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 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. interesting that no one seems to object to single sex schools.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.