Can I win an appeal at a catholic primary school?

[clairebear70]

Hi, my ds has just been refused a place at the catholic infant school that my dd currently attends, due to the fact that he has not been baptised.
Neither of my children are baptised as yet, however I am a catholic and we have all been attending weekly mass for over a year.
There are reasons why we did not baptise my dd as a baby due to her serious illness. Since her recovery, it has always been our intention to baptise them together, however the priest has insisted we wait until August 2010.
The head was well aware of our situation and the priest even telephoned to say that by start of the school term our ds would be baptised.
Upon reading up on our local council website the definition of a catholic is : 'A child who, with his or her family, is participating in a recognised course of preparation leading to baptism. Written verification signed by a Catholic priest and stamped with the parish stamp will be required'
Obviously we did not realise the second part, we thought a telephone call would suffice.
Do you think that this would count as misadministration by the Governors or not? As that is the only way we could win, we are 9th on the list, 60 places have been offered and accepted according to the head.
Also if we get this letter now would we move up to 1st on the list (knowing that other baptised children on our street without siblings have been offered a place).
I am absolutely distraught about this as our catchment school is 5 miles in the opposite direction and I cannot bear the thought of taking my dd out of the school she absolutely loves. Any help greatly appreciated - sorry for rambling !

I can't see anything here which could be regarded as maladministration.

The definition of a Catholic child is published on the LEA's website. It states that a letter from the priest is required. You did not provide that letter. How does that put the governors at fault?

Is the school its own admissions authority? You need to confirm with the school (or the LEA if it is the admission authority) whether, if you get a letter now from your priest, they will reconsider your application without your going to appeal.

The waiting list is held in the same order as the admissions criteria, so much will depend on how your school defines its admission criteria (which will go into much more detail than the definition on the council?s website). Many Catholic schools, as I understand it, give higher priority to children who are baptised, so even a letter from your priest confirming that your children will be baptised eventually may not be enough to put you to the top of the waiting list if there are baptised children ahead of you. (I?ve also heard of Catholic schools which stipulate that not only should the children be baptised as Catholics, they should have been baptised before they are a year old.)

The scope for winning an infant class size appeal (assuming that is what your appeal would be) is very limited - look at the various recent threads about this.

Many catholic schools give priority to earliest date of baptism so it may be that your DS at best may only go further up waiting list and not automatically get a place as the school is obviously full.

As a Catholic why would you not baptise a seriously ill infant?

The school dont appear to be in the wrong so you wouldnt win at appeal.

I find it strange if you are catholic that you have only been attending mass for one year and that an ill baby was not baptised.

welcome to mumsnet

Thanks for all your replies, I will just have to keep my fingers crossed. Mummyofone, Yes I am a catholic and was brought up as one, however I admit that in my twenties I went to live in Spain and my faith went out of the window. It is only after marrying and having children that I have found it again so maybe I am a 'lapsed catholic'? But my religion has nothing to do with this anyway, I do not attend school anymore and if I did I would get a place as I have a baptism certificate! The fact is my children are both practising catholics so should not be penalised when there are 'baptised catholic' children that have got into the school who never attend mass and have one parent who is an atheist, they will never be allowed to attend holy communion so why should they be given a place above mine who are being brought to believe ?
Busymummy3 - luckily our school do not insist on this and have in previous years (obviously) allowed many non catholics in.

Thank you for the welcome EldonAve x

Catholic children should be baptised before they are 6 months old. When I was younger most Catholics baptised very quickly and we were done about 4 weeks old. My own children we quite early too.

Its really hard to appeal. We live nowhere near any Catholic schools so we had to go on waiting list for one as not in the parish. We got in at the last min (she had a nursery place but was on list for reception)

We are hoping that when we apply for ds next year he will stand better chance as he has a sibling so is slightly up in the critera but its hard

Good luck

The recommendation for baptism is one month - or sooner if there is an emergency. (We didn't manage a month but we tried our best)

Catholic children always get priority in Catholic schools, but you do have to send in the paperwork, otherwise how would they know?

No-one is born a Catholic, it's the sacrament of baptism.

I would imagine that if you get the documentation from the Priest that you should move straight up to the top of the waiting list. I also think that you won't be waiting too long for a place. Given that 60 places have been offered, I would imagine that someone somewhere will have moved out of the area by then. Our school is half the size and we seem to admit 2 people per year off the waiting list for the years that are full.

I would get the letter asap and find out who the patron saint of schools admissions is!

why would the baptised children not be allowed to make their first holy communion? if they are in a catholic school and they are baptised catholic when they get to year three they will prepare for their first sacrament of reconciliation and their first holy communion unless their parents withdraw them from doing it i dont see how they would not be allowed to do it .

Why has the priest insisted you wait until August 2010? My brother is a priest specialising in Canon Law and I have definitely heard him say that the only justification for a priest's delaying baptism is if he has reason to believe that the child will not be raised as a Catholic. If you've all been attending mass together for over a year he has no such justification and should not have refused baptism. I think so, at least, although I may have got the wrong end of the stick.

If you can get your DS baptised now then I would imagine that it would put him at the top of the waiting list, at least, so even if you don't be grounds for appeal a place might well come up. So worth pursuing that, probably.

If you can legitimately argue that the school and the priest together had represented to you that the telephone call was better than the letter with stamp and that that was the only reason you hadn't provided the relevant documentation then you might get somewhere with an appeal.

I too don't get why baptised catholic children whose families don't attend Mass and have one parent who is an atheist "will never be allowed to attend holy communion"? We fell into that category for much of my primary school career and not only did we attend holy communion but my brother is, as I said, now a priest (my mother did start attending Mass again regularly with us by the time I finished primary school, admittedly, but we would have been one of "those" families at admissions time). There will be regular Mass celebrated at the school a couple of times a term plus Holy Days of Obligation so the children will be attending Mass whether or not the parents do.

Hi, their parents have withdrawn them from Holy Communion, I probably phrased it wrong.
Professor, I cannot understand the delay either, my husband and I have both attended baptism classes back in January but now he is saying be patient and it will happen. The reason there is 2 threads is I posted the first thread but then couldn't find it (only just registered so very new to the website) so I then registered again. Bit of an error, does anybody know how to remove one of the threads?
Many thanks

does your priest know that you were attending mass weekly for a year before you approached him about baptism classes back in January? maybe it would be worth clarifying this and then seeing if he would baptise your children before August? Maybe like another poster has already said he is trying to eliminate people who just want baptism to get into school when child is no longer a baby also like many posters have also pointed out it does seem strange that as a catholic a seriously ill baby was not baptised maybe this has already crossed your priests mind?

Even so, though, busymummy, he doesn't (AFAIK) have the right under canon law to refuse to baptise the child earlier. If the child goes to a Catholic school then de facto he or she is being raised as a Catholic, which removes the only potential reason to delay.

I do suspect you're right, as it happens, particularly with the August date which seems more-or-less guaranteed to time the baptism for a point where it's too late to affect the child's school place. At my mother's church they do sometimes hold off on baptism of "older" children (which tends to mean from about 5 or so) but that's to do them along with the adult RCIA converts and tends to be at Easter. But if that is his motivation then he is acting improperly in the eyes of the Church.

This is an interesting question because I've noticed changes since my dd was born.

I was attending Mass the other weekend when there seemed to be some sort of ceremony going on involving babies - I wasn't really sure what was happening so I asked another parent who told me that it was done differently now and these children were being 'welcomed' into the parish and that all the parents now had to attend a baptism course. I could see how that could delay a baptism.

Interestingly, since reading this thread I know of another child whose baptism was delayed (due to parents attending course) and the eldest child was already in school and already baptised and consequently the younger child didn't get a place and now the 2 children will be in different schools. I know it doesn't take 4 years to get baptised, but I can't help but wonder if there are now too many Catholics and they are deliberately trying to delay things.

We didn't have to do a course at all (I volunteered to do one - always scares priests does a bit of enthusiasm) and just had to book a date and give the names of godparents.

I would have thought being seriously ill would be a reason for early baptism, rather than postponing it.

If I didn't know better, I would think you were trying to scam your way into a catholic school. Maybe that's what the school thinks too?

Good question zanzibarmum.

I am puzzled as to how you could go live in spain and your catholic religion go out the window.... its a seriously catholic country!

Then, you seem to have waited until after or around, the time your daughter is starting at a catholic school, to start attending Mass.

But you don't make arrangements for the children to be baptised.

Catholics absolutely have seriously ill children baptised. I went to catholic schools and convent school, and all my family were baptised within a month of birth. Not years later after parents decided to decide to be catholic after all to get them in a school.

I get fed up of people saying they had a child baptised (at age 2) and started going to church yet don't get top priority for school places. Its because the priests can tell which families start going to church just to get in a school. For every family that 'turn' catholic when they start thinking about schools, there are many others where the parents have gone to church every sunday all their lives, have their babies baptised at a few weeks old.

Your children can't be practising catholics if they haven't even been baptised! And if priests are now insisting that parents take a baptism course before their children are baptised, then its about time. Sil and her bf are not catholic, but they smelled a better school, went to church for 6 weeks, got their dd's baptised the sunday before the schools applciations deadline, got their school place for dd1, but never went to church again after the baptism.

Then last week sil was moaning that dd1 'had to go and wave a palm leaf at a scabby donkey'.

If your priest is delaying the baptism knowing that this will jeapardise your childs school place then I think he thinks you are just one of the many parents who claim to be catholic just to get a school place.

Unfortunately, to the school it probably will look like you have "discovered" religion late and are trying to get a place in the school which you are not entitled to. The Catholic school will have had a supplementary application form which you needed to complete in addition to the LA application form. The info pack which you received from the LA will have made this clear. How did you manage to get your first child into the school without this form/her being baptised?

I find it difficult to believe (although I am not doubting you, rather querying that the priest could have been so stupid) that you could have been told by the priest that you did not require this form - he is probably a Governor at the school, should certainly be knowledgeable about its admission procedures and will have had to sign the supplementary form for everyone else who applied for the school (so at least 30 forms, probably more and that's just for this year). I also don't know why the HT seemingly agreed that you did not need to supply this proof of baptism. I don't think you have any case against the Governors as the admissions committee can only go on the evidence which is presented to them and in your case that was that your ds was a sibling but not Catholic and neither is his sister?

OP - I think the scepticism you are meeting here is a good indication of the scepticism you could face at any appeal. I am not a Catholic but I have always thought that a Catholic family with a very ill baby would bring forward the baptism, not put it off - and certainly not put it off until the child was (I am guessing here) 5 or 6. And surely for your daughter to have got a place at the school you've been attending church since she was a baby, not just for a year?

Clairbear anothing thing you said none of your children have been baptised. If your second child dont get baptised soon you will find it hard to get into the catholic school even if you have a sibling as baptised children are higher on the list than non baptised. At the end of the day the people who got in are usually the ones that have been baptised since an early age and have attended mass regularly for five years not just the year before school. My children have been going to mass since they have been born (10 and 5) and even i found it hard to get into a catholic school you had to prove the priest knew you and for him to sign a form confirming this. I am suprised when you was filling in the form that you did not notice you had to fill in a supplmentary form for each catholic school.

I was brought up a catholic until I knew better around 7 or so but even I know that the great baby eating Bishop of and Wells states that you've got to get the baby baptised before it dies if it is sick. The threat I seem to remember is that it will not be allowed to enter heaven, which seems to be the catholic's worst fear.

So if a total non believer such as myself knows about baptising sick babies, then so should the OP. I too smell the "better school" religious conversion.

Thank you to everyone for all your comments, alot of them proved really helpful. I had not thought about speaking to the school priest who is the Governor there (as we are out of Parish he is not our local priest). After speaking to him, he reiterated what the Professor stated, that our Priest is not allowed to delay the baptism whatever his reasons. On his suggestion we contacted the Bishop and both of our children are now being baptised on 5th June. Our school Priest thinks this should be enough to be granted a place at the school but we are going ahead with the appeal process nevertheless.

3point14 - that is not true, or not what i have ever been taught/been led to believe btw.

sorry, I have to go along with some of the comments, a seriously ill baby would be a proprity for Hospital baptism, my cousin was baptised in hospital when 5 days old and critically ill. Her parents arranged a church service when she was well so she could still have a traditinal service as well. you may be being wrongly judged, but it does seem odd to have waited until now to get this sorted.