Faith schools (again...)

[fourcorneredcircle]

Oratory School

So, If you follow this board you've probably noticed I'm a teacher and in the interests of not being caused of of pushing an agenda I will say now that while I'm not vehemently against any schools (except probably free schools) I have always been uncomfortable with the way that Faith schools define religious observance and the effect this has on families who observe but can't fit arbitrary rules on quantity or quality of observance.

I have always said that the 'rules' often benefited white middle class parents above all other groups - I'm glad that such a well known school has been caught out for this.

Am I being overly optimistic to hope that this might be the kick up the backside up faith selective education needs?!

[icecreamsoup]

Mumtryingherbest, it sounds as if you agree that faith criteria aren't appropriate for school admissions. You are right that they're not the only problem though.

[MumTryingHerBest]

icecreamsoup I would be interested to see how many of the families placing children in faith schools genuinely follow the faith.

I have one friend who commented on how few of the families with children at the same school as her DD actually went to church. Apparently that particular faith school does little in the way of checking the criteria is met outside of requesting a letter from the priest, who apparently gives a letter to pretty much anyone who asks. I appreciate some faith schools are more strict on the criteria but I certainly know of a couple of schools where they do little in the way of checks. where this is the case, removing the criteria will do little to change the intake as the parents will simply resort to other measures to get their children in.

[icecreamsoup]

Mumtryingerbest: " In fact it is being caused by families buying or renting next to the school and then moving back to the family home once a place has been secured"

That's another problem. There are ways for LAs to address it if they're determined enough, but it's hard to stamp out completely. It affects all types of school though.

The faith school issue adds an extra layer of complexity, but doesn't compensate. It means that churchgoers can live further away than non churchgoers, but both groups can be just as guilty of house hopping when it suits them.

[MumTryingHerBest]

icecreamsoup I am fully aware of the pressure on school places, I live in an area where it has been confirmed that this year there will not be enough school places (the claimed short fall is 30 places which I think is a very conservative estimate) to accommodate all the local children. We have very few faith schools in the area so simply making those schools available to all will do nothing to prevent the short fall.

I will add that interestingly the two nearest faith schools are accommodating local children. One is a feeder school for a local primary and the other is in a less densely populated area.

I am assuming that those faith schools being addressed in this thread have allocated places to children 8 miles or more from the school whilst children who live 250 metres away and applied were denied a place? The reason I ask this is because that is exactly what is happening in the area I live and the cause is nothing to do with having a faith criteria. In fact it is being caused by families buying or renting next to the school and then moving back to the family home once a place has been secured. The initial child is then followed through the school by siblings who live miles from the school. There is nothing to suggest that the same will no happen to faith schools who remove the faith criteria.

Simply preventing schools from having a faith criteria will go only a short way to bringing school places to local children, only in some areas and most likely only for a short time.

but it will create equality of access to the places that are available - once the house prices rise for those properties nearest those schools the equality of access will have been lost again as only those on the highest incomes will be able to afford them. This again has happened in the area I live. Not sure how many families looking for a three bedroom house can afford between £420,000 and £650,000 tbh.

[icecreamsoup]

Plus, people don't have to jump through complicated hoops to prove if they're male or female, so single sex schools don't tend to favour higher socio-economic groups. If families started considering gender reasignment as a route to accessing their preferred school then it might become an equivalent issue, but I don't think we're quite there yet.

[icecreamsoup]

But single sex schools are a much smaller problem. There aren't many at primary level, and at secondary they tend to balance each other out. Luckily there are only 2 genders, so it's not as complex as the faith school issue.

Faith schools can't balance each other out because there are too many differenti faiths, and people of no faith, to accommodate. If everyone was to be given the choice of a school inline with their own philosophy, as well as a community option, there would need to be a lot of surplus places.

[icecreamsoup]

Mumtryingherbest, no, it won't change the number of places, but it will create equality of access to the places that are available. For people living in areas where places are under pressure, that's important.

For everyone to be given a choice, surpluses would need to increase, but they're decreasing. Many families aren't getting any of their 6 preferences, and are being squeezed out of all their local schools by faith applicants from further afield.

Single sex schools can cause problems in areas where there is a squeeze on places too, if there isn't a balance for boys and girls.

[MumTryingHerBest]

icecreamsoup - Mumtryingherbest, even grammar schools don't have exemptions from the Equality Act. interesting that no one seems to object to single sex schools.

[MumTryingHerBest]

icecreamsoup it may be covered in other threads but as fourcorneredcircle stated "I suppose I just don't feel they (nor any other organisation) should have exemptions." so why are they focusing only on faith schools?

Simply changing the intake criteria for faith schools won't create more school places. It just means other children will loose out on a place instead.

[icecreamsoup]

Mumtryingherbest, even grammar schools don't have exemptions from the Equality Act.

However many people are against grammar schools' selective admissions policies too. That's a separate debate, well covered on other threads.

[MumTryingHerBest]

fourcorneredcircle - I suppose I just don't feel they (nor any other organisation) should have exemptions.

Do you include Grammar Schools/Super selectives in this?

[roversreturn]

There are a small number of schools attached to other faiths. I've no idea what their attitude is to restricting the percentage of places allocated on faith grounds. (prh47bridge)

Well, Tauheedul Girls Muslims school has an admissions policy that is very similar to an RC school prioritising Muslim girls (from particular mosques in the town) over all others. Like RC schools, even looked after children are segregated into Muslim and non-Muslim, and siblings of former pupils are prioritised too. The boys' free school they have opened does not have a single non-Muslim pupil so the 50% cap is tokenistic. But this school does also prioritise the same particular mosques and it has something like 90% of Indian origin (the mosques are associated with a Gujerati-speakng Indian community) despite the fact that the majority of Blackburn Muslims are of Pakistani heritage.

Before a <a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218204125/www.schoolsadjudicator.gov.uk/upload/ADA001395%20Tauheedul.doc" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">schools adjudicator ruling the girls school also stipulated that parents had to be 'members' of the mosques, but only men can be members so that would have discriminated against widows. I don't know how members are accepted but I believe they are expected to donate 10% of their income so it could be that these are relatively middle class families too.

[Kewcumber]

My old childminder was originally refused a place at the local faith school for her youngest child despite her older child being at the school because they missed Sunday mass once a month when she was doing respite care for an autistic child and her husband was working shifts

[Playfortoday]

Good luck to the parent who tries to get their child into the Oratory on faith alone. It's exactly people like you, mummabears, when you were at your lowest, who are excluded by the complicated admissions procedures.

[icecreamsoup]

mummabears: "its not hard to get into a church school you just have to have faith"

That's not true. You don't have to have faith, because faith isn't measurable. Instead, you have to meet various faith criteria, such as regular mass attendance. People can, and do, meet those criteria whether they have faith or not.

The process is coercive - it encourages people to increase their church attendance in order to gain an advantage in the school system. That is wrong. Many people of faith recognise that. Many people whose children attend faith schools also recognise that. However, it is the system that is wrong, not the parents who try to make the best of it.

[Kewcumber]

good morals

So do you think that non-faith schools teach bad morals or are they just immoral?

Are all atheists immoral and catholics moral - I think you might find a few newspaper articles to the contrary...

Yes, everyone is entitled to an opinion but not all opinions are very well formed and could do with a little harsh daylight shone on them.

[mummabears]

I my 2 eldest have both been provided education when we have been in most difficault times. I was at my lowest and poorest living in a womans refugue and came from a working class family anyway. they gave my children a brilliant education with morals and ambition to excell.
since being in that situation i have remarried into middle class and my youngest has been to private school however her school has gone into liquidation and i am again seeking refuge for her at a catholic school(which will be a first) for me i feel the schools are normally a good standard and offer good morals and life lessons for children. its not hard to get into a church school you just have to have faith. i believe having faith is what makes these schools so good. you may crisisise i really dont care .. this is just of my oppinion... which everyone is intitled too..

[Playfortoday]

I'm not saying you shouldn't apply to a faith school, I'm saying that those who clean shouldn't expect special admissions treatment because of it. You yourself said you don't do it to get your children into a school, you do because of wholly separate motivations. In which case, then there's no issue with separating such duties from admissions.

Which I think you agree with anyway from your last sentence, that you recognise the validity if the censure the Oratory received.

[rocketjam]

I think that just as many people feel uncomfortable with families who attend church just to get children in the school - people who may - or may not - sit at the back and fiddle with their mobile phones throughout the service, speak to nobody, don't get involved in anything, don't participate in any aspects of church life and most of all, seem to have very little respect for people around them who have some level of faith and for whom a church service is important.

Playfortoday - I don't get the point of your first question. So people who are actually involved in church life and have been involved in church life for years, and who would prefer for their child to receive an education with an ethos in line with their belief, should not apply to the faith school in question? Why would they do that?

As for your second question, I think that yes, statistical data shows that people who send their children to faith schools have a higher income. And this is a very serious issue, I think that faith schools should look at this and try to find where they go wrong.

But your first question is nonsense.

The point is with the example in question, that the school admission rules have proven to be wrong and illegal.

[fourcorneredcircle]

rocket I'm not doubting people want to make that time - that's their choice but as others have said that extra time shouldn't count towards their child's admission to whichever school - some parents just don't have the time to give. It's so unfair.

[Playfortoday]

I've two questions, Rocket.

If people do such things (cleaning etc) as its own reward rather than as a way of gaining priority in admissions, then presumably they'd be happy to give up that privilege.

Secondly, is there anything in Jesus' teachings to suggest that someone with the free time to do such things is actually more godly than, say, the single parent working all hours to support their family. The bible seems pretty down on rich people and yet the oratory admissions have conspired to give it an intake substantially wealthier than surrounding schools.

[icecreamsoup]

rocket, yes, some people do. But should that give them higher priority in school admissions? Many people who belong to the church feel uncomfortable about that.

[rocketjam]

fourcorneredcircle, I understand your point, however if you are part of a church you do make time. And yes, that does include cleaning the church, make it look special for important occasions, looking after the garden and church grounds, as well as the many community services that many church members are involved with. It's a question of priority. Believe it or not, some people go to church and are involved in church life because they actually feel it's part of their faith, not just to get their children in a specific school.

[prh47bridge]

Any new academy or free school designated as a faith school must allocate at least 50% of its places without reference to faith. Some existing faith schools already allocate a percentage of their places without reference to faith. CofE schools generally seem receptive to this idea (although I'm sure there are exceptions). Unfortunately the Roman Catholic church is dead against it. There are a small number of schools attached to other faiths. I've no idea what their attitude is to restricting the percentage of places allocated on faith grounds.

[Playfortoday]

I think faith is a private matter and impossible to measure (I'm of no faith myself so that's pretty easy to judge…)

If you must have faith admissions then you cannot have such a complicated scale of faith such as the one the Oratory uses. It must be baptism and then distance. It's a crazy situation when only 8 boys from Fulham & Hammersmith got into the school. I've a friend who describes her children's primary in flaming Twickenham (i.e. miles away) as a feeder for the Oratory and it sends more than the whole borough in which it's situated. Are they really more religious in Twickenham? They're certainly posher.

It's been said before that wherever you have selection you get what 'a drift to posh'. That's because where you have complicated admissions you're not going to get, for example, the chaotic, the children of substance abusers, recent immigrants, travellers etc.

I know the Birmingham schools weren't faith schools, but I do hope that the scandal will weaken the whole commitment to religious segregation that we have in this country.

I'm genuinely optimistic that faith schools will eventually have to be open, or at least 50% open in their admissions. I really think it will happen and this is a good thing.