Would you/have you started going to church to get child into a good church school?!

[Bomper]

My ds should pass his 11+, but I am not 100% confident he will. The comprehensive schools in my area are pretty awful, except one, which is a C of E school. Lots of parents have now started to go to church in order to be able to apply, and I am being urged to do the same. Most of me thinks - 'this is my childs future, I will do whatever it takes', but a small part feels guilty. WWYD?

UQD of course you can have that without the faith dimension (see me post on your vegetarian hypothetical school).

People with a faith want that and their faith to be central to the education. The cohesiveness and good results are a by product of the shraed faith/ethos, and it's that which others see and want a part of and object to being barred from.

Go build your own cohesiveness

"and conversely just because a school is high up in the league tables doesn't mean the individual child will always be well supported"

Exactly.

"agree with SmileysPeople it is the shared value and belief systems thatmake a good school.I would be quite happy to see atheist/ humanist schools."

Fine but why ought you not pay for that like anyone else who wishes to choose their child's school based on its selective 'ethos' ?

"Not as vegetarians or Christians are intrinisically any better, but because when people actively opt into something they invest in it, they have shared and understood values, and work together more effectively for the common good and the success of the ethos they've subscribed to and beleive in.

Which is suely a 'good thing'??"

Yes, but only good for you, not for the majority of the population. Let's not pretend there really is ever going to be a vegetarian school or a Humanist school which could select on that criteria. Religion should be kept out of schools, full stop. Selecting children on the basis of a parent's commitment to a cause is ludicrous. I'd no more want there to be vegetarian or humanist schools than faith schools. Well, not true, I would like all schools to be secular.

And what do you mean that when people actively 'opt into' something they invest in it? Not everyone has such choices.

And to those faith selection objecters, my point about selection on economic grounds has not been addressed.

This is more unfair and elitist than faith selction. So those demanding 'fairness' and equality of choice for all tax payers...how would you do that??

I may be wrong, but I suspect that those on here who object to faith schools on the basis of lack of choice for all, are not low income families on sink estaes with a failing school and no ability to move nearer to the 'good' state school 1 mile away.

I suspect (willingly to be proves wrong and apologise) that they are more likely to be middle class with some economic power to use, and so catchment 'unfairness' and 'selction' bothers them less, than the faith selection, which is the one that affects them.

I want my taxes to be spent on good education and if a schol, with a shared ethos and belief system provides a good quality education and is not teaching hatred of those that are different I am fine with that.

I don't think a humanist or atheist school is that faroff to be honest.

I think private and public schools should be abolished before faith ones, less likely to happen but would have more effect on the standards of education in this country.

Smiley - I think UQD addressed your catchment argument below

"One big difference. The "money and wherewithal" needed to move into a good catchment is not an absolute requirement - it's just how it has evolved. Nobody stipulates that you must have a mortgage of over 250K to be in certain catchments - it just happens that way, which I agree is appalling, and should be addressed. But the requirement to follow a faith is just that - a requirement, not a side-effect of the rules." Hope UQD doesn't mind me quoting him here.

Haha your arguemnt seems to boil down to no school should be better than any other as it's unfair for those who can't get in.

I'm sure this is not the case but that seems to be where your arguemnt leads.

Yes a good school is good for those in it, and not good for those for out of it, and some selction on some basis will have to take place to decide who gets in, and there will be some unfairness in the selection inevtiably, whether on faith grounds or not. But surely the existence of good schools is still a good thing??

Successful Jewish and Muslim schools exist, which I wouldn't want my child to go to and which they coyldn't get into, but I still think their existence is good.

Twinset why would you do away with Private Schools?

Haha it may not be a stipualted requirment to have a £250 thousand mortgage, but living near the school is stipauted, and paying infalted house prices is intrinsic if not explicit in the selction criteria.

Please let's not pretend that economic selection is just an unfornate oversight, and why are middle class parents not up in arms about this type of selection? Because they control it and it suits them.

How do you think schould should select Haha??

Because it is selection by income , it allows those with the power to change schools to opt out of the system. I can't see why if you want to get rid of faiths schools (which I don;t agree with but I do want to see them reduced) I can't understand why you think it is right to keep private or public.

Should read:
How do you think schools should select

Yes mercy, it is a fact that children of parents recently arrived in this country are more work. What you don't know is that my parents were immigrants. I was serious work....

Twinsetandpearls is right, abolishing private schools would affect standard more. It would lower them.
Do that maths (assuming you didn't go to a state school where only a tiny % of maths teachers are qualified).
If you abolished privagte schools, then the kids will be educated in the state system. (Stop me when I use concepts beyond your understanding.)
So there would be a serious increase in the number of kids. British people hate paying for education, a lot. There is simply no way that spending would be increased emough, so you'd have far less money for each pupil.
You really think that would make things better ?

No. I have started going to church (every week since last December) for my own reasons and only started going when I was good and ready to reexamine my relationship with God and the Church. But its too late for DS1 to go to the c.of e. school we would have liked him to go to. I think its wrong to go just to get a school place.

Why shouldn't people be able to opt out of a system that doesn't suit them? Would you not let people home school either?

(Stop me when I use concepts beyond your understanding.) was thata aimed at me?

The countries with the best state systems have small or practically non existent private sectors.

I thought about sending my dd privately to school but decided with a group of other parents that instead we would send our kids to the local state schools (which were faith ones) and use our influence. interest and power to raise standards. When dd starts secondary we will do the same.

Our education is often poor because the people with power have historically not used it. Even today so called socialist mps who could use there power and influnce to highlight poor schooling choose so use the private or even public sector.

If everyone had to use the state sector it would be better as there would be no get out clause. The intial costs may be higher but in the long term the money would be well spent.

I don't think schools should be allowed to select. No other taxpayer funded body is allowed to choose who it helps.
Obviously there needs to be exceptions for schools that deal with special needs, but for the other 98%, schools should take what they're given. Teachers need to understand the meaning of the word "employee".

That means some kids will go to crap schools, but that's happening anyway. All that happens is that middle class people like me can dodge the crap through buying a house in the right place, pretending religion, or simply leaving the state system altogether.

We need to be brutal on failing schools. The bottom 1% of schools each year should be closed and the teachers sacked. That means having enough capacity in others to take the slack, and rewarding good teaching. This costs money, and education is a less popular use of taxpayers money than the Iraq war.
Whilst British poeple vote for the party that offers the lowest marginal rate of income tax, we are going to remain at the bottom of every league table except maths.
Recall that we aren't bottom of the maths table because the arts grads in the department of education ghot their sums wrong.
Botswanan civil servants succeeded in this task, as did those in the Palestinian Authority at a time when they weren't being paid, and the head of department was in an Israeli prison cell.
You may have missed this story. No one cared.

DC, I'm also the child of an immigrant - and a 'coloured' one at that.

Still disagree with your sweeping statement though.

Here's an interesting report about the top performing 200 comprehensive schools (not grammar), 84 of which are faith schools, showing the pupil population's eligibility for free school meals versus the local post code area

The gap between free school meal eligibility at the faith school versus the local area is much higher than the gap between the top performing comprehensives.

Because sometimes, and poerhaps this is my religious claptrap getting in the way, it is necessary to put the good of society ahead of your own needs. I don;t agree with homeschooling but can see in some circumstances it is necessary, but I woudl worry thatif the private sector was abolished, and lets face it it never is going to be home schooling would become the new private education.

If everyone used the state sector it would ahve to improve, for example in my own school we are running out of money beacuse of an artificially low council tax. As a result we are having to mae recdundancies, this is happening but it would stop if parents kicked up enough fuss. I know that this would not behappening if the parents of our kids were well educated and have jobs with influence and power.

No. I have started going to church (every week since last December) for my own reasons and only started going when I was good and ready to reexamine my relationship with God and the Church. But its too late for DS1 to go to the c.of e. school we would have liked him to go to. I think its wrong to go just to get a school place.

Smiley - I don't have all the answers. I think the whole school system as it stands needs to be scrapped. Like Blu I think secondary schools should be smaller - more like primaries. More money needed. Teachers better paid. People should go to school in their local community if it suits and not be bussed around. I don't know???

If you live in the SE, house and rental prices are high all over. Having a big mortgage doesn't mean you're in the catchment for a good school. I do and I'm not. I'd rather not have to move house in the future. I'd rather that the MCs in the area did not run off and sent their children to the secondary on my doorstep. House prices are high here but it is a mixed area with a fair amount of cheaper rental housing and some social housing.

I hate selection, my ideal world would consist of schools like my dd faith school, not becuase it is a faith school but because genuine parental choice has been exercised. We all wanted a faith school and we got one, even though we may be thick superstutois religious idiots who need talking to slowly we all pay out taxes! 32of us applied and 32 of us got in! It is not a middle class haven but a true hotchpotch thatrelects are area but we are united by our faith and that unity provides a fantastic education.

The school in which I teach has also got it right, as we have free spaces we do not select - we take anytone and that is the reaso I teach there and have recently chosen not to teach in a faith school - not becvause it is a faith school but because it is over subscribed and is now selcting parents by the back door and even proudly boasts that has halved the number of kids on free school meals that attend.

I deslpise selection but I love choice, but thatis a hard thing to achieve!

I'd love to know what web site Twinset is getting her "facts" from.
The best educaton systems are the French, Russian and Japanese. We don't make the top 20.

France has a large private sector, and what she hasn't bothered to find out, private education is largely controlled by religious groups.

Japan is a mix, mostly state like Britain, but with huge amounts of private tuition paid for by more wealthy parents.

Russia used to be 100% state education with almost no religious schools. But of course it had a private system in all but name. If you were a member of the nomenklatura eleite your kids went to a much better school and university. Political pull taking the place occupied by wealth in other countries.
Now it is a mix, but in many measures it is still the best of any large country.

What twinset has missed big time is that the clear and obvious correlation is lack of parental input to high outcomes.
In the best systems, kids are taught what the state tells them they will be taught.
The worst systems are like Britain, where parents get all sorts of input, of which relgious schools are a symptom. Measured by menys spent vs outcome the worst is America.
Parents have lots of input, electing school boards, and regularly vetoing not only employment off staff but indivdual books in the library. It's a disaster area.
Lots of data points in between, like Germany or Scandanvia.
India has grown enormously because it flaty ignored the way that many parents didn't want their daughters educated. Pakistan is a slum because daughters often aren't, and it's well documented that the best predictor of educational outcomes for both boys and girls in education level of mother, not father.