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!

Ah well that’s my theory blown

Sorry-none of my catholic friends would delay the sacrament of baptism until the age of 4 regardless of circumstances.

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.

The extra caveat of baptised 'as soon as possible' was only really implemented after immigration from Poland and eastern Europe where it is not common to baptise before 1 year old. And even if it is done ASAP it often involves getting the child a passport so they can be baptised in granny's parish church in Poland.

LA faith schools are not allowed to give 100% of their places to children of that faith.

Provided they receive applications from children of other faiths (ie not baptised or not baptised catholic) they have to give something like 5% of the places to non-catholic.

My son is baptised CoE and we don't live in the catchment area for his primary so I was worried we would be bottom of the pile, but he got in for the above reasons.

CoE schools have that criteria, Catholic schools don't, Crash

You’rena Catholoc family and your Dc hasn’t been baptised soon afer birth. Riiight.

Getting baprised is not about children remembering the experience, it’s washing away the original sin and welcoming to church. If a baby is poorly Catholics rush to get the baptism asap so that baby’s soul doesn't go to hell. At least that was the line when I was younger, not sure if the church still believes newborns can go to hell

That is a consequence, but I don’t think that’s why some schools have implemented it.

In areas where there is pressure in school places or high population density and the schools were getting huge numbers of baptised children were applying schools had to start differentiating between ‘catholics’. In other areas there isn’t really the need so criteria stayed at baptised or in some places having one baptised parent.

The rules are changing for Catholic schools to increase non- Catholic pupil cohort. And anyway, no Catholic school is 100% Catholic cohort. Not the ones I've attended, my dh attended or my dd now attends.

My DS's old school was 100% Catholic cohort. It was oversubscribed hugely and they wouldn't accept baptism certificates if the child was baptised over the age of 1 because of the amount of rushing to church to baptise 3 year olds for school places. My DM still holds a grudge against my gm (mil) for making her baptise me 2 weeks post partum! I have Catholic family all over the world. All babies are baptised at a few months.

After all that fuss my DS hated it, I grew to dislike the cliquey nature of it and we left in year 3!

Lots of schools are 100% Catholic cohort. The ones that aren't are due to under subscription from Catholic families, not the school accepting a quota of non faith applicants.

I'm sorry for people who've had a rough time but I don't believe that even loss of family members would prevent a committed Roman Catholic baptizing their baby for 3+ years. If anything, given the nature of the sacrament, it would remind them of its importance. A Baptism doesn't need to be a big family event - it's nice if it can be, but I don't know of any serious Catholic who would delay like it that. The OPs statements don't add up to me. If you're not a committed practising Catholic don't try and jump the queue in front of from someone who is.

Where's the op gone?

Catechetics ? ;)

Jelly maybe if you had two parents going through horrendous cancer treatment and having to care for them and two young babies with far flung family and a new priest who made it difficult you may see it differently. As I said eventually we had a small gathering and a nice service, as we wanted it; just later than expected.
Don't assume all priests are as friendly and good as those that want to welcome all Catholics into their church and do baptisms every week.

Anyway the horrible priest (sitting in lovely parish) who was very unwelcoming and only spoke with a minority of parishioners that he liked, has now been moved to a much much less desirable area and church attendance at Sunday masses are booming now as a result.

Not every catholic is equally 'devout', and yet they are still catholics unless they've been excommunicated. Not every practising catholic is equally devout/practises to the same standard, either.

Some schools only require you (the parent, or perhaps the child) to 'be catholic' in order to get admission priority; some require you/the child to be a 'practising catholic' (which can mean anything from attending church pretty much weekly at the least, to attending church occasionally e.g. at Christmas and Easter - you're still practising, just not as much as you 'ought' to; every school sets different requirements as to what counts as 'practising') and some differentiate between more and less 'devout', more or less practising catholics e.g. by giving those that attend church more often preference over those that attend church less often. But not all catholic schools do this. For many, there is simply a criteria/threshold that needs to be fulfilled to count as (practising) catholic, but once you've met that criteria, there is no further differentiation between more/less devout, more/less deserving of a school place.

I think it is a bit off to suggest that you are either a 'devout' catholic and hence would not for any reason in the world delay baptism, or you are not a catholic at all.

If the school does not give preference to 'more devout' catholics over 'less devout' ones (only prioritises catholics over non-catholics), then it is wrong to suggest that as the OP is not very devout, they should allow the place to go to a more devout family.

The fact that OP only recently studied the admissions criteria for their desired school suggests to me that it is unlikely that they have been attending mass only for the purpose of getting a school place. Rather it suggests to me that they truly think of themselves as a catholic family (perhaps not as 'devout' as some, but still catholic), they attend mass regularly, and hence it has never crossed their mind that they may not get admitted to a school that professes to give priority to catholic children. They are not clued up about how the admissions system works and hence didn't think to study the oversubscription criteria, to then conform to the requirements there.

(Or they may have thought to play the system but for some reason (arrogance?) neglected to find out how the system works in the first place.)

I don't know anyone who has been excommunicated.
I probably should be because I am pro-choice....

I meant to add that the same priest actually had very little to do with the school albeit his house was next door. Parents said that their was litttle interaction other than him doing the school masses in the church.
Its a good school academically and very religious but having grown up in a deeply divided sectarian area and zero understanding of other cultures until adulthood, I decided to send my DC to a mixed community school for a more rounded education in life.
I'm sure that decision will also seem very 'uncatholic' as Catholics are expected to send their DC to catholic school (although we have several friends locally who made the exact same choice)

I'm desperate for my dd to get into one of the two non- Catholic secondaries we put on her application "list". I am a rubbish Catholic and couldn't get her into the non-denominational local primary so had to "settle " for the Catholic one she attends. It has improved (it was nearing special measures) and she has done ok .
I personally think it is toxic to put children in religiously divided schools. We ensure our dd knows our views on eg equal marriage, evolution etc.

SHhh that's an interesting point; so if we are RC but also keep hidden (or not) our a belief in pro choice and contraception should be also be obliged to send our children to a devout RC school which will teach our children the strict RC way? Umm
I was also taught by nuns so you can imagine what a rounded view of life we were taught lol

X post Shhh sorry!

On admissions; our RC school takes zero non RC as its oversubscribed with parish A children and then neighbouring parish B/C baptised children (neighbouring parish schools deemed not to good)

The RC schools in parish B&C take the odd non RC child as not so oversubscribed.
Move another couple of miles away and the RC schools there give priority to RC children but have only about 50% due to local area demographics and high Muslim / Hindu / no faith populations

All the school's round here have been 100% catholic for the last 4 or so years, maybe longer, because of demand.
10 years ago, there would be a couple of non catholic children in each year in primary. But within a few years, 7-10 catholic families couldn't get in because of demand, so the whole year was catholic. From then on.
And early baptism, and priest signing form for regular attendance, were absolutely compulsory, basic requirement.

So I can't see that you'd get in, if demand in your area is now similar?

Ours is the same 100% catholic and many catholic children still don’t get in. It’s so important to study admissions policies as even if you have been going to mass for 3 years with your child, if they aren’t baptised you aren’t going to get in.