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?

I don't get it either.

I went to a catholic school, just a bog standard comprehensive, not a Christian Brothers school or anything like that, and I just don't recognise the whole guilt thing.

I also don't recognise the middle class thing. Our demographic was emphatically not middle class. It was predominantly working class. It was an excellent school with a caring ethos, tight discipline, strong leadership and a true community feeling, which I have to be honest found lacking in some of the schools in which I have taught. Most of the pupils were nominally catholic, but a large proportion of their families were lapsed.

And the parents were alomst uniformly supportive of the school. Perhaps a catholic thing? Whatever the reason, I think it was another contributor to the school's success.

The middle class argument for the success of faith schools is not the whole answer IMO.

No. Raised a Catholic, left in my twenties, tried various other religions, now do nothing. NOTHING would make me attend church to get my kids into a particular school, could not bear the hypocrisy of it.

To imaginaryfriend, I suppose my answer is the obvious one - that, more often than not, faith schools have some perceived desirable quality which sets then apart from the rest of the "bog-standard" schools in the community. Good results, an approved "ethos", a nice uniform... Parents have all sorts of reasons for sending their children to faith schools, some no doubt deeply-felt and some more superficial.

But I wonder how much of the 'special' character of these schools comes specifically from their teaching of faith. If they lost the faith dimension, would they not still be good schools? If your answer to that is no, then I'd be interested to know what, specifically, the faith dimension gives which makes a school "better", and which could NOT be achieved in a secular framework.

No, I don't think private schools should beocme part of the public domain. That's a totally separate argument which we're not having here.

To paulapb I'd say yes, but just because that's the case we shouldn't necessarily encourage it or seek to further it. It surely has to be fair that a STATE school in your community is open to ALL pupils - if you want to educate your children within your choice of faith school, that is your prerogative, and one which I believe you should have to pay for through the independent system. If you wanted to educate your child in Scientology, you'd probably have to - why should teaching of Christianity be funded through taxes, and not Scientology? What if someone wanted to set up a Viking school, teaching that all Norse myths were to be believed and followed?

I was amused by DC's lesbian sex comparison. I have no idea if it's true. To take a less controversial one, I think one statistic which is pretty sound is that the same number of people go to church on a Sunday as go to watch football matches on a Saturday - it's about 1-2 million. What would people think of a "Manchester United" state school which required pupils to be taught that it was unquestionably the best team and everyone else was wrong? Or a "Sheffield Wednesday" school? Seems daft? No more daft than god-schools.

UD, the church school my son will be going to IS by far the best in the area, as the league tables show. Our nearest high school is on special report and (despite being in Surrey) has a very bad reputation NONE of the local parents will pick it so most of the children come in from other areas. We did go to look at it and I told DH I would not send a cat I liked there for a crap. The school DS1 will go to has its own pool, a very well equipt ICT suite and one of the best science blocks I have ever seen, (DS1 wants to be a forensic scientist)
I am a Christian, I am not intellectually lazy and I have even been known to read Asimov (DH is a big fan) I have also read the God delusion by Richard Dawkin.
Faith (for me) is a personal choice, the same as if some people want to follow R Hubbard and think their is a mother ship behind the moon .
I do get p*ssed off with people "finding God" just in time for the schools intake, although most priest see through this.

But no-one is addressing what I think is 'UnQuietDad's' main point - that State schools should be open to all and by discriminating according to church attendance, faith schools are patently not open to all. By way of answer to 'imaginaryfriend', I don't know what wpuld make for a perfect system all I can see are patterns of unfairness and it has taken decades of government tinkering to create such a mess. I have no proof of this but my impression is that the mc dash for faith schools has come about as a response to the introduction of comprehensive schools nationwide. Beause back in the '70's that introduction was, in many areas, so appalling many of the generation who were its guinea pigs don't want the same for their kids. I can't decide what would be best - back to selection but with properly funded schools for those who don't get in to 'grammars' or genuine comprehensive schools with proper setting/streaming.

Religious schools select. We know for a fact that special needs kids are far less likely to get in, and it's reasonable to assume that the sort of parent who is prepared to jump through hoops in order to get in will tend to be more supportive.
Thus religious schools get a better intake. Given they don't have to use so much resources on kids with more needs, it's interesting that they only do a bit better.
The fact is of course that many state schools are complete slums, kept open only to pander to teaching unions and the vested interests of LEAs. Bad schools screw up the lives of quite literally hundreds of kids at a time, yet no government has been willing to take the necessary steps.
Thus parents want to escape these horrors, yet religious schools are allowed to discriminate.
If it were the other way round, I think we all know the law would be changed PDQ.

Beckybrastraps, completely agree with your post.

No.

DC Ours certainly didn't, the special needs department of the secondary school is huge the headmaster takes great pride in the achievements of those children, it is the most ethnically mixed in the area and more socially diverse than any of the nearby schools. The only selection is going to mass regularly on Sunday morning (or Saturday or Sunday evening or during the week in special circumstances)

DC, our local state catholic has a massive special needs section, one of the best in the borough.

BeckyBS - agree totally. my catholic schools had lots of children from working class homes / bussed in from "lesser" areas / council estates etc. as relatively "mc" (however that is defined, but i felt we were better off than most others i knew) i was definitely in the minority and felt in a different wealth bracket to most of my class (bigger house, cars, holidays etc etc)

as for church - we went every sunday growing up (mum had irish catholic guilt - i have none , think there was only 2 or 3 in my class who went regularly at all.

i think a lot of the perceptions and myths about catholic schools are just that - if you ask people who go/have been to "normal" ones (not christian bros etc which were minority) you will find the same experience.

It seems to me that maybe some of you should be getting more upset about the state schools being so bad instead of being derogatory about schools that are good.

Indeed PPB.
And it is ironic that some of the posters complaining about the selective nature of faith schools, and ridiculing those who are religious, are the same ones who have admitted 'playing the system' in order to get their children into them.

"We know for a fact that special needs kids are far less likely to get in"

DC you and I have discussed this before. It's a blanket statement which certainly doesn't hold true for me or my special needs child or my faith school.

Just like the last time you trotted this out, you provide no evidence or source for this 'fact' or any qualification of what kind of faith school you are discussing. All of them? Catholic? Muslim? Jewish? Ones in Margate?

But as my faith school prepares to spend squillions of pounds putting ramps etc in to accommodate its special needs children, and has a higher proportion of the young disabled children I know in the area than any other I can name, I'd like a bit more back-up to this 'fact' that you trot out whenever this subject comes up

I was stating an average, and you and I both know that on average schools that discriminate on religion have been shown to discriminate against kids with special needs.

You have produced no reason for why so many fewer needy kids end up in schools run under religious discrimination. Care to try ?
"reasons" are causes, not "my school doesn.t as far as I know".

The ramps are a legal requirement under the disability discrimination act, not some act of charity.

But yes, many religious schools do not discriminate against disabled kids, and I accept that yours may not. Some actually seek them out, which is a fine example of Christian charity.

Also I'd be happy to understand how you know for a fact that your school doesn't discriminate against kids with extra needs.
Ramps aren't proof of anything. In any case kids in wheelchairs ain't the issue, it's ones with behaviour or learning issues that seem to get it in the neck from discriminating schools.

agree cappucino. faith schools used as a blanket term makes as little sense as world music.

anyway, this may be of interest to the open-minded.

Quality and Performance: A survey of Catholic Schools - addresses issues such as proportion of children with SEN, FSM, ethnicity and other/no faith in Catholic schools. IMHO the results are different from stereotypical pre-conceived notions.

Exactly, Paula and Violet

Behaviour issues - I don't suppose if you had a child with behaviour issues you would want them travelling half way cross town to the faith school especially if they had problems with school avoidance

When I was telling other mums at playgroup that ds was going to the local catholic school several said that the school had reputation for being strict which their children would find difficult so maybe it is self selecting on behavioural grounds

I don't understand why poele object to the state paying for part of religious schools. It is not as if this is an extra burden of children who would not need to be educated elsewhere if that school did not exist. The finiancial cost is no diffent.

So, if no additional cost implications, why should the state object to a school existing where those parents have a shared religious ethos and would like a school with the same?

Also the idea that once these schools exist that people who who do not share that ethos should have equal access, seems bizarre.

Firstly why would they want to?? If it's the discipline and teaching standards, lobby for these in the schools with the secular ethos to which you subscribe.

Secondly if a school exists to provide additional or specific religious education, surely those who actively subscribe to that ethos, for who the school was set up originally, should have primary access.

It's not as if it's religious school or no school.

So those who are non secular should be really studying what it is about religious schools that they want and why their secular schools are not providing it.

"The ramps are a legal requirement under the disability discrimination act, not some act of charity."

er, no. as long as there is an accessible school within the LEA (ie even if you have to drive a bit to get there) there's no requirement for individual schools to upgrade their facilities, because the LEA counts an accessible school or two in it's area as provision for disabled children

this is why all this 'oh my child has no real choice apart from a faith school' doesn't wash with me - try talking to the parents of a physically disabled schoolchild about choice

on and DC, 'you and I both know' - no I don't. I believe you are talking about a certain type of faith school, whatever that might be

There?s insincerity on both sides. Yes, parents suddenly find god to gain their children entrance to a faith school if they are living in an area where the schools are otherwise bad. But (some of) the parents who are devout Christians living in the same areas pretend that their choice of school is all about their faith. Whereas I bet many of those regular church going parents would not bother to seek out a faith school that is a bus ride away if they were in a Grammar school county or if the local school were a high performing comprehensive.

Personally, I could never start going to church and pretending to believe in a god. I happen to live in a middle-class flight area. We?ve a secondary school on our doorstep which is not well attended by the children of the local villages. I see a lot of different school uniforms walking along the road leading to my house and only a handful are from the local school.

Sadly I don't think we'll be able to remain living in this area when we get closer to secondary school age.

But I wonder, why is it right that my daughter is not entitled to a free elitist education and others are?

In answer to the OP though:

Yes.

In reality I'd probably do anything I could for my children, and if I thought this was best I'm sure I would do it. (if I'm honest) Despite my misgivings, and pre children prejudices about poeple who did stuff like this.

But if I were in that position and prepared to basically lie for the school I wanted, I'd like to think that I'd least have the good grace to respect the schools faith and acknowledge it's part in providing the edauaction I want for my child.

People who do this and then still despise the religion so deeply, must be living with very high levels of cognitive dissonance, and IMHO, 'mentally ill'.

Bossykate - that's interesting.

I have read the summary and skimmed the rest - there is a strong emphsis in the findings of parental involvement being a factor...and (surprising to me, I must say) that standards of leadership and governance are not significantly higher or different than from other schools. (I thought they could potentially be higher because the jobs could attract a ore competitive field and that possibly more independent governors could be more exacting!).

It does seem to me that of course many faith schools of different kinds have a v high proportion of parents who play a keen, pro-active and constructive role in their children's education, and in supporting the school, because they have taken a pro-active role in wanting their child to go there - either because they are committed to the faith aspect of the school, or are frantically 'doing their best ' for their child by pretending! The fact that children travel further to catholic scools (in this study) shows just how pro-active parents are in ensuring the right / best school. IME parents who are keen to see their children educated as well as possible are not defined by race or class...(and i am favourably / mildly surprised that there is the same diveristy in catholic schools - that has changed my percepion) but the other maintained schools will have, by default, a higher proportion of kids whose parents just don't give a damn which school they go to or how it performs, and will play little part in supporting either their child or the school.

Amongst the wider maintained sector, it is the schools with a high ration of 'involved' parents that other parents try to flock to....

Anyway, in answer to the OP - I would not pretend to have religious beliefs in order to get DS a school place, I would happily have accepted a place in the CoE school we were offered, equally I would not have pretended to live at an address I didn't (including renting for a year) but I would geuinely move to the catchment area of a school I favoured.

IMO it's about your personal standards, not about faith schools per se.

"So, if no additional cost implications, why should the state object to a school existing where those parents have a shared religious ethos and would like a school with the same?"

Because it is selective. Selective on the basis of how godly a child's parents are. It's most bizarre when you think about it rationally.

"Also the idea that once these schools exist that people who who do not share that ethos should have equal access, seems bizarre."

Well, if it is the faith element alone that is bringing up the standards of the school, then why should children who have the misfortune of having athiest parents be denied access to this enriching ethos?

Hahabizarre in what way are faith schools elitist??

Many catholic schools are in very deprived city areas set up there originally for the Irish immigrant population. No one is fighting to get in there or pretending to be Catholic.

Some Catholic schools are in middle class areas and for interesting, but as yet on this thead unexplored reasons, are doing very well in league table terms.

They are not elitist or based on class. Anyone can be a Catholic, and in this counrty the catholics were usually the poorest, and lowest of the low. Uneducated immigrants.