Faith Schools And Racial Segregation?

[scramble69]

Why in this day and age are we still allowed to segregate kids according to faith and race?
In my town in East London Walthamstow in our catchment area there are two Roman Catholic primary schools and one Church of England which draws 95% of the white kids and a few black kids. In my son's school there are 900 kids Bangladeshi/Polish/Bulgarian/Lithuanian etc. and 5 of them are white English kids!
Of mixed parentage myself I find it frustrating that my kid can't mix with other English kids,can't be socialised in English culture,music football etc.
I'm absolutely for the benefits of schooling children about the cultures of the world and the joys of living in an international city but shouldn't local authorities ensure that this segregation situation doesn't happen as it clearly is?

Some more background from the census digest (linked in my previous post):

Para 27: "Catholic schools had higher proportions in most ethnic categories apart from the Asian/Asian British"

Para 28: "the number of pupils classified as white Eastern European increased substantially, from 1.6% of the total in 2012 to 2.5% in 2013.

Para 31: "There was a group of six dioceses with more than 84% white British pupils: Liverpool, Hexham & Newcastle, Lancaster, Middlesbrough, Plymouth and Shrewsbury.... The most ethnically mixed dioceses, with fewer than 45% white British pupils, were Brentwood, Northampton, Southwark and Westminster...

OP, its also worth pointing out that apart from the UK are only 3 other OECD countries that allow admissions policies that segregate children by faith: the Irish Republic, Estonia and Israel. (See here)

It's only allowed here because of an exemption from the 2010 Equality Act.

Our local catholic has an admissions hierarchy with athiests at the bottom:

1. Baptisted catholic
2. In care non-catholic
3. Other christian community
4. Other faith non-christian
5. Other children

Very strange in this day and age that this can be going on...

To clarify,

1. Baptised catholic in care
2. Catholic feeder school
3. Other baptised catholic
4. In care non-catholic
5. Other christian community
6. Other faith non-christian
7. Other children

Of the three other local schools, two have "statement of educational needs" first followed by local authority and then disabled needing accessiblity. The third, an academy has local authority first but like the catholic school no mention of SEN.

You would have thought that the religious school should be setting an example in the morally right thing to do here by putting SEN kids, disabled kids and kids in care at the top of their priority list.

"Meditrina how many Pakistani Bangledeshi Somalian Bengali East European Muslim children are in your local Catholic schools?"

Don't know exactly. As quoted above, it's pretty much in line with the Census stats quoted above: lots of newish arrivals from Eastern Eurooe (they go to Church, they find out about schools fom that community, they use them), and South Americans. Not that familiar with the school, but think there are usually a few families from the Phillipines too.

If there is a demand for atheist education (not sure if that's what gardenfeature is after) there are more possibilities now under the free school policy (would need a waiver about "collective worship" in same way as Muslim and Jewish school have, and the RE it must offer would be handled in the same way too).

Faith schools exist because churches, synagogues, mosques and temples founded them - many welll before state education existed at all (CofE in particular to educate all children in their parish, not just religious families). Now, with free school funding, groups do not have to fundraise extensive for a generation or two to set up, nor do they/their church have to raise the 10% capital costs, nor deal with the extra bureaucracy if dealing with both Church owners/funders and govt funders over land/buildings/maintenance/alterations etc. It's a good time to make the point by doing it, and doing it well.

Though most CofE schools are VC (fully community criteria), and also with VA schools (which may allocate some or all places by application of churchgoing activity), are more community focussed and agnostic than outsiders realise. And the loose liturgical stance of CofE does mean that just about anything short of advocating crime or satanism counts as "broadly Christian".

There's two reasons I'll choose a faith school over anything else. I'm guessing the same two reasons as every other parent.

1. it's by far the best performing school
2. it teaches the basic tenets of my faith

I couldn't give a rats ass what colour the kids are or sex.

When my mother used to teach in a RC school (not in a big city) they had quite a few Muslim pupils because many Muslim parents thought that the Catholic ethos/moral values (leaving aside specific religious teaching) would suit them better than a non-church school. This was in an area where the school wasn't oversubscribed, though, obviously. They also had a lot of Polish/Lithuanian families and children from the traveller community. There are schools and schools and it's hard to generalise.

Personally, though, I'm opposed to faith schools in general. Abolishing faith-based selection would be a start.

meditrina so allocating school places according to a parents willingness to sit in a pew regardless of whether they actually believe in Christianity is acceptable? That is what is happening around here. We have a shortage of primary school places, 75 parents in our borough just found out they don't have a school place at all. In this suburb and the next we have two CofE primaries, two catholic primaries and two community schools. The Catholic primaries have selection criteria so rigid not even many practising Catholics are Catholic enough eg didn't have the foresight to get their children baptised by 6 months, especially the ones that are not white British, it has 1% of it's children on Free School Meals compared to 10% at the community school next door. The CofE schools have ignored their diocese who want schools to serve the community and our MP who has called on them to be more community minded and increased the number of foundation places that go to parents who have sat in the pews of their churches, so that they too are now exclusively for those willing and with the knowledge to meet the faith criteria, the result is that the children of parents who are not willing or don't have the knowledge are left with no school place or one that is next to impossible to get to on two buses with toddler siblings in tow. Add to that, that the Council puts in bulge classes wherever it can to cope with the shortage of places and if it is a Catholic School and they are the only places offered to non Catholic children they do not give their siblings priority over Catholic children in future years so parents end up having to juggle children at different schools.

I may not be an expert theologian but to me doing that to children does not seem right, or particularly Christian....

Meditrina said: "If there is a demand for atheist education ..."

There isn't in particular. There's a demand for inclusive, community education, which isn't the same thing at all. Inclusive community education caters for children of all faiths and none. Children learn to rub along side each other despite their differences, which is a valuable skill in the modern world.

There is also an understandable demand for "choice", but as per this thread, it simply isn't possible to give everyone choice without vastly increasing the number of surplus places.

"would need a waiver about "collective worship" in same way as Muslim and Jewish school have..."

Muslim/Jewish schools don't have a waiver. They can provide an alternative form of worship, but "no worship" isn't allowed. Of course many Community Schools find their own interpretation of "worship" which is acceptable to their communities, but it's still a point of contention for many. (There are several Mumsnet threads on the topic).

"1. Baptised catholic in care .."

That is a particularly unpleasant distinction. By definition, children in care tend to come from very chaotic families where baptism isn't necessarily a priority. If an un-baptised child from a Catholic heritage is adopted/fostered by a non-Catholic family, they shouldn't be given low priority for school admissions compared to an equivalent child who is adopted by a family who are willing/able to get them baptised.

"Faith schools exist because churches ... founded them - many welll before state education existed at all"

That is very true, and needs to be respected. However, the Church schools were created as a charitable gesture, not an evangelical one, to serve local communities that the state wasn't providing for at the time. Now that the state is almost fully funding them, they need to make sure that their admissions policies continue to serve their local communities. Many are bypassing their local communities to select families from a wider area that meet their faith criteria, which is fine for private schools, but a lot more controversial for state schools. (Again , it comes down to the "choice" argument. Yes, the Free School policy technically allows non-faith groups to have choice too, but there isn't enough money for everyone to have choice, and the Government needs to stop pretending that there is. Currently they're providing privileges to minorities rather than choice to the majority.

"...synagogues, mosques and temples..."

Meditrina, non-Christian faith schools started to receive state funding only very recently, in response to understandable calls for equality. Their numbers are increasing rapidly under the Free School programme.

"Though most CofE schools are VC (fully community criteria) ..."

Actually Meditrina, many VC schools do prioritise faith applicants over community applicants. See here.

"Sunnydaysablazeinhope said "There's two reasons I'll choose a faith school over anything else. I'm guessing the same two reasons as every other parent: 1) it's by far the best performing school. 2) it teaches the basic tenets of my faith. I couldn't give a rats ass what colour the kids are or sex."

Individual parents are behaving logically in the circumstances. It's the politicians that need to take stock and decide whether the system is fairly serving the country as a whole. That's why groups like the Fair Admissions Campaign are focusing on presenting research to politicians showing the social consequences of their policies, rather than on persuading parents to boycott faith schools (which, let's face it, would be a hiding to nowhere).

My goodness-I've just read the Fair Admissions website. Eye opening to say the least.
"Crucially research also shows that the more a school is permitted to select children by faith the greater extent to which it is likely to socio-economically segregate" Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Romain MBE

"Eye opening to say the least."

Exactly. By isolating the admissions issues of faith schools from the much wider and more complex question of whether faith schools should exist at all, they are making good political headway. The issues are very clear.

As I said earlier, it's much easier to address complex problems by breaking them down into smaller problems and tackling them individually. The groups involved in the Fair Admissions Campaign have very different views on the bigger questions, but they all agree over the admissions issues and have joined forces to tackle them together.

Icecreamsoup, I completely and utterly agree with you. I think it's genius of Fair Admissions Campaign to isolate one small element of faith schools to work on. It's the most egregious thing about them, especially in an era of school shortages.

When people talk of 'atheist schools' do they think that we non-believers should be allowed to discriminate against those who do believe when it comes to school admissions? Can you imagine if community schools had criteria that included 'non baptism of children'? Crazy yet no more crazy than excluding children because they haven't been baptised.

Do those of us who are against faith schools and their admissions policies think that faith schools have been undermined by what's been happening with the Islamist 'Trojan Horse' business in Birmingham? It seems to me that those Tory high catholics would be the first to object to that and yet it is very comparable to schools like the Oratory.

Completely agree, OP. I object to faith schools on two grounds. Firstly your point, that I can't see it as anything but counterproductive to separate children in this way. If we're going to encourage tolerance and understanding between people of different faiths and none (and, as you say, by extension often also between people of difference races and cultures), we're much more likely to achieve that by children getting to know each other.

Secondly, there's extensive evidence to show that any form of selection widens the gap between the already advantaged and the already disadvantaged, as the fair admissions campaign has demonstrated so clearly. I find it astonishing that faith leaders can support this.

Can anyone explain why a Christian school, supposedly extolling the virtues of Christian teachings, values and morals wouldn't have SEN kids, looked after kids and disabled kids at the very top of their admission criteria?

Garden, that sounds like a good question for the Governing Body of the school in question. Voluntary Aided schools are their own admissions authorities.

and if Prh47Bridge is around, he might know how those lists fit in with the Admissions Code

Talkin, para 1.37 of the code says:

"Admission authorities for faith schools may give priority to all looked after children ... whether or not of the faith, but they must give priority to looked after children ... of the faith before other children of the faith. Where any element of priority is given in relation to children not of the faith they must give priority to looked after children ...not of the faith above other children not of the faith"

However, it is silent on whether they need to prioritise look-after children not of the faith over other children of the faith, which means the criteria at the school in question are legal on that point (and it's a very common policy - VA schools in my area do the same).

Para 1.6 of the code says:

"All children whose statement of special educational needs (SEN) names the school must be admitted"

So if the policy doesn't make it clear that SEN children would have top priority then I think it would be in breach of the code.

Checked the admissions criteria again and below the criteria under NOTES, I found the following:

Note 1

Children with a Statement of Special Educational Needs which names the school in part 4 of the statement will be admitted.

So, not as bad as first thought. Not sure the implications of having to have the school mentioned in part 4 of the statement as opposed to choosing it as first choice school? A difficult hoop to jump through or a formality?

However, looked after children still below baptised catholics which although legal remains morally reprehensible.

A difficult hoop to jump through or a formality?

Getting an SEN statement is a difficult hoop to jump through, full stop. Under that criteria, there would have to be a particular reason why the statement names the school in relation to the specific need, e.g. because they have a particularly good reputation for dealing with that need.

Do your other local schools prioritise all children with SEN statements or just those that have the schools named in their statement?