Catholic State Secondary Schools - are they very Catholic?

[Hathor]

The local state secondary school is Catholic, with faith-based admission criteria, but admits non-Catholics of any faith/non-faith too.
Anyone have experience of Catholic state secondary? How much is the Catholic religion practised and how does being Catholic affect the workings of the school and how they go about educating the children?
You may guess we are not Catholic, but are considering the school as it is local. (I am not looking to debate about faith schools here - just hoping for practical information/experiences.)

It'll depend entirely on the school, I'm afraid. I went to a state catholic secondary and so did my husband; mine was very Catholic in a cheerful, happy clappy sort of way and the Catholicism at his was barely discernable. You might need to go to the open evening and just see what you think - for example, my school would have had lots of wall displays showing end-of-term Mass, trips to retreat centres, prayers written by the kids and so on.

I am wondering how much out of place a non-Catholic child will feel, and how much time would be spent practising the faith.
Will go to open evening as you suggest - thank you. It is very difficult to assess a school from the "outside".

bump

One of our local catholic schools admits 20% of places to community applicants. This is because it is actually a merger of a catholic and a community school. I suspect the school is very catholic, but also is very good unlike the schools it replaced.

Usually RE is a compulsory GCSE subject, so at least 10% of time will be spent studying religion (rather than practising religion iykwim). It is never a bad thing to have a good knowledge of religion, particularly when much of our culture is based on religion. I'm fairly sure that much art and literature goes over the heads of children that have not been educated in the stories that they are based on. I know that I have many gaps in my knowledge of classical civilisation which I must at some point plug!

As others have said go the open evening, and make a point of asking a senior teacher or member of the RE department how children of other and no faiths are integrated into the school.

My DCs go to a catholic secondary school that accepts non catholics as well. The school has a number of religious events during the year so for example they have just had the welcome back masses for the new school year. If a child isn't a catholic they would go to the mass but can just receive a blessing from the priest rather than communion (this is explained to the children beforehand so that they know what will happen). Obviously there are non catholic members of staff that will attend the masses as well.

In addition there are form retreats which involve a small amount of praying and a lot of stuff about getting to know each other and what your individual strengths are. These just take place in year 7 and 8 after that there are residential retreats that are optional.

Other than that the other things that go on such as charity weeks would be similar to other schools although the charities may sometimes have a catholic bias such as CAFOD. Religious Education doesn't necessarily have a catholic bias, DS in year 9 is studying world religions and DD2 in year 13 is doing some sort of certificate thing that is more to do with philosophy and ethics.

I know a number of parents who aren't catholic whose children enjoy being at the school and don't stand out in any way. DS would struggle to tell you who is and isn't a catholic in his form.

Yes - RE will be taught at every state secondary - hopefully with no particular bias if this is a faith school.
Anyone got a non-Catholic child at a Catholic secondary school?

I teach at a Catholic school and we have a reasonable proportion of non catholics (generally other christian denominations) the school is more religious than catholic specifically. There is prayer every day and lots of reflection and hymns in assembly, all with a very spiritual/supportive rather than dogmatic feel. When there is a mass, all responses to the priest are put up on a powerpoint so nobody (including non Catholic me!) feels lost, and all are invited to come up for a blessing. This is the only occasion where it becomes apparent who is a Catholic and who isn't, if you happen to be paying attention to who takes communion. We did have to spend an entire day off timetable watching the Pope though . . .but luckily that won't happen again for a long time!

went to a Catholic school in the 80's and there wasn't really much Catholic ethos. Remember our bitchy form teacher in first year asking us what the Sunday sermon had been about to keep us on our toes. Some teachers were quite religious and sometimes brought it into the classroom. Had to sit through the 'Silent Scream' and abortion talks etc. Had the missionary nuns come visit and try to drum up some future recruits. Even with that, it didn't feel overly religious and I think non Catholics would be ok in this day and age, specially in England (Scotland still mmmay have a few hang ups over the whole Catholic/Protestant thing.

My dd has just started at an all-girls state catholic school. There's been a celebratory mass so far - not a lot else. We're C of E but chose this school because of it's caring ethos and fully accept the catholicism. My view is , if you go for a religious school then embrace and support your child: they don't have to 'believe' but do need to respect the faith. HTH.

DS has just started at a Catholic Secondary, but I suspect very few children are actually Catholic. I guess it depends on the area you live in.

They say a quick prayer every day, and have had one optional mass during the evening, which we didn't attend.

DS is Baptised Catholic, but tells me he is an atheist. As already said, all schools are different, and you'll have to judge it for yourself.

Mine and DH schools were very catholic and remain so today (Convent and Vincension priests) . Prayers at the start of most lessons, mass once a week, devotion etc. I know the Hail Mary in Spanish and Latin thanks to this. The primary school my DD will go to is fairly similar in style. A couple of my friends are non catholic and they joined in and were included in everything (apart from taking communion and confession). We used to ask the more pious teachers to say the extra long prayers to take up as much of the lesson as possible

Agree with LynnetteScavo - it depends where you are. Also matters if it is a Diocesan school or run by a religiious order.

London Catholic Schools especially the West London ones are uber - Catholic. Mass as part of weekly timetable etc but tbh you have nil chance of getting in unless you are Catholic. Outside London I think it is more relaxed.

The schools run by orders appear to be more Catholic as they have much more freedom.