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: Neither do I, exactly, but people say it to Cod when she is being dismissive of other people's opinions

But do you really believe it, Blu? That being able to get up for mass on a Sunday means you are more likely to get to school on time? isn't that a touch, um, simplistic? And that gorwing up in a faith household automatically makes it a more "moral" household (I parapharse, so forgive me if that doesn't represent what you meant).

"Why should I "choose" to be such a thing when I have no basis in fact for believing that any of it is true?"
You don't have to - it's a matter of faith and a matter of choice. But it means that you can't expect your children to be chosen first for access to a faith school, ahead of people who do "choose".

custy, it's about a lack of gardening implements.

Custy...which bit isn't true and where do the candlesticks fit in? I understand the SAturday night bit, though.

Anyway, it was something popinted out by a catholic parent and it made sense to me!

But since the report cites parental involvemnent on several counts, and making an effort to get your kids into a particular school is required by any selective school, then the parental involvement aspect is ...obvious, isn't it?

VB - going round in circles. I DON'T expect my children to get in first ahead of people who "choose". I can "choose" to believe whatever nonsense I like - see my list of choices below - but it doesn't get my children anywhere in the school system. What I expect is there to be no link whatsoever between the education system and the superstition one chooses to pay homage to.

Starting to get a teensy bit narked now that people are missing the point.

Well said 'HaHa'. 'Blu' - are you implying that it is simply a lack of discipline that prevents families going to church? I know plenty of parents playing the sysytem by going to church and also know some other parents who would consider playing the system but can't because they work in retail and can't get Sunday's off! Not everyone works mon-fri. I am also worried by the implication that only religious people live by a moral code.

UQD - Yes, i do think there is a differnce between a parent who believes in the importance of something to the extent they out themsleves out for it is likely to carry into other areas.

I don't think that per se (another gardening term, Custy) religious parents are more 'moral' than non-religious parents (and I was quite careful in the way i phrased it) - of course not, i feel very strongly about my own athiest moral values - BUT I think that the really anti-social behaviour demonstrated by parenbts and kids in schools I have had close asociation with have not been religious parents. Religious parents, like moral and responsible athiest parents, tend to invest some attention in thier children. I am talking about the kids who have no constructive parenting at all, and whose behaviour causes disrution in every aspect of teh school as a learning environment.

But i respect custy's claim to be an inattentive religiious parent, if that is what she is demanding!

UD, I tremble at the prospect of your narkiness , but you are missing my point, which is that I am perfectly happy for different schools to teach different beliefs, and for those who subscribe to those beliefs to have preferential access to those schools.

"if you have the family discipline / culture to be at Mass at an early-ish hour on a Sunday,( SAT NIGHT MASS!) you will probably have the same ability to get your children to school on time.

And if the majority of parents at a christian faith school live their lives according to their faith, there will be a lower ratio of kids who believe that drugs, neglect, domestic violence and general agression and lack of respect and affection is the standby response to any situation. Ergo a better learning environment.

in my candlestick experience, religeon make not a jot of different in fact zealot religeous types end up with pink haired kids - this is a fact - all of them!

its just good people - nowt to do with religeon. if every good parent with morals and principles was able to bring up a kid with same - teenagerdom would be a breeze.

somone pass me a bong

WEll, maybe I'm worng, but i absolutely did NOT say that only religious parents live by a moral code. Anyway, that si spelled out in the post bel,ow, I hope.

If i was inventing a state school system from scratch, i wouldn't build it on the moidel we have now - but I think it's interesting that these debates polarise people to such an extent that people won't give an inch to the 'other side'. i AM the other side form those that are arguing with me, and simply looking for the answers to the question which gets asked - which is why DO faith schools do better / have such competitive admissions even to the extent of people pretending to be reilgious???

that's all - why wouldn't some of those answers refelct well on the people who make up the core of the attendance??

Blu- we probably agree, but my difference with you would be that I don't think there needs to be any religious dimension.

VB - I am happy for different schools to teach ABOUT different beliefs, which is not quite the same thing. And I don't think that should have any bearing on the school admissions system.

Again, how would you feel if schools discriminated on the basis of
a) political affiliation of the parents
b) football team
c) lifestyle choices, e.g. vegetarianism?

These are all things which people can be as passionate about as God. And there's no debate over whether they actually exist.

Custy - fair enough, and none of it can apply to everyone.

So why do YOU think catholic schools (in particular - and because it is your area of expertise!) do better?

And....imo it would take even MORE discipline to go to mass on a Saturday night!!!! I mean it isn't as if there is much to miss at 11am on a Sunday morning, is it?

Sorry - meant to say'UnQuietdad' - I totally get your point

I'm glad someone does!!

unquietdad I do get your point

but you have to accept that there wouldn't be half the schools if they hadn't been set up by the church

the church provided an education system because there wasn't an adequate one historically

it's not just like it has popped up and started throwing its weight about in the school system

Scientologists/fairy-worshippers/crystal-healing-believer/ followers of Thor/ worshippers of Apollos have set up no free national school system that I have heard of

UQD - if I was building a state school system from scratch, I wouldn't include state funded schools with any selection or discrimonation on grounds of religious belief or particpation.

And there are lost of things I would do to make sure that a good learning environment was more possible in every school. (schools would be smaller, more home-school support, the school would have the right to have certain young people kept in cells from 9am-3.30 and / or to be rescued from their parents and put in families with attentive competitive middle-class parents instead, ooops, no that's prehaps going a bit far....)

oh and neither have football teams

"Again, how would you feel if schools discriminated on the basis of
a) political affiliation of the parents
b) football team
c) lifestyle choices, e.g. vegetarianism?"

That would be fine with me - I would no more send my children to these types of school than I would a RC faith school, for example.

But it wouldn't annoy me if other people did.

As if Capp

i can go 6.30 mass sat night - and get shitfaced down the pub by 8 tis true.

i dunno why they are better TBH, we have god on our side?

Blu, I'm not a expert like Custardo but my from my own experience I would say it could be down to a sense of community and family. Families know each other from school, from going to church and being involved in school, church and other activities. Sometimes several generations of families have attended the same school and/ or church.

I agree with cappuccino - the church set up schools to educate everyone as far as i knwo, and it is only the panic amongst concerned parents about low standards in maintained schools, and, frankly, the terror that they may mix with seriously dysfunctional kids) that has created this tremendous competitivfe pressure on faith schools.

If you draw a circle connecting all the places where young teenagers have been shot in S London in the past few months, i live pretty much in the middle of it.

That is what parents are afraid of. The number of ypoung people who are seriously outside society...and, not always, but often, it is the parents lives that have enabled that to happen. I see those parents, all day, every day.

Mercy - that makes sense, too.
And would be the same of secular village schools in many cases?