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?

There's not necessarily a correlation between IQ and money is there? I mean, lots of bright people go on to be teachers and nurses and the like. So whilst you need a high IQ presumably to do well in a job (as opposed to be rich, trust me on that- my sisterrs ex was time nice but dim and very well orf LOL), having a high IQ doesn't guarantee money. Iyswim.

Anyway lots of people in villages were born there. In Somerset where I hail from, that would be for at least 70 generations before you stop being a newbie

There is a correlation between money and IQ. Smarter people on average earn more, and have more options to choose between.
An "ideal" teacher is someone who is accomplished in their subject, is articulate and energetic. Qualities that can serve you well in earning money.
If however you get non-monetary reward from teaching, you may rationally choose it over a more lucrative career.
Most poeple make some rough trade off between how much they perceive they will enjoy a given career and how much they will in earn in it.
Some people narrowly decide not to do it because of this, others are caused by their religion to take this lower paid job.
Few religions have the view that avoiding contact with kids is good, most have at least some push towards teaching, such that Christianity is unusual in that none of it's words for priest equate to "teacher", in many relgions they are the same word, or derived from it.

I think my faith and my teaching career are related. I believe without sounding pious or twee that I have been given gifts that God wants me to use to help others and that it would be wrong to use those gifts simply to make myself richer. I see my teaching very much as a vocation. I came from a very impoverished background, so no money and IQ are not always linked but money and educational achievement may be. I was helped by fantastic teachers to escape my former life and feel strongly that my calling is to help children like myself achieve their ambitions and build a life they never felt capable of.

I did teach in a church school thinking that perhaps that was my calling but it wasn't and I was very unhappy working in a faith school although I do help out at sunday school. I know that the school I teach in now is the answer to my calling and I feel privelidged to have the job I do.

I suppose it depends where you live, butr in this town being a teacher or a nurse is a well paid job.

But its not a well paid enough job to buy you a house in a decent village, 'CofE land', is it? Whcih is waht I meant, really. Of course its better than the average- but to get a house in the catchment fo the best schools it takes far more than average doesn't it?

Ok there's a correlation. But not a causal relationship, there are lots of ways to get money- working ahrd is just one. If Mummy or Daddy left it to you, or Granny left you the house- far easier

So Xenia, where the Church schools that are on special measures and failing (oh yes, plenty of those)that must be the fault of the parent's religious beliefs then? So they should renounce it instantly?

We live on a part time teachers wage and dp wage which is equivalent to a full time teacher and we have a house in the catchment area of the church schools. But that is up north.

And yes, of course selecting pupils will always change the makeup of a school. By demanding church attendance or interviewing parents you instantly remove the most chaotic families from the equation. So what happens in some areas is that they go to other non-church schools, so nice, committed, educationally-minded parents who love books and fret about homework, including those of no religion, worry about that, start going to church and buttering up the vicar and get little Hugo and Tabitha into St Custards Academy, thus pushing up those sats and making the school a little bit posher, thus attracting more little Hugos and Tabithas...and so on and so on.

Our income is obviously lower whilst I study, then i',m stuck with £14K loan to repat- like most graduates will be. So there's no way we could afford (we come from Somerset after all!) to buy- not even on a council estate (and there are some bad ones in Somerset regardless of what people think). We can afford to rent here (Wales), but we'll never get a deposit together AND pay rent. No hope. We did own a home at one point (before DH was very ill for a while), but that was pre- property boom.

We'd need a joint income of £80K to buy this place, at the moment- thats not going to happen!

Anyway I don't think good parents mean educationally. Its a part sure, but theres a lot more to it. Some of the hothousing aprents at school- not my definition of good

But a good catholic parish shoulds know the difference between a comitted Christian who leads a chaotic life and doesn't make it to church and someone going through the motions. In dd life there are definetly kids who come from the chaotic believers camp.I myself didn;t go to church for almost a yeardue to illness but I know dd place atthe school was never in question.

I'm not talking about committed Christians (who are a tiny fraction of the population) - I'm talking about the population.

Yes in the case of the whole population sadly you are probably right, although this in my view is asfarfrom Christianity as you can get, hence my annoyance and outrgae atour local C of E school which boasts of halving the number of children in attendance that claim free school meals.

I was thinking of schools like dd where the families who attend are those that applied, no selection took place for any grounds and families were admitted whether rich or poor, chaotic or organised.

sorry have got a bit tipsy at a school/church social and am not reading all of people's posts. Maybe I should ahve given up booze for lent!

I mean look at David Cameron sending his daughter to a CofE school miles and miles from his house. I bet that school does really well in league tables, all down to the religious ethos though ,of course

I don't think David Cameron even pretends he wants a faith school, did he not want a small school for his children?

I think sending your kids miles away to a church school almost defeats the object as part of what makes the school so successful is the tight knit community, but if you are all travelling from different areas this community willbe eroded.

Yes, he says he wants a faith school and what makes THIS school successful is that is packed with the offspring of the wealthy and academic.

I must be a true cathlic though as am quite inebriated (drunk spelling sorry!) but am able to quote from the catechism from memory. That is what a conevant education does for you

Oh I missed that bit, I saw him being interviewed and he said that he wanted a small school. That is bollocks then your church school should be attached to your church , if you are using a church school because of your beliefs, which is usually round the corner from your house.

Oh, that's very out of order of David Cameron, although no more than I would expect. Posh Tory fuckwit.

So you'll be voting for him then, I expect?

I am not saying that everyone who uses church schools are fantastic people or even that they all provide an excellent education or admit pupils fairly. I do agree that church schools need looking at but if the one my dd attends is so fantastic and admits children from a wide social, cultural and religious cohort surely there must be others like it and they are worth holding on to.

Oh yeah .

I have never and would never vote tory, without wanting to offend anyone and I may now send this thread into a new direction of kicking off status I don't understand how you can be a tory, even the new softer brand, and be a Christian.

Blimey, twinset, you really do want to invest a lot of time in this thread, don't you?

I know I will regret that post when sober.

Am going to slobber over dp!
Good night