Admission to Catholic school

[Evuliux]

I just wonder if anyone could advice with re to admission to Catholic school. The main criteria is 'baptised children', however, my little girls is getting baptised in May. We are catholic family, attend parish church(which is linked to the school) regularly, church priest has signed the forms required with re to attendance etc. However, when I took the supplementary forms in I've been told that unfortunately we will be at the bottom of consideration list simply because my little one hasnt been baptised yet. Surely, it would be more important that she would start school in September as baptised child and us attending church regulary and having a date set with the priest etc would be enough of an indication to meet the criteria. Has anyone by any chance had similar experience or have any advice? Many thanks!

I'm afraid I have to add to the chorus of cynics. As a Catholic, it was important to me to baptise both my children as soon as possible (4 months for both mine). There are a large number of baptisms aged four in our area too - the school is a very good one. Hmmmmmm

And I agree Bertrand which is why I said none later than about 18months. usually around the first birthday.

It’s one of the reasons why people are cynical about schools that insist on baptism before the age of 6months as a criteria.

To all those questioning our faith and saying we want to get her baptised purely for school-no, we are not getting her baptised purely to get into school, otherwise we would bring it forward and do it now, but we are not doing it and baptising her when we feel is the right time for us, as a family. Both my husband and I were baptised when we were 3-4years old and felt we want our girls to be older to get baptised so they can remember it and have a better understanding about it. Where we are from it’s normal these days to baptise children later and there are no age limit.

Devout or rubbish Catholic, if you want your child baptised, you do it as soon as you can after they are born. I have genuinely never heard of anyone other than a convert having their child or themselves baptised after that. By the way, I obviously have nothing against converts apart from Tony Blair who should have had the balls to do it when PM. But I digress.

Op, where are you from? I am unfamiliar with the tradition of late baptism for children.

Confirmation is the sacrament that you enter into to have a better understanding of your faith, not baptism.

“we want our girls to be older to get baptised so they can remember it and have a better understanding about it.”

I think you are confusing baptism and confirmation. But anyway, Catholic schools require infant baptism - which is the norm in the Catholic faith.

For most (all) practising Catholics it would be very strange indeed to delay baptism until the age of three or four
I'm afraid claiming that it's part of your culture won't cut any ice with school admissions.
Most schools stipulate baptism before six months, so unless you choose an under subscribed school you will not meet the criteria.
And I'm amazed that the priest signed your reference knowing your almost school aged child wasn't baptised??

Not sure Catholic schools require infant baptism but it is the norm to have it all sorted come school application time.
Are you from a non- European country, op? If so, it really sounds like you do things very differently there.

Where I said "most" in my above post - there are some who stipulate before three months.
None will entertain three years...

OP, please ignore the unkind comments from other posters. I am familiar with traditions of later baptism in other churches. There are many flavours of Christianity and many traditions in Catholicism. I hope your dc get the school place you would like, and that the baptism service is memorable for them.

(And Jesus was presented in the temple at 12 years old, and baptised as an adult)

Where are you from, op? I'm really curious. The rules of the Catholic faith don't tend to vary according to location. As you should know if you've been associated with the church longer than a couple of months as long as you claim.
Your anxiousness that your dd should start school as a baptised child doesn't really tie in with your laxness in not bothering for the last 4 years...

Don't kid yourself that Catholic = "better" school. My DD's primary has fended off "special measures" but it was a close run thing for a while. The secondary school that our primary is a feeder school for is in special measures. The secondary I went to in a different town has also been in special measures.

Op isn't trying to gain admission to the school of "another church", Simultaneous, where obviously there will be different traditions. She should be familiar with the traditions of the church she claims such an affinity with.

Sim, while I know that there are other Christian denominations that have later baptism, I am very old and very widely travelled and I have never come across late baptism in a Catholic tradition. In fact, most other European origin traditions think England is too lax. It may be a stereotype understanding on my part but I have come across the same view of English Catholics from African or East Asian Catholics as well.
I would really like to know where the op is from, broadly, because it is totally new to me.
Obviously I know about the Age at which Jesus was baptised.

There are Catholics who baptise later, and people like me who can't get their arse into gear to organise it early
BUT I'm afraid English Catholic school admission generally uses baptism as it's primary criterion, and in oversubscribed areas early baptism is prioritised over later baptism.

Yes, there are many baptism traditions in different Christian faiths. The catholic tradition is for infant baptism.

in some oversubscribed areas some schools require baptism before 6 months. In most schools I don’t think there is any such stipulation (Not that I’m going to check the criteria of every school ). 3 would be fine for those schools, but it has to be done before the deadline for submitting the form in order for it to be considered for school admissions.

Not sure "I'm going to be a Catholic, honest" will work. You will probably end up a much better Catholic than me (not difficult) but I doubt they'd take it on trust. They have all sorts of admin boxes to tick themselves with the local authority in terms of the proportion of baptised Catholics they have (although that may change shortly).

What sort of admin boxes?

You have to justify your status to both the Local Education Authority and the local diocese (who pays for building maintenance - it doesn't come out of Council tax for Catholic schools).

Baptism is for babies then they do confirmation when they are old enough to understand the faith and confirm it.
Where are you from OP?

It wouldn't count where I live. You would come under the last criteria. Very strange to wait until that age to baptise.

This may be unusual and has only recently been introduced (for current admission round), but our school has a clause that if you are a catholic family but your child is not (yet) baptised by the application deadline, then that CAN be acceptable if you explain the special circumstances that have caused this, and a priest signs this declaration.

For instance if you adopted a child and are pre-adoption order so cannot baptise without the birth parents' consent which may not be obtainable (or the adoption order is fairly recent and you haven't had time to arrange baptism in the phase between AO and school application deadline; having other things on your mind perhaps, e.g. settling the traumatised child into your family may have higher priority that getting them baptised right away). Also if the child is a long-term foster child. The child may not be baptised catholic but that is not the child's fault; the child's birth parents and foster family may both be catholic, but the birth parents have so many issues (perhaps substance abuse and mental health) that the child was never baptised. Such a child can still be seen as catholic for school admission purposes at our school. The main criterion is 'baptised catholic' but our admission rules explicitly allow for exceptions in, well, exceptional circumstances.

Lacking such explicit accomodation of non-baptised catholic children, there is likely nothing you can do. Except point out to the admissions authorities that the current admission rules create (unintended?) consequences and that they may want to consider changing them for future intakes, but that would be too late for you.

It’s the tick box criteria & she’s not baptised so she’s on the list with other non baptised children. Makes perfect sense.
My children were baptised before 6 months. If you asked my kids what they did on their 4th birthday they wouldn’t remember it so I don’t know why you think they’d remember their baptism. It’s about the sacrament. It doesn’t take planning just get it done.