Schools Admissions

[darthvadar]

Does anyone else have a problem with schools being affiliated to the church and discriminating against children in their admissions policy on the basis of their religious background? Surely in todays modern, inclusive society we cannot continue to tolerate church schools or indeed any schools discriminating against children on the basis of their families religious background particularly when it is preventing local children from attending local schools whilst children from out of the borough are able to take places? Surely all schools receiving state funding must be required to take children from the local area regardless off background as a priority and perhaps in some areas this will go someway to relieving the pressure for school places?

It doesn't sit right with me that some schools do this, but I can understand why they do. Sometimes they recieve extra funding from the affiliated church. And I can see why if you are particularly religious you would want your child to go to a school that promotes that religion above all others, and why you might want the vast majority of other families to be of the same religion. Personally, I wouldn't want my dc's to go to a school that has a very strong faith that I don't agree with, even if they do have better results than the alternative.

I'm not sure what the answer is though.

This subject comes up regularly on Mumsnet. I know some people have strong view. Just to get the facts straight, the church has to fund a proportion of the capital works on any of these schools. These schools stand on land which is owned by the church and the buildings are also owned by the church. Personally I think that gives the church the right to give priority to children from families associated with the church.

I am unclear how you think changing the admissions policies of these schools will relieve the pressure for school places. There will still be the same number of places available. All it will mean is that some children who have the "appropriate" religious background won't be able to get into the school because other children from a different religious background have taken their place. If there is a shortage of places now, there will still be a shortage of places after you force these schools to change their admissions policies.

Pixie,
Specialist schools are not allowed to select on ability, it is aptitude they are allowed to select on and relatively few in fact do so. I suspect this is because it is difficult to run aptitude tests without them becoming ability tests, as a few schools have found out when the schools adjudicator has rules against their methodology for the tests!

I think the Church school system is outrageous. Not only do they have priority on admissions, but also they are allowed to hold their places indefinitely. Some don't even turn up on the first day of new term. I am currently on a waiting list for our local church school and I know for a fact that the children from my sons primary school only got in because their parents attended church 6 months prior to applying and got in on a foundation place.

The system needs to be changed because parents are abusing it.

"they are allowed to hold their places indefinitely. Some don't even turn up on the first day of new term."

So no different from any applicant at any state school, then (or, indeed, other applicants at church schools).

Once parents have accepted an offer of a place at any school that place is theirs and cannot be taken away from their child except in very limited circumstances. All schools find that some children don't turn up at the start of term because the parents have gone private, moved away or whatever without bothering to tell them.

Sheenite you are right - parents are abusing the faith schools admissions though of course only in the academically successful faith schools. But the abuse is growing as the governments and church authorities water down the faith criteria as part of the admissions arrangments. I know what I would do with respect to admissions criteria in faith schools - what would you recommend?

The issue is not about whether state funded schools, which are also church schools, should be allowed to select on the basis of faith.

It is whether or not state subsidised church schools should exist. If you agree they should, then you should accept the admissions system; If you dont agree with them, well then the admissions system is the least of your worries!

Church schools have publicly available entry criteria. If you want your child to attend that school then you have every opportunity to meet that criteria. Parents who do so aren't cheating - they're doing exactly what was open to them. This isn't an abuse of the system - it's the system working as it should. What is deeply annoying to me are parents who think they should be able to get in to a faith school without professing that faith or who think their child should be able to access the advantages of a faith school without faith and the Church having anything to do with said school.

My point is that there should not be any church control of schools as local schools should be for local children regardless of regligious background.

Church involvement in schooling is devisory and increasing discrimination in our schools system and hence in society. Children of christian faiths are being divided as to whether they are c of e or catholic and children at our local primary school are beginning to comment on whether one is "better" than the other and why their friends are being moved to other schools to simply to get into a particular secondary school, rather than recognising that each is entitled to their beliefs and how they practice those beliefs without one being better than the other or it impacting on the education they receive. Religious discrimination causes so much pain and suffering in the world why are we trying to enforce it in our school system and allowing the church to force some people down a particular relgious route simply to get their children a decent education? the state system should be providing decent schools of a similar standard for all, utopia I guess but I seriously think if we let the system grow as it does we are building problems for the future

Most voluntary aided CofE schools antedate the establishment of national state provision. I think that applies to Catholic schools too. They own the land and the buildings and have paid a proportion of the annual costs since adopting elements of state governance.

I'm really not sure the national finances are in good enough shape to buy out even the additional annual costs, let alone the real estate, always assuming the releva t churches would be happy to sell.

There might be scope to do this at a local level - perhaps by harnessing the "free school" initiative plus a lot of fundraising for the buildings.

Parents with money can choose where they send their children to school....far worse to only mix with money, I see far more of the 'being better' coming from those children and parents than any from faith school families!! The problem for the future in my opinion is the growing class divide of the have and have nots not from families with a religious community....

Parents with money have always had that choice in terms of public schools or private education. That will never change. Why should we be further limiting access to good schools for those of us left in the state sector based on religious background. Forcing some children to travel miles to a school when a perfectly good school is on their doorstep but by virtue of the fact of their religious background or lack of it they are not deemed good enough to attend. Church schools do indeed partly fund themselves but don't fooled into thinking they do not receive any state funding from us the taxpayer. Therefore there should not be an ability to discriminate. Surely if we want our society to be inclusive we should not be teaching children from the age of 5 they are not good enough to attend certain state funded schools?

In my area the middle class parents do one of three things at primary level:

attend church for about 2 years to jump through the hoops needed to get into either the local c of e or catholic faith school.

or go private

or move to nearby very expensive town where all the schools are good.

At secondary the choices are much more limited as there is no C or E secondary. They go private or move or put up with local comprehensive (rare).

All of these options leave the other schools in a cycle of always being the poorer cousin even though they offer good teaching. They have the bulk of the council estate kids and the middle class families will not send their kids there and bad mouth the school and so the cycle continues. I wish more of the council estate families would go the church route but they don't and I don't blame them as you have to go to one particular church and it is full of parents who are not like them and frankly are not above looking down their noses (very christian).