Religious Schools

[Nig]

We are planning our daughters education (2 1/2 yrs old) and are looking at catchment areas. We are not religious to the extent that we dont necessarily want our child unduly influenced by a single faith environment; despite them offering a complete religious education, which we do believe is important.

The question is: where do we stand if the catchment area that we live in is within a single faith school? Do we get priority at the nearest non-faith school?

We would be most grateful for your help and advice on the sensitive topics of schooling and religion.

I don't know about other LA's but here if a faith school is your local catchment school you only have priority at that school, you would be classed as out of area for the nearest non faith school.

My ds is at a c of e school which is our local school and I have to say the religion aspect is quite low key. They have a stronger emphasis on kindness and helping others and occassionally would have a bible story in assembly that emphasises a point like that.

There are many children of different ethnicities in his school and different religions but nobody has issues with the christian ethos becase really it translates as just being the best you that you can be and really every parent wants that for their child anyway.

it seems you don've have any right to a secular education in this country. A friend chose her two closest non CoE schools - she is a pagan - (the two closest schools to her were CoE) and was rejected and was given a place at a school miles away.

My DH and I have also been looking for our DS who has just turned 3 - the majority of schools in our LA are CoE of CoE part funded - our catchment school is the latter. We are not a religious family so it was a concern for us as we also didn't want our DS to be influenced. Best thing I did was go along to the school for an open morning which really helped as what we saw was a very good balance of all faiths only difference being that during Christian festivals they may have a trip to the local Parish church which the school does give you the option to exclude your child from. Lastly, I thought about my education and upbringing which included a very religious Roman Catholic grandmother - religion doesn't really play part of our family life now, however I think being taught values and respect for everyone and every religion is what's important and I think most schoold do strive to achieve this - hope this helps

You need to look carefully at the admissions criteria for your nearest schools. Often, religious schools ask for proof of religious commitment, and don't have a catchment as such (though some do). Non-religious schools (as in standard state primaries, there is no such thing as a secular education in the state sector; all schools are nominally required to have a regular act of worship, though many play this down a lot these days) will usually admit based on distance - those living nearest get priority. It's unlikely that you will get any preferential priority for a school simply because your local school is a religious one you either don't want or won't get into.

It really does depend on where you live, and on individual schools. Take a look at your local council's website - there will be details there of each school's admission policies, possibly how places were allocated in previous years, areas that each school covers (not all areas have catchments btw).

DS goes to a CofE school - but you wouldn't know it. So don't worry unduly about the religious aspect without first finding out more.

As I understand it (and after the looked after and SEN requirements) , DCs within the parish get first dibs at DS's school if they have siblings there already, then dcs within the parish who have no siblings at the school, then DCs going to church within the parish but living outside the parish, then sublings from outside the parish, or something along those lines. Basically church has little to do with it unless you live outside the parish. But other schools in the same LEA require church attendance at their church, or you don't stand a chance. In essence it can be complicated!

Be aware also that admissions policies change, heads change, and fashions change - it was very easy to get ds into his school despite living a few miles away from it at the time - whereas now DCs half a mile away are being turned down because it suddenly became all the rage a year or two ago.

If your closest school is a CofE one, there are two types of CofE schools: voluntary aided or voluntary controlled - do you know which yours is?

If they are voluntary aided, it means they are closely connected to the church, admissions are run by the church, and they can give priority to practising members of the church.

If they are voluntary controlled it means admissions are run through the council in the same way as non-church schools with no priority for families of that religion. There will be some input by the vicar, visits to church at Christmas and Easter, but probably no more emphasis on religion than normal state primaries (they are all obliged to lay on 'broadly Christian' daily acts of worship - no state schools in the UK are entirely secular).

FWIW, the primary my DCs go/went to is CofE voluntary controlled, so my DCs went there despite my atheism - not much choice as all the closest schools were CofE or Catholic, and no, I have never heard of non-religious people getting priority at non-church schools if they are out of area. The DCs have a children's minister who comes in and does rather silly Christian-themed assemblies every week, but they do also learn about other religions.

Thank you all very much for your sensible and practical advice. It seems all the houses we like are in the catchment areas for the schools we dont want and therefore we are going to have to keep looking at both until the two align.

Many thanks though because we do now at least know more than we did on this subject which schools and authorities seem so tight lipped on.

I teach at a VC CofE school. I am, while not anti-religion, very open minded about how people should believe and would be very uncomfortable with any attempt at indoctrination.
We teach about the four major religions and touch on others as appropriate eg Chinese New Year, which I think is important for all children.
We do have rather CofE assemblies, but parents have a right to withdraw children from these - and RE lessons, if they so wish.
We are very careful to try and say, 'Christians believe ...' rather than, 'We believe ...' or 'It is true that ...'
I'm not sure I would worry too much about indoctrination, and I do think that a good knowledge of Christian stories is important to understand our society and culture in the West.

Nig I can only talk for the area in which we live, but I don't think the LA or schools are particularly tight lipped.

It is very easy to see under which criteria DCs were given places at all the schools here - it's detailed in the admissions booklet. Same for the neighbouring LEA (I know this because ds will possibly be going to a school in the next county).