
Siblings
Faith observance
Parish area (distance measured)

jailhouse All schools have religious activity - its a requirement! So don't get all uninformed and overexcited about catholic or c of e schools.

Er, I didn't. In fact that's exactly why there's no excuse for faith schools not to accommodate children of other faith. They can still have a faith ethos, but their main purpose is to deliver education. Families not of the faith can still respect the faith ethos - many people of different faiths and none have enough in common to be able to do that and its what holds our society together.

Currently, the LA does not pay market rent to The Church for the use of land and buildings to deliver state funded education.

That may be the case for many established schools, but it isn't true of the new schools being created now. They are being fully funded by the Government.

Indeed, the LA don't even employ the staff who deliver state funded education in Church Aided Schools. And most LAs charge Aided schools a higher price than Community schools for administering HR and payroll, if indeed they will provide the service at all

Not true. LAs employ all the staff in maintained faith schools, even the voluntary-aided ones. The "voluntary aid" is tiny and certainly doesn't cover staffing costs or HR, just 10% of capital costs.

Anyway, most schools are now becoming academies, after which the LA doesn't employ any of their staff, and 100% of their funding then comes from the Government.

Not true. LAs employ all the staff in maintained faith schools, even the voluntary-aided ones.

You need to check your sources. The Governing Bodies of Voluntary Aided schools are the lawful employer of all staff.

Any state school should take any child, without discrimination.

If faith schools want to practice discrimination, they should not take government money to do so. If people want to send their children to faith schools, they should be prepared to pay for it, and not bugger up the state school system for everyone else.

Discrimination on religious grounds is despicable in any arena, and in education especially so. I say this as someone who practices a faith, and would be ashamed to claim privilege for my child - and discrimination against other children - on the basis of it.

If people want to send their children to faith schools, they should be prepared to pay for it

Ironically, most private faith schools don't discriminate on grounds of faith and many families not-of-the-faith still pay to go there! That's because their own family's ethos is not so different from the faith ethos of the school to create a barrier, and because they are choosing the school for other reasons, such as its academic record or its nurturing environment.

That may be the case for many established schools, but it isn't true of the new schools being created now. They are being fully funded by the Government

More accurately, they may be fully funded by the government. They are eligible for capital funding towards purchasing and refurbishing sites. Revenue funding is on the same basis as for maintained schools. If the church provides land and buildings for the school free of charge the government will not pay any rent.

LAs employ all the staff in maintained faith schools

No they do not. As NNChangeAgain says, for VA schools the staff are employed by the school's governing body, not the LA. LAs employ the staff in VC schools but not VA schools.

The "voluntary aid" is tiny and certainly doesn't cover staffing costs or HR, just 10% of capital costs

VA schools pay at least 10% of any capital costs. At least some also top up the revenue funding. This financial year VA schools will need to come up with around £16.7M as a minimum.

Schools should not be allowed to practise religious discrimination.

In no other place would this be acceptable.

cofe and catholic schools are usually very diverse and only in rare cases fill up on faith grounds.

Completely untrue for where I am.

The Governing Bodies of Voluntary Aided schools are the lawful employer of all staff

Perhaps, but the employment costs are fully financed by the Government via the LA in exactly the same way as other maintained schools.

VA schools pay at least 10% of any capital costs. At least some also top up the revenue funding. This financial year VA schools will need to come up with around £16.7M as a minimum.

On a per-pupil basis, that is a very small amount of money and it is generally covered by "voluntary" parental contributions (which many feel pressurised to pay), either to individual school maintenance funds, or via Diocesan-wide Maintenance funds.

Usual silly arguments abound from people who have some form of prejudice against faith schools.

If you want one you have the option of applying to one. if you don't you don't have to. No-one is being forced, no-one is being prevented.

Practicalities - about a third of schools in the UK are owned by the churches - if they decide to shut up shop the government is stuffed.

As I said upthread - that depends on the LA.
Some have banded service charges, with foundation/aided schools paying more than community schools - others don't provide services such as HR and payroll to aided schools at all.

It costs the state less to fund state education in church aided schools then it would if the school was a community school.

In return for that service, The Church has a say in admissions.
It may not sit comfortably in modern society but the alternative has been considered and rejected by successive governments due to cost.

The Academisation agenda floundered due to The Church involvement in schools, too. Forcing schools to academise would effectively have robbed The Church of their assets.

Given that The Church of England established the precursor to state education in England it seems a bit churlish to exclude them, really.

"... and it is generally covered by "voluntary" parental contributions ..."

That is, from everyone at the school, not just those of the faith.

Usual silly arguments abound from people who have some form of prejudice against faith schools.

Nope. I send my own children to a faith school. I have no prejudice at all in principle - I just don't agree with many of their admissions policies.

If you want one you have the option of applying to one. if you don't you don't have to. No-one is being forced, no-one is being prevented.

Not true. People are being prevented from going to their local state schools because they don't go to church often enough or because they go to the wrong kind of church. That is wrong.

Practicalities - about a third of schools in the UK are owned by the churches - if they decide to shut up shop the government is stuffed.

There is no question of them shutting up shop. The primary purpose of CE faith schools has always been charity, not proselytization, so they will not throw their toys out of the pram because of more open admissions. In fact they are embracing the change!

The RC church's different attitude has been made very clear by the Catholic Education Service, but that is no reason for the Government to roll over and turn back the clock on recent admissions reforms.

Not true. People are being prevented from going to their local state schools because they don't go to church often enough or because they go to the wrong kind of church. That is wrong.

No they're not. They may fall lower on the admissions criteria but they are not being prevented. That's like saying they're being prevented from attending school a because they don't have a sibling there, or they're not LAC.

The RC church's different attitude has been made very clear by the Catholic Education Service, but that is no reason for the Government to roll over and turn back the clock on recent admissions reforms.

Clearly it is, and they have.

If you want one you have the option of applying to one. if you don't you don't have to. No-one is being forced, no-one is being prevented.

You are not prevented from applying.
You are often prevented from getting a place.

Saying they aren't prevented from attending they are just lower down the admissions criteria is ridiculous. Many are prevented from attending cause the school is full of the acceptable religion.

^Usual silly arguments abound from people who have some form of prejudice against faith schools.*

It is not a silly argument to say that these schools are descriminating on the basis of religion. They are doing exactly that. To try to argue otherwise shows ignorance.

^That's like saying they're being prevented from attending school a because they don't have a sibling there, or they're not LAC.*

No, it really isn't. Having a sibling or being in care is not a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act.

t4nut, campaigners on this issue are only asking for something that is a given in most other countries. Very few countries allow the sort of selective admissions policies used by faith schools here.

I live in an area where all schools are oversubscribed. 2/6 schools are CE and have not admitted non-faith children (other than LAC or statemented children) for a number of years. 1/6 is RC and again no non-faith children are admitted. The remaining 3/6 schools have catchments of less than 0.4 miles. We live 0.43 miles from the closest (0.1 miles from the nearest CE school but that is irrelevant).

The demand on primary places is going to cause shortage of places in secondary in a few years. There is a proposal for a new faith school to be opened. I thought at least 50% of places would be available to my heathen dc. But no. Yet again, they may be denied local state education.

Saying they aren't prevented from attending they are just lower down the admissions criteria is ridiculous. Many are prevented from attending cause the school is full of the acceptable religion.

Just like a school can be full of siblings, people closer than you, feeder schools etc. There's always something 'unfair' that stops people getting what they want.

jailhouse the fair admissions campaign are, blunty, a bunch of imbeciles and that article has so many inaccuracies and holes in it its ridiculous. The UK is one of the most open, transparent and fair systems in the world - and one of the best education systems in the word. Don't get me started on the fair admissions campaign - bunch of idiot timewasters who can't argue their way out of a wet paper bag.

You would be OK with admissions criteria that selected on the basis of race and skin colour then?

Just like a school can be full of siblings, people closer than you, feeder schools etc. There's always something 'unfair' that stops people getting what they want

As mentioned up-thread we have Equalities Legislation to ensure that protected characteristics are not discriminated against. The schools admissions rules have a specific opt-out of Equalities Legislation. To very many people that is just not acceptable.

The Accord Coalition, which has been lobbying and campaigning on this issue much longer than the smaller (but louder) Fair Admissions Campaign has a large number of high profile Members and Supporters. Presumably t4nut wouldn't dismiss them all as "imbeciles".