Going to church to get DS into school?

[ChocOrange05]

I am not a Catholic, I was confirmed CoE but as a young teenager (because my friends were). I am not a religious person, I guess I would consider myself an Agnostic.

Anyway, DS is 17mo and I have been thinking about the whole schools debate and one of the best in our area is a Catholic school.

Is it wrong for me to consider going to church and getting DS baptised, just to get into a good school?

Has anyone else done this? What were your experiences?

TIA!

I am considering doing this for C of E school, even though I'm an atheist. The main reasons against it I think are:

1. Hypocrisy. However, I spoke to the headmistress of our local church school and she said that you just have to ATTEND church - you do not have to believe, or pretend to believe. So if I go, I will make it very clear to the church and the school that I am a non-believer.

1. Kids pick up the religion. I am actually quite keen on the other side getting a crack at them. They will get no religious influence at all at home so more likely to be able to make a free choice if they understand what the other choice is. My parents sent me to a church school for this reason, and I believed til I was about 11 and then decided I did not. I'm glad I got to make a conscious decision based on the facts, though. (However I would have much bigger reservations about them soaking up an RC message - it is a much more hardcore religion - lots of guilt & eternal damnation vs. gay vicars and cake sales in C of E.)

1. It is stealing from the Christian schools to take places from proper Christians: I do NOT agree with this. Church schools are 90% state funded i.e. funded by our taxes. It is outrageous that they can exclude children based on their taxpaying parents' faith.

1. Church schools are socially divisive and should not be encouraged: I have no argument against this one! It is completely true. Our local community schools are about 40% ethnic minorities, whereas the church schools about 2%. This, if anything, will be what puts me off.

Sorry about super-long message.

Aren't you the righteous one!

An athiest who is prepared to swallow her principles (no doubt firmly held) against faith schools by sending DC to a CofE school. More shame on the CofE school whose admissions criteria are so lax that you only have to attend not believe. Why don't they just drop the pretence of being a faith school.

I see too that your deep concern about the social mix at the community schools leads you to run off in the direction of the nominal CofE school thereby exacerbating the trend that you seem to deplore so much. Does anyone understand the logic of this - to me it says 'let's ban faith schools but not until my children have attended'

As for your comments about Catholics you seem to have no idea.

I have to say to those who say the social mix is better in non faith schools- we live in a very white, middle class area and DD's RC primary has about three Polish children in every class, and far more non white faces (ie black, Indian, etc) than in any of the other schools around here. I would say that the RC school actually has a higher proportion of working class families than many others in the area, in part due to the immigrant population who choose to send their children there.

So it can sometimes work the other way socially. It's an excellent school but it is definitely not due to an influx of affluent parents.

The ethnic mix in Catholic schools is virtually identical to community schools nationally.

But the type of CofE school mentioned by the poster above is the source of the general hostility to faith schools. This school seems to be faith in name only, telling middle class parents to put on a show of faith by attending church. No wonder it appears to be highly socially segregated - the less rigourous the entry criteria in terms of the faith in question the more the middle class game-playing that can go on (inc from athiests who are of course opposed to social selection).

Toddlerama 'Does it matter if it's state funded when the families who pay tax and don't approve of religion can just choose another community school?'

just try finding one! as a previous poster mentioned, a good two thirds of the state schools local to me are faith schools. the remaining few non-religious schools are so hugely oversubscribed you have to live within about 3 streets to get in. which obviously means those streets are highly priced.

This is the trouble in our country, the COE religion has been gradually dumbed down over the years that it now appears to be meaningless. I find it sad that a country that was once so steeped in Christian values is losing it's way and the depressing numbers of dysfunctional families speak for themselves. For decades we've been given subtle messages from looney liberals in politics and the media that religion is a joke and untrendy and not needed any longer, but look what happens when society has no moral code to live by. Is it any wonder that so many numbers are turning to Islam and it is now becoming the fastest growing religion in the UK. It seems the COE exists today mainly to provide 'good' schools and who cares if anyone believes any more.

Jane, would I be correct in assuming that you have not visited a RC school in the last 20 years judging by your comment 'Lots of guilt and eternal damnation'. My local rc primary couldn't be further from the picture you paint and the end results speak for themselves - Confident and well mannered, caring children who respect each other and all other faiths and religion.

Zanzibarmum - I think you slightly missed the point of my posting - I said that the lack of ethnic minorites in my local church schools was what put me off them, not what attracted me to them.

If you look at faith schools' admissions criteria, the church criterion is ALWAYS based on attendance, not belief. The schools have no choice about this - you can exclude children from a school because of their parents' actions, but not because of the inner workings of their minds.

I don't have a problem with faith schools existing, but in the old days, there was no requirement for parents to go to church for their kids to go. Therefore they were not socially divisive and were not discriminatory against jews, muslims, hindus, sikhs, and atheists, as they are now. So I am not against faith schools - I am just against their current unfair admissions practices. As are approx 80% of people polled on the topic, incidentally. If they could force you to believe in/pretend to believe in the religion in question, they would be even more unfair.

Coll 2010, you would be correct in assuming that I have not visited a Catholic school in the last 20 years, or ever. I agree with you that the C of E faith has been watered down, which is a positive advantage for people like me and the OP since it makes what the kids would learn at school more palatable. (My aunt is a C of E vicar and she doesn't even believe in God. That might be slightly unusual though).

Coll, I don't know why you would say that the C of E has been dumbed down. Rowan Williams seems to me to be one of the most intelligent voices in public life at the moment. But perhaps you regard him as one of your "looney liberals".

watered down by the 'sea of faith' perhaps?

You could argue that we're suffering the after-effects of having society's moral code externally imposed by irrational organizations for far too long, instead of encouraging proper individual ethics and responsibility.

Zephirine, I agree Rowan Williams is very intelligent, far more so than I. Personally I feel he is too liberal to head up the COE. Yes I do count him as being a 'looney liberal' - not in the same sense as those that are so anti religion in the UK but more that he is too easily prepared to alter the centuries old foundation of the Church to suit our current society.

Who really knows what the future of our country will be as time goes on. For me I worry for my children as to what their future will be like here in the UK. We live in a London borough and it is where I grew up from the age of 2. It is unrecognisable to the town I remember as a child and the changes are not for the better. Young children barely teenagers belong to gangs and regard their gang as their family and honour their gang. Who can blame them when they have never had a relationship with their fathers and have no respect for their mothers who take no interest in their own children. What hope can we have that these boys soon to be men will respect their community and grow up to be decent worthwhile members of our society. To me it is very very frightening. I don't know what the answers are but I believe that religion that promotes a strong family, good community cohesion, a list of commandments to strive to live by can only be a good thing.

I feel sorry for anyone who has such a bleak view of the world.

EVERY generation thinks that things were different/better in the 'old days' and I think it's rubbish. If anything, many things have improved, we are more tolerant, teenagers don't get sent to mental homes if they get pregnant etc. (I could go on for hours).

Love this quote -Socrates (469?399 B.C.)
QUOTATION: The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

Anyway, think this all getting a bit off the original post........

Indeed - yesterday in a radio prog there was a clip from ( I think) the 50s saying she'd vote for anyone who'd bring back the birch to help tackle the 'crime wave' ...plus ca change.

Its sad to think some people have to have a set of externally imposed 'commandments' instead of being able to use their own conscience and judgement.

You may be too late. For this exact reason, many schools require evidence that the parents have been going for more than 5y before the start of reception

Probably way too late- this thread is 13 years old...

oh FFS, why do people restart zombie threads?