Atheists Sending child to Catholic school

[othership]

We are looking at schools for DS who is due to start in Sep 2019. We have just moved to a new city so we weren’t sure what schools were like here, but 95% of them are catholic Schools. We want DS to have the best education but the nearest outstanding ofsted rated is 2 miles away for a catholic school but for a non religious school it’s 5 miles (where we live that’s about a 20 minute drive). The five nearest schools to us are all catholic school. Would you send your child to a religious school even if you weren’t practising? The city is very catholic and we were aware of that already but had no idea the amount of catholic schools.

Ours both do. The catholic school was our nearest and the only one not over subscribed so didn't really have a choice, there was no option to go further away to a non religious school there were simply no places and those who lived nearer got priority.
It hasn't really been an issue, they have got an awareness of religion and understand that they don't believe in God but that lots of people do and they need to be respectful. They know they can chose when then are older. My oldest has been through Y3 when they do first communion, was worried about her feeling left out even though there was only one short session during school time, but wasn't a problem for DD.
I wouldn't go for a catholic secondary, would probably move house if that was the only option though, I think it's more significant for teenagers as others have said.

I'm Catholic so my DCs attend Catholic school, but there are a lot of non-Catholics in their classes. Only about half the class took their Holy Communion.

Go and look is all I can suggest.

Most of the kids at my DC school are never near the church once they make their First Communion so despite it being a Catholic school, there are very few practising Catholics. I expect this is commonplace so a non-Catholic child shouldn’t feel out of place. Prep for sacraments happens outside of school.