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?

The overlap thing is odd though. I am a lefty, and am pretty sure that this is informed by my faith. But Catholicism can definitely swing both ways as it were. Scarily so.

frogs, you are the first person here (I think) to have made the point about objection to faith schools being a relatively recent thing and so I thank you for making a New Point!

Of course, this doesn't mean the objection is at all invalid. New ways of looking at the world are emerging all the time. (Not that atheism itself is particularly new - the concept as we understand it dates back to ancient Greek philosophy and was popularised through the Enlightenment.)

The reasons are surely primarily cultural - until the 1950s you would have seemed very strange and suspicious if you at all questioned the assumption that Britain was, and should be, a Christian country. It's only really in the last 20 years that it's become acceptable for people in public life (such as politicians) to be open about not being churchgoers.

(But in America, just try getting elected as ANYTHING without playing the God card. It'd be total career suicide for one of the current Presidential candidates to be outed as an atheist.)

Or a Mormon apparently.

becky - you could probably draw a 3-way Venn diagram for it? Catholic in the middle, Left on the left, Right on the right, overlaps on both sides!

Ah, but there have been some pretty right-right Catholics. And left-left too I suppose, but possibly more in the other direction. Sadly.

A venn diagram wouldn't really indicate the spectrum.

I just find it odd that I can be at such loggerheads with people with whom I should apparently share a world view.

But Frogs, the number of religious schools is growing fast - the CofE want to found another 100 secondaries - but they don't 'own' them, they are being given them as a gift by the government with public money. That makes it directly comparable with religious trains, buses and hospitals, which I think even religious people think would be unfair and discriminatory.

Yes, it's also quite recent to be allowed to be an atheist without being tortured, burned to death or otherwise murdered!

I always assumed that catholics were left wing as I associate Christian principles with socialism, but that is my bias. But when I wanted to get the attention of the catholic community with power for an issue i felt strongly with I was told the place to do this was the Daily Telegraph. so apparantly they are more right wing than I ahd imagined.

For Dc amusement the issue I felt strongly about was the poor level of education I felt students were getting in a catholic secondary school.

Aloha I don;t think there shoud be an increase in the number of church schools, if anything as I said below there shoud be a decrease to reflect the number of Christian families, and I woulk perhaps like to see general faith schools. Although that woudld concern me about causing the schism that divides in society betweem those with and without faith to widen.

It concerns me that the goverment thinks it can deal with the present crisis in education by extending the "successful" model of church schools when in fact there are good and poor church schools and I know this having taught in a good and bad church school. making a school a church school doesn;t make it necessarily good.

As for children's choice when dd goes to secondary school she can choose, I also allowed her to have a choice at primary as we looked at a number of schools some of which were not church schools but she wanted to be with her friends from church and sunday school (which she loves by the way). Obviously the choice she makes when she is 12 will be a more serious choice as she will have a greater understanding. If she chooses the church school that is fine, at the moment she is saying that she wants to come to the school I teach at ( which is yuour bog standard comp - a phrase I hate!) but that is because she is 5 and I have a feeling she may change her mind.

I am not sure if I would want church schools if they didn't already exist, I have a feeling that I woudl as our faith permeates our whole lives and everything we do.

It was the setting up of new schools that really made me think about the faith school issue. I am uncomfortable with some of the more evangelical Christian tendencies, and used to live near a new school that was strongly associated with that particular grouping. And some Muslim schools too. And if I am uncomfortable about them...

iain duncan smith is a catholic.
charles kennedy is a catholic.
tony blair is not - but a "sympathiser" with children educated at catholic schools.

at one point recently the leaders of the three major political parties were either catholics or closely involved with catholicism - so we can see that catholicism crosses the political boundaries!

Aloha, I think there are definitely issues with non-church schools becoming church-affiliated, particularly where they serve a diverse population, some of whom have perfectly reasonable objections to the religious aspect and, crucially, who have limited or no access to acceptable alternatives. There's one of these going on round us, and I really can't see what the CoE are playing at. If the school were intended primarily to serve their own population, and wouldn't have a significant impact on non-churchgoer's school choices, then I wouldn't see it a problem, but there clearly is significant local opposition and I find it odd that they want to go ahead in the face of that.

But also in our area, an orthodox Jewish girls' school, which has existed for years as a private school, has also recently joined the state system. This has no effect on non-Jewish people's school options, and simply provides the children in question with the state education they are entitled to within the ethos of their own community, so I don't see a problem with it.

One of our local schools has become C of E affiiated and it means that the local kids who used to go can no longer get in as lots of C of E familes who coincedently are not on free school meals and do not love on council estates now attend the school often travelling for miles to do so. THis is ridiculous and makes my blood boil, as I have said before I do not want to see anymore church schools and would like to see even less.

Gerry Adams is a catholic and about as socialist as they come.

Gerry Adams

Frogs makes valid points, but I wonder about the Jewish school in the long term...
As she says, it adds to the local system and denies nothing to no one.
But LEAs do planning, OK they don't do it well, but they do take into account schools existing.
Thus in years to come, they will project school numbers and facilities aviailable to include that school.
Thus through no fault of it's own, the Jewish school will become part of the problem.

That being said, I would have flatly denied access to taxpayers money to a school if it discriminates on the basis of race as well as religion.

If the church schools are better that presumably means parents who are religious are better parents, more academic and better at bringing up children therefore those aethist parents who want children like that and clamour to have their children educated with chidlren from religious homes perhaps should consider whether they are wrong not to have that relivious belief and in fact adopt that faith.

If religion does not benefit families and homes why are non church schools often so very very much worse?

Xenia you are far too intelligent to really believe that

There is no correlation between iIQ / intelligence and religious beliefs. (I mean come on- George Bush ? )

Many Church schools serve areas that are higher income, because these are often villages, and the Church tends to be more central to the life of a Village. And then are other factors- I mean our school was endowed in 1747. Doesn't exactly reflect current aprenting does it LOL?

And once a school has a good rep the pushier aprent brigade moves in - rightly or wrongly- and then it improves somewhat mroe (academically anyway- apstorally etc is a whole new ballgame).

Would be interested in knowing what % of Christians (as in, registered with their Church) have a child in a Christian school- I would assume there are huge swathes of them not, in paces like city centres and council estates. And to balance that there is no way 80% of the aprents at our school are Christian. Not real, practicising know the Nicene Creed anyhow.

Oh and for the record, more academic doesn't make a better parent either. If only it was as simple as that.

"Many Church schools serve areas that are higher income"

but no corrolation between money and IQ either !

Partly it's the selection away from more needy kids, also the parents are self selecting. You need to go through a process to get your kids into a religious school. Thus the parents are on average those who care more about their kids education, and of course the original topic of the thread is parents who are willing to lie to get in.
You can argue the morality of such a choice, but such a parent can be expected to support their kids education more than average.

I can't say with any great certainty that these factors account for the obsaerved difference though.
I wonder if religious schools get better teachers ?
It's not a well paid profession, and many who do it because they feel it worthwhile, rather than lucrative. Plausible then that the motivation of some teachers includes religion and this compensates for lower pay. If you assume that it doesn't affect their ability to teach, then I'd expect on average they would be better.

I already did. I am a Christian who never really found a church home until I found a great school for my children. Now that I am an attending member, I also volunteer regularly, it turned out to be one of the best things to happen to our family...both for the school and for the spirituality. Because my decision has affected my life so positively, I now work for the church/school part-time, this gets me out of the house and interacting with other adults, as well as half off my children's tuition!