Oversubscribed Catholic primary school

[GlobalTrotter]

Hi,
Originally neither me no my DH are from the UK, we have different background, languages and religious origins. DH is unbelieving Jew, I’m unbelieving Eastern Christian. We both believe in Good or Universe in general, without practicing any specific religious.

We have 24 weeks old baby, and we are living literally next door to one of the best (academically) primary school in London, it’s Roman Catholic.

Now we are considering to baptise our baby as a Catholic and our close friend, who is really practicing Catholic many years, will be his god Mather.

Would be a problem for us

1. Receive the place without attending the church? Usually school is oversubscribed of course, from 3 years up to 11 it’s only 280 pupils.
2. Or If only me, as a christian originally, would attend the church with a child let’s say once a month?
3. Would it be relationship with school or other parents difficult in our case?

I asked myself do I really wish my child to believe? I found it as an additional piece and feeling safe in a childhood. I had not it in my childhood and it was hard and scare to knew first time that my parents will die, ect.
The secondary school I would consider non religious independent school. So it will be more personal choice for child at that time.

My oldest son was baptized as eastern Christian, and was visiting church regularly up to ten years old with his father’s family. After he was in non religious primary and after in CoEf boarding school. When he was 15yo he choose to be a Christian Buddhist, where he sees Buddhism as philosophy, and continuing like this already five years.

Thank you all in advance for advices and opinions.

@MaddeningtheUnhelpful

My children attend a catholic school. We are not religious, none of the household are baptised at all. My children are definatly not left out at all, there is a very diverse mix of people. My eldest has expressed interest in becoming catholic so we've been finding out about it and helping him explore his options (sponsors, god parents etc) Why anyone would think it an option to lie is beyond me

Thank you for your opinion☀️ As I understood the majority people who left opinion for my topic

• if non Catholic or non religious (Or whatever child) IS already in catholic school it does harm anyone.

Take seriously all opinions here, I checked other schools cut offs distance map for primary schools in our area, only 3 schools were shown. And we are within catchment area of only one.
As was mentioned on the council website, the areas of offers for last year of other schools are not shown because “ the school gave priority to applicants that met religious requirements and distance was not a key factor in determining the offers”.

This one school is outstanding by ofsted but is below average in writing math reading, and has 53% pupils eligible for for free meals. I know that area, our child will be within very few “white privileged” and probably the only with Jewish origins kids there. (Hope I was tolerance enough in this sentence and did not offend anyone - if smth sounds wrong could be my language Unperfectioon)

Remember that faith schools have less funding than other schools and the school will ask for an Additonal Voluntary Contribution, usually £10/£20 per month. There are no I Pads or laptops given out at Catholic schools and play facilities are limited to skipping ropes and balls.

I got as far as the bit about creationism and didn't read the rest of this post.

Faith schools do NOT get less funding than other schools. Their revenue funding is exactly the same as other schools. They have one or two items they have to cover that other schools don't such as building insurance but these are relatively minor. The only difference is that a faith school must find at least 10% of the cost of any capital works (i.e. new buildings). It is true that some faith schools ask for voluntary contributions as do some non-faith schools.

As for "no iPads or laptops" and play facilities limited to skipping ropes and balls, that is nonsense. There may be some Catholic schools like that but I haven't come across them.

I see several flaws in your plan

1 Your child is not a baptised catholic
2 Your child cannot be baptised Catholic as neither you nor your husband are catholic.
3 You are not a practising Catholic (not a once a month token visit).
4 It is irrelevant that your child may attend church regularly with their Godmother to qualify as a church attendee. The application comes from the parents, not Godparent and so one of you has to attend regularly for a minimum of 2 years.
5 What you are trying to do is morally corrupt - hardly in the spirit of someone trying to attend a religious school.Maybe you would be better leaving the spaces for actual Catholic families.

There are no I Pads or laptops given out at Catholic schools and play facilities are limited to skipping ropes and balls

What an unbelievably naive thing to say!!

I agree that this is morally wrong. Not only are you trying to get a place under false pretences, you could also be denying a place to a family who are genuine Catholics who want to raise and educate their child in their faith. Wrong.

it sounds like you are trying to avoid sending your child to a local school where she will mix with a cross section of ordinary londoners.
you also seem to be concerned that many of these are not white, like her. i cannot see the relevance of the jewish heritage, since you state your husband is a secular jew. how would this even be an issue in the school; how would anyone know/ care about her ancestry.
anyway, that is up to you. but instead of trying to inveigle yourself into the catholic school, because it is next door, and successful, and predominantly white, perhaps you should look at private schools.
i can see why catholics would be annoyed at your approach.
and i doubt very much that you would be able to achieve it anyway.
this is an over-subscribed school. they are not going to take anyone whose whole family is not solidly catholic. they don't need to.
perhaps you don't quite understand how things work here.
why don't you take a look at the school that you are in the catchment area for.
if it is rated outstanding, i really cannot see what you object to.

unless it is having to mix with the less privileged, and less white...

To be able to get your child baptised in the Catholic Church you and/or your husband would first have to go through RCIA and be baptised.

I don't know exactly what type of God/Universe you believe in but I can't imagine they/it would think all this lying and pretending would be a good way to act.