Attending a Catholic School as a non-practicing Catholic

[KateBlush]

My DD is highly likely to be allocated a place a Catholic Girls School tomorrow. I'm interested in what her day-to-day experience might be like for non-practicing pupil.

From school visits and communication coming out of the school, its catholic culture seems pretty all-pervading. DH is catholic (I'm Anglican) and our children are baptised catholic, but religion is not part of our daily lives and if pushed, we both feel pretty negative about the church. It's an 'outstanding' school and academically very strong. It's also unapologetically old-fashioned - combined with the faith factor this worries me a bit - might this be a potentially stifling environment for a non-catholic?

Do any of you have children at faith schools where the faith is not a determining factor for you - how do your children fare? Do they feel excluded in any way? Does it feature in every part of their school experience? Thank you.

@Wondermule

This has actually inspired me to create a new thread, I don’t think it has really been discussed on here that I have seen?

It's discussed frequently.

It doesn't sound a great fit for your family ethos, although she may decide to become catholic.

I suspect the OP is talking about schools in England.
In Scotland, everyone in my class was a practising Catholic. Same with my Dd's.

@Lockandtees

Haha *@ScrabbleOriginal*, yes corrupt priests are not hard to come by.

Ours signed our form without the full 12 months attendance. So who in that case is more morally bankrupt @Wondermule? Me or the priest?

Just remembered, another priest local to us who will sign off weekly "church attendance" for children wanting to transfer to a faith secondary on the grounds that they attend his attached primary school and he does a weekly assembly! They don't need to set foot in the church.

It's easy to suspect that people are faking Wondermule but that doesn't make it easy to prove.
Lots of people will have their children Baptised or make their First Holy Communion because of tradition or family pressure, because they like the dress and the party or whatever. They'd be able to provide all the paperwork but that doesn't prove that they genuinely believe.
Likewise, genuine new converts might look lost in Mass, or have their children baptised late and they won't have a paper trail of Church attendance. Should they be excluded because some people lie? How would you differentiate? Surely in the end the priest can only go on what people tell him? If they give the "right" answers to his questions how can he not accept that?
I'm sure you are right that if there are more hoops to jump through it will put off some of those who are less committed to getting into a particular school. But lots of parents are willing to make fraudulent applications and many would see lying to a priest or getting their child baptised as trivial and easy compared to some of the other things people try.
Obviously it would be better all round if everyone was completely honest in their applications but whilst big disparities between schools remain, I can't see that happening unfortunately.

Some of the most oversubscribed Catholic schools partially select based on the age that the child was baptised, on the grounds that a "true" Catholic would not allow their child to be in a state of original sin for more than 6 months. Unfortunately this discriminates against Eastern European Catholics, who are less likely to have a tradition of early baptism, no matter how devout they are.

[quote Lockandtees]@Wondermule what are you on about?

“The fact you’re happy to lie to play the system, deprive a genuine Catholic of a school place but happily let their parents pay for your kids, before taking the piss out of their faith, doesn’t make you some kind of super parent”

No other parents will be paying for my kids to attend a faith schools. Faith schools (at least where I live) are entirely funded by the tax payer. I have as much right to have my children educated in one as anyone else.

You seem completely oblivious to the issue that non-faith kids are often offered an inferior education and, at the very least, a limited choice of schools. There is a absolutely no justification for that. There is no place for religion within schools in a secular society. If you are religious and want your children to have a religious education then you can provide that for them in your own time and at your own expense. Not at the expense of tax payer who predominantly are not religious.

However, given the system as it currently stands I have no choice but to have my kids baptised and grudgingly attend church every week to get them a place at the “good” school. The alternative is a non religious school which is underperforming. What would you do in my shoes? Send your kids to a shit school? Of course you wouldn’t.[/quote]
The issue is that this ISN'T strictly a secular society. Blame Henry VIII if you like, but in this country the head of state is also the head of the church, so church and state are entwined. It's not secular.

And because it's enshrined in law that state schools have to provide collective religious worship it makes sense that there are schools that provide an education centred on faiths other than the 'norm' of protestant christianity, and why the state funds 'other' faith schools (Catholic, Sikh, Jewish, Muslim).

State funding for faith schools allows people of different faiths to have access to a religious ed for their children that isn't contrary to their own religion, and therefore ensures the school system doesn't discriminate against minority religions. I guess if you're atheist you takes your choice, or you go for a non-denominational school, which has to provide broadly christian worship.

If children are from non-faith families and attend faith schools, then they're going to get faith stuff foisted on them - it's up to parents to decide which faith they can stomach when choosing schools, I suppose.

I take a bit of issue with your repeated suggestion that either 'educated, middle-class' or 'intelligent middle class' parents are gaming the system and filling up the faith schools though @Lockandtees. I'm a Catholic, went to Catholic school, and have children in Catholic schools, and it's not middle-class dominated at all - a real mix, due to entrance criteria stipulating Catholic feeder schools from across the diocese, so in this case more mixed than the non-Catholic schools who tend to select on area alone and so create very class-biased intakes, depending on the wealth of the catchment area of the school. And of course middle-class doesn't equate to either being educated or intelligent - that's just offensive nonsense.

Not sure also what you mean by saying that non-faith kids are offered a limited choice of schools? Only around a third of primaries are faith schools, and even fewer (less than 20%) of secondaries are faith schools. Seems like non-faith kids have the lion's share of school choice...

Place marking to come back to this thread, really interested in this.

@Lockandtees

The UK may not be constitutionally secular *@Bucolicky* but our head of state is really just symbolic. 71% of young people are not religious and 53% of the population in England and Wales are non-religious - so I don’t think it’s disingenuous to refer to the UK as secular, even if our state institutions are not keeping up.

I fundamentally disagree with this:

“State funding for faith schools allows people of different faiths to have access to a religious ed for their children that isn't contrary to their own religion, and therefore ensures the school system doesn't discriminate against minority religions”

If you want to give your child a religious education then it isn’t the job if the state to provide this. And it doesn’t prevent discrimination against religious minorities. There’s a huge Muslim population where I live but no Muslim school so how exactly is the faith school system ensuring they’re not discriminated against and catering for them? In reality the system leaves them with very limited choices because most of the schools in my area are Christian faith schools.

As to your point about faith schools not limiting the options for those families who are not religious, this is simply not true. Within commuting distance of my house are about 10 primary schools and only 2 of them are not Christian faith schools. How exactly is that not limiting my choice of schools? And how is that ensuring other minority religions are not discriminated against?

Ah, I think you may have misunderstood my point. The fact that state schools are legally obligated to provide religious worship and religious ed, and that this is (protestant) christian by default, suggests we need more alternative faith schools.

You are wrong in your statement - it literally (legally) is the job of the state to give children a religious education. So, until the govt actually do reform the system to offer a secular education system, more alternatives to the default protestant christianity version would avoid schools being discriminatory to families of other (or no) religions.

I think this is why some people get upset about parents who lie (obvs not talking about the OP here) to get their children a place at a faith school and then eye-roll at that faith and pooh-pooh it. Lots of families really do take their faith seriously, despite what you might say, and are upset when others disrespect it, and really do want their children to have chance to be part of their faith (rather than another faith) community at school.

it literally (legally) is the job of the state to give children a religious education

@Bucolicky education about religion is something everyone can benefit from and is very different to religious instruction.

Of course you may be referring to schools' duty to provide a daily act of broadly Christian worship but, as noted up thread, a majority of schools now ignore this requirement and Ofsted no longer inspects for it.

@ScrabbleOriginal

it literally (legally) is the job of the state to give children a religious education

@Bucolicky education about religion is something everyone can benefit from and is very different to religious instruction.

Of course you may be referring to schools' duty to provide a daily act of broadly Christian worship but, as noted up thread, a majority of schools now ignore this requirement and Ofsted no longer inspects for it.

Thanks @ScrabbleOriginal - I'm referring to the combo of worship and religious ed (for eg, at Catholic schools, the emphasis in RE is on the Catholic religion).

As per your article posted upthread, lots of schools ignore the requirement for daily worship - but because of the time this takes up i the school day, rather than because of objections to providing collective worship per se, and they tend to offer weekly assembly prayers etc instead. They still do collective prayer, as dictated by law.

As this is the case (enforced collective worship by state decree) then the state SHOULD fund 'other' faith schools - Catholic schools, Muslim Schools, Jewish Schools, Sikh schools etc, otherwise it risks marginalising and overlooking other religions and imposing the majority 'state' religion on others.

When people object to the state paying for faith schools, I'm not sure they realise that 'non-faith' state schools don't actually exist, as even non-denominational schools are, by default, protestant christian in ethos and in their form of worship.

because of the time this takes up i the school day, rather than because of objections to providing collective worship per se, and they tend to offer weekly assembly prayers etc instead. They still do collective prayer, as dictated by law.

No @Bucolicky, I can assure you many non-faith schools certainly do not do weekly prayer. If schools did try to enforce it, students would be withdrawn by parents in large numbers and many teachers would object too. Instead we have reached a very British compromise ... just ignore it and hope eventually someone will manage to get a bill to abolish it through the House of Lords.

Lots of non catholics like catholic schools because of the discipline. I know several Hindu and Sikh families that send their girls to catholic schools because they believe in the overall ethos.

I went to a CofE school and half the school was white and half Asian (unusual back in the 80s). But it was a great community school and we celebrated Diwali with the same effort as we did Christmas. Lots of the Asian families liked the ethos and all kids joined in with everything.

DS went to an RC primary but preferred an academy school for secondary. The RC secondary was on his list but 3rd place as we'd have been mad to risk the dodgy comp just because he'd decided he wasn't as keen on the religion side. But my nieces and nephews went there and their only complaint was it was strict and they had to do RE. Not something I'd be worried about as a parent.

And if they went to an RC Primary then a non religious school can be a bit of a shock. DS was surprised just how rude some kids are to their teachers when he first went to secondary.

Oh, and it's also worth pointing out that while many non-faith schools do mandate GCSE RE, it is usually the short course, which doesn't include the "religious practice" units. It is taught in a very inclusive way.

@Lockandtees

“Ah, I think you may have misunderstood my point. The fact that state schools are legally obligated to provide religious worship and religious ed, and that this is (protestant) christian by default, suggests we need more alternative faith schools.”

@Bucolicky no, it suggests we need to stop brainwashing children by mandating religious worship in a country where most people are not religious and have no desire to take part in collective worship. The solution isn’t more faith schools of different denominations. There is no place for religious worship at school. If a family chooses to raise their child in a particular faith that is their business, not the schools or the state's.

Aghhh @Lockandtees I don't know how to make this any clearer! I'm not suggesting that I personally advocate faith education as the way to go! I'm saying that until the state (not me!) changes its mind on including religious worship as a mandatory part of the school system, then they SHOULD pay for other faith schools, otherwise they're forcing the state religion (protestantism) onto people of other faiths. Your belief that the state shouldn't interfere in religion is irrelevant to the point. The fact is that the state DOES interfere - by mandating worship in schools. And under this edict, it should therefore pay for schools of different faiths as well as just the default protestant christianity. Unless of course you think that other people's beliefs are unimportant. You did refer to as 'fiction' upthread if I remember rightly.

Faith school "selection"
is all about the parents
not the children
so is even more malign than the 11 plus

NO 4 year old knows their own mind on faith, religion and belief.

Almost no 11 year olds are able to decide for themselves whether they want to go to a faith school

its ALL about the preferences and prejudices of the parents

and on that basis alone, the taxpayer should not fund segregation by parental prejudice.

I'm saying that until the state (not me!) changes its mind on including religious worship as a mandatory part of the school system ...

@Bucolicky it seems you've ignored my last couple of posts, so let me try to explain again. The state does not mandate religious worship, because the law is no longer enforced. Eventually the law will be repealed, like the blasphemy laws which weren't repealed until 2008, but weren't enforced for a long time before that.

In the meantime, "mandatory" collective worship policies have been quietly disappearing from school websites and if you think the nation's teens are quietly putting up with regular Christian prayer at school you're deluded.

@ScrabbleOriginal

because of the time this takes up i the school day, rather than because of objections to providing collective worship per se, and they tend to offer weekly assembly prayers etc instead. They still do collective prayer, as dictated by law.

No @Bucolicky, I can assure you many non-faith schools certainly do not do weekly prayer. If schools did try to enforce it, students would be withdrawn by parents in large numbers and many teachers would object too. Instead we have reached a very British compromise ... just ignore it and hope eventually someone will manage to get a bill to abolish it through the House of Lords.

Ah, I was referring to quotes from the Guardian article you posted upthread, which stated school objections to daily worship as being due to insufficient time slots or physical space to include collective worship on a daily basis, and the sources quoted suggesting weekly or monthly worship would be more practical.

Parents can already choose to withdraw their children from worship though, and rightly so, if they don't share that / any faith. In the system as it stands, surely this is much better than cynically faking a religious affiliation in order to get your child into a school that practices it, and then undermining and disrespecting that faith. What a strange message that gives to a child.

@ScrabbleOriginal

I'm saying that until the state (not me!) changes its mind on including religious worship as a mandatory part of the school system ...

@Bucolicky it seems you've ignored my last couple of posts, so let me try to explain again. The state does not mandate religious worship, because the law is no longer enforced. Eventually the law will be repealed, like the blasphemy laws which weren't repealed until 2008, but weren't enforced for a long time before that.

In the meantime, "mandatory" collective worship policies have been quietly disappearing from school websites and if you think the nation's teens are quietly putting up with regular Christian prayer at school you're deluded.

Not ignoring, @ScrabbleOriginal, just not agreeing with your assessment of things. I'm sure you're not claiming to speak for all schools, or to know about every school's RE curriculum, pattern of prayer provision or, indeed, to speak on behalf of all teens, despite your comment in the post above. Of the latter, there are plenty of 'em who are quite enthusiastic, and form their own catholic/muslim/jewish/other faith youth groups and who do charity and community work based around their faith. Without being forced!

@Bucolicky that Guardian article was from 2004! That was when Ofsted stopped inspecting the worship requirements. Since then, schools have gradually stopped providing it.

If a future Ofsted were to start inspecting it again there would be such a backlash that it would probably trigger a very quick review of the law and the Lords would probably be bounced into repealing it. But instead, we have fudge .. like I said, a very British compromise ... the old fashioned school Heads who want to enforce it can do so, while most don't.