Faith school application: proof of attendance with a senile priest who doesn't take attendance

[CForCake]

One of the state schools we are considering applying to is a faith school.

Applying to that school requires submitting a supplementary information form.
The school will then contact the local priest to confirm attendance.

The admission criteria explicitly state that the school will contact the priest, and that families shouldn't ask the priest to sign any letter nor submit any form.

If I understand correctly, this process is similar if not identical for most faith schools.

Our problem is that the priest is somewhat senile, forgets things and faces, and has always refused to take attendance at mass (like some other priests instead do). So he replies not based on a written log but based on his (hugely unreliable) memory. I'm not exaggerating: when we baptised our younger kid he had a couple of times where he seemed not to remember who we were, and this was a few years ago.

Our questions are: what happens if the school contacts the priest, but the priest forgets to reply or doesn't remember who we are?

• We know a couple of families who attend the same church and whose older kids go to the same school. They said the school didn't contact the priest. So the "checks" are made on a random sample, not on all applicants?
• What happens if the school contacts the priest and he forgets to reply? Do we lose the place? Does the school contact us so we have an option to chase the priest?
• What if the priest replies that he doesn't remember us? He does not keep any official register of attendance so there is no official record. Would we lose the place? Would we be automatically considered for a non-faith place?

This school would not be our top choice. Maybe we are being a bit paranoid, but the maximum distance for all the other schools has narrowed over the last few years, so we are a bit worried now.

Thanks!

@CForCake you can keep your own log of attendance, with evidence. Then if the priest doesn't give you the reference you need you can threaten to sue him, like parents did to this priest (with a good outcome, because it led to a change of admissions policy ☑️): https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/priest-concerns-prompts-school-to-change-admissions-policy

You can also use your evidence as the basis of an appeal.

Perhaps ask the school, presumably they have dealt with the same priest/church before.

@bubblnsqueek Very interesting case, I didn't know about that.
However, I am not sure it's relevant for my situation, because the school in question dropped its faith criterion from the admission policy. I think there's a zero chance of that happening at the school I'm considering.

As a more general question:

• do schools check only a random sample?
• when the schools check, do they notify the family that they have asked the priest? Or does the family remain completely in the dark on whether the school has contacted the priest, whether the priest has replied, etc?

If he is unreliable in terms of memory I would presume others at the church support the school in supplying accurate information if they check.

It might be worth asking the school at an open day they will be better able to explain the checks and what they entail especially if the priest is known to be forgetful.

In our case the school checked with every applicant. But surely there's other staff that could vouch for your attendance? I think the office staff prepared the form for us and then the Vicar signed it off.

They fact that they dropped the admissions policy is a red herring - it happened later. Before that happened he was threatened with being sued if he didn't provide the evidence and therefore (presumably) he was persuaded to provide the evidence.

You don't need to go that far - if your own evidence conflicts with the priest's evidence, you can use it to lodge an appeal.

If you want to find out from the school what the priest has told them, put in a Subject Access Request. The timing for that should be a few weeks after the application deadline, but before National Offer Day.

The school has to check every applicant.

I’d be worried about selecting a school with such a poor grasp of rigor and inclusion that they randomly contact a senile priest when they fancy it. Sounds like a poor school overall - what are your other options?

I have literally never come across a priest taking a register at Mass for faith school eligibility purposes. What a mad thing!

A registering process was started at our church the year after there was a large spate of successful appeals due to this - large parish with four regular priests covering each mass on a seemingly random rota. If you went to a different timed mass every week whichever priest saw you had no chance of remembering you because you might only see that guy once every two months despite going every week.

What were the stats last year over acceptance from each criteria?

Here it runs for the 9 months prior to the form signing. For primary only though, secondary is more relaxed. Non-siblings who 'only' attend mass 3 times a month don't all get in. And if you don't live in the parish boundaries you've no chance either, even if you go 4 times.

@CreteBound Well, if the priest is senile, that's hardly the school's fault.

My understanding was that faith schools check only a sample of applicants. At least that's what a few families with kids in that school told me - that they weren't checked.

@bubblnsqueek says that the school has to check every applicant. Do you know if this is some kind of legal / national requirement, or if every school can do it differently, so some schools check all applicants, some only a sample?

@Mushrump I have literally never come across a priest taking a register at Mass for faith school eligibility purposes. What a mad thing!

Oh, trust me, these cases exist! Eg this church tells parents to approach the priest at the end of each service, so he can log attendance. https://parish.rcdow.org.uk/hamptonhill/certificate-of-catholic-practice-ccp/

@PrettyPretenderNegligentVendor What were the stats last year over acceptance from each criteria?

The school in question allocates half the places on faith.

• Faith places: we would have been comfortably within distance every single past year
• Non-faith places: never as of March, we would have got in by August most years (but not every year), so it's a bit of a risk

@CForCake it is absolutely the schools fault if they choose to rely on unreliable or biased admissions data. I’d report them to their academy head for not having a robust admissions policy

At our local faith school it is up to applicants to get the form signed and at least one church has a designated session to do so. I believe families sign a register when they attend services. Don’t rely on hearsay that not everyone is checked, without a returned signed form means your application cannot be considered under faith criteria as the supplementary information is missing.

@CForCake the reason the school have to check every applicant is so that their process stands up to scrutiny by the LA and/or appeals panels.

If a parent reports another parent to the LA for submitting fraudulent information, and the LA investigates, the school's inadequate process will be rightly called out as a problem

If an appeal panel is not confident that the school are applying their policy robustly (e.g. because they or the appellant ask them directly whether every application is checked, and they say no) then the panel are likely to find in favour of the appellant.

In any case, most of the applicants are likely to be concentrated in just a few churches - its as easy to send a full list to each priest as it is to send a selection.

That’s fascinating. How is the register taken? At the door? Signing a sheet in the pews?

in our area the parent has to get a form signed. I know this because a friend of mine managed to convince the vicar that she attends church regularly and he happily signed, despite the fact that she only ever went to church for the toddler group.

At our local church it's a piece of paper at the door. You could sign it then run away, but you'd probably be spotted. 🙂

Before they introduced the register, people used to make a donation in an envelope provided and fill in the gift-aid form on the back, to make sure there was a paper trail if needed as evidence.

It’s perhaps possible they have checked but not told the families they were doing so. I suspect even if he is a bit senile then there’ll be someone who helps with stuff. I know in our church there are various people who seem to know everything and everyone. I’m sure if the school sent a list of potential pupils they’d know who attends.

@bubblnsqueek the reason the school have to check every applicant is so that their process stands up to scrutiny by the LA and/or appeals panels.
If a parent reports another parent to the LA for submitting fraudulent information, and the LA investigates, the school's inadequate process will be rightly called out as a problem

I see. Makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
But, in practice, this means that a church which doesn't log attendance opens the room to utter chaos.

The priest might not remember me. But then I can appeal if I don't get a place.

Equally, someone who only set foot in church twice a year could appeal if they don't get a place, because there is no reliable record of attendance to prove they didn't attend.

I mean, what do you do in those cases? Get the police to interview churchgoers to see who remembers whom attending?

What a mess...

@Thingsthatgo Do you mean that the family applying for a church school gets the priest to sign a form, then sends the signed form as part of their school application? Here they make it explicit that you mustn't do that, and that the school will contact the church

@CForCake some CE & Catholic dioceses advice church leaders to keep attendance registers.

Is your school CE or Catholic?

The school is CE. The church is Catholic

Used to be that the registers were left out on a table in the hallway. The next year you had to give them sample signatures beforehand so that it was definitely you signing. The year after that they only put them out after communion and now they are attended so that you have to have come out of mass rather than nipping in from the car park - not that you'd get into the car park at that time of day. So they've covered all bases.

Do you have any sort of tracking on your phones so you can go back over a period of months and show you were in church on a regular basis? You could use that at appeal. Chances are he probably just signs of any which are sent to him because he thinks that it is a pointless exercise and is happy for any children to attend the church school. Maybe don't say that to other parents who don't attend the church.

This is not uncommon where I live in London. Our local church does this on an iPad (and I know of at least one other locally). There are a few faith schools round here, at both primary and secondary, which are oversubscribed for the faith places.
The church signs off the school forms each year and then has the digital attendance record to refer to (since people may be applying to different schools which often have different attendance criteria to each other). Here it's all forms that get signed and I would assume the schools check every form, but have no experience of working in school admissions so that's a guess.

@BananaDaiquiri So all it takes is to hack the Ipad? :)