COFE school

[Happytimes83]

Our local catchment village school almost next door to our house is cofe, actually governed by the diocese. We are atheist & only recently experienced our first service there, it was pretty intense something kind of full on about the vicar & the vicar made it very lengthy & very long, I have heard the odd mutterings about parents attending the weekly assembly that the vicar makes it long at that too, pupils also have to attend a weekly service in the church as well as the visit from the vicar in the school (obviously collective daily worship is also a thing but I understand that’s pretty much everywhere). I want our child to be integrated into the local community & no parents I have met is particularly religious but I just feel like if they are having frequent lengthy church time that might actually change the learning or the school experience again I don’t mind if it changes it in a positive way. I don’t know if that’s an unfounded idea. I agree with the principles about trying to create good moral people but obviously don’t want it to feel like it dominates our child’s school experience. I also don’t want to be controversial as we are pretty passive people but wouldn’t be adverse to requesting our child sometimes opts out at some point or maybe just occasionally opts out if they allow that, hopefully it’s not an all or nothing scenario as we are not anti religion or anything of the sort but I don’t want to feel like we get sidelined by the school if we make such a suggestion at a later date.

My kids attended the local cofe school (despite our atheism) as it was across the road. It was a good school and some parents were christening their kids just to get in. The second nearest school was Catholic, the third nearest was a village school but I suspect was still Christian.

I'm not overly fond of the cofe teachings faith as fact but a 1 minute school run is not to be sniffed at. Both kids left school as atheists, they enjoyed the nativity and Carol singing at church.

@Goldmember That’s useful to know, was it similar then seeing the vicar minimum twice a week? If only the vicar was a super fun slightly more relaxed vibe vicar like we had dealings with when I was younger, though admittedly there wasn’t weekly attendance there.

@Happytimes83 This school must have Governors. There are categories of governors and some of these are probably Foundation Governors. They are local people appointed by the Diocese. They will be known to the church but they will have other governors who are not, eg Head. Parents. The role of the governing body is the same whether you are foundation, community or parent. So you should be able to find out about these people on the school’s web site. It might be that the vicar is a governor but the day to day running of the school is squarely with the head.

If the vicar is given too long, it’s down to the head to control his input. It’s odd in a way because there’s usually not much time given to the daily act of worship. It is mandatory and CofE takes it more seriously than community schools.

I would be far more concerned about quality of education via high teaching quality, a great curriculum and the general ambience of the school. Parents will find something to dislike. However it’s convenient, your Dc will have local friends and if it’s good, do you really want to go elsewhere. You could take out Dc for daily act of worship (I think) but sometimes Dc put up with adverse situations together. It doesn’t mean anyone agrees with the vicar! They just want the school. These schools will teach the national curriculum and I’d be amazed that teaching time was impacted by a lengthy daily act of worship. How well does it do with sats? What about Ofsted and the CofE inspection? What do they say about quality? Is it a popular school? Do parents like and respect the head?

CofE schools are two types. Usually academies but Aided own the buildings and often control admissions with church attendance required and close links with the church, and Controlled which tend to be lighter touch. That depends on head though. Some take religion seriously and foster close links with the local church. Most CofE schools do to some extent but it depends on vicar too. I would take a broader view of the quality of the school and expect your Dc to be discerning. Mine were!

I teach at a CofE primary school so hopefully can provide a small amount of input! CofE schools get two inspections - one from ofsted of course and another from SIAMS who inspect their church school ethos. This includes things like collective worship, how Christian values are shown in school etc.

I personally am not a Christian but I do love how the Christian values (respect, friendship, perseverance etc) are embedded in daily life at school and the children refer to them as not only being Christian values but as ways we can be kind and caring to others - this is lovely. We have collective worship which generally is around the values and stories are told (not just from the bible but stories about daily life / famous role models), children are given a chance to express their ideas, chat, think about how they are kind in their daily lives etc.

We do spend some time in church at special times of year (not weekly!) and of course this feels like any church service would but the children who do not come from Christian families love listening to the stories, thinking about other people less fortunate than them and having a good sing song! Really uplifting for all, if this is how your local school does it then I really wouldn't let it put you off if you like myself are not religious. I've taught an non-CofE schools before and the difference I've seen mainly is that the children in this school are very reflective of how they treat others.

I would definitely go to an open day or ask to chat to the head about their school ethos to see how their school goes about implementing it - it may be very different to how you're expecting! Hopefully I've helped to shine a light on things for you.

My DDs infants school wasn’t CofE. Their values were second to none and DC were everything described above. It all comes down to the head. Not religion.

We only have CofE as a choice here and run by the Diocese, unless you want a 90 minute school run.

Both of my dc left as staunch atheists. They liked the tradition, the hymns, the Nativity as a story and they tuned out the rest of the explicit Christian content whilst benefiting from the ethos. Had I had a choice, I'd have chosen a secular education but broadly, it was the same as my 80s education and largely, benign.

Another atheist with kids in a CoE school but they also learn of other faiths and beliefs.
All schools in England have some daily worship I think
If its convenient and helps with village integration it's a no brainer.

The RE curriculum must contain learning about other religions. Schools have a choice of which ones and it’s a locally agreed curriculum. Daily act of worship is broadly Christian. Most schools build what @friendtodinosaurs describes into this and school life whether CofE or not. All good schools do this. The op has the issue of the vicar and time being used which I agree is questionable but not a deal breaker if the education is generally good. Local is a huge benefit.

Well the older kids hand over a flame to god in weekly assemblies or however it goes & I’ve heard some of them requesting church craft parties so it’s obviously slightly more cult like than normal but then it has a strong Christian ethos at the school hence the weekly church service too 😂 but it has a very community feel with weekly parent assemblies & you can also attend the weekly church service too. Though I do agree schools are not great converters to religion, the schools either side of us approx 6min drive seem to fit much more with our own personal ethos but country roads restrict travel options to car, I just can’t decide if taking him out of the community is the right decision just so his schooling fits more with our ethos, he will know lots of children in the local school & says he wants to go there but of course has no idea about religion. The adjacent school was only 20 kids bigger than local one but had extra classroom space & a library plus they had a more outdoors approach & more variety of clubs than the local church one but we can’t walk there. So hard to know what’s more important.

The other school! You will be forever looking over your shoulder at what you could have had.

The CofE school you now describe is more of a club. Suits the church going parent who is fully paid up . They will be known to the foundation governors too. All schools have events you can go to. Many will do parent assemblies. So I can see local
is an advantage but you can still go to village events. I bet you won’t be the only family going elsewhere. I would now you’ve said more.

Though weirdly other than the odd one which has headed off to selective private school which is obviously in a different league every child from our village goes to this school they aren’t selecting other nearby ones!! So it does feel like we’d be excluding him from the our local community & id say only a small proportion of these parents are Christian, majority are atheist or completely other religion!! Just none of them see to care about the content & just give some odd look when their child’s reels off something about a very specific Christian birthday party or whatever, so in essence they don’t seem to mind their children coming home with some of these Christian ideas 😂.