Are 'faith schools' more or less divisive than Grammar and Independent schools

[zanzibarmum]

Accord 'research' says faith schools are divisive (there's a surprise coming from them). Are they - more or less so than GS or public schools

My area is like Concordia's. There are no non-Catholic children at either of our local Catholic schools. In these cases giving priority to one group effectively means excluding another.

A lot of parents who live in tough neighbourhoods don't want their children to go to the local secondary. When I worked in Oldham, the daughter of one of the governors at the school said she was going to the local C of E comp because it was the best. I asked if she was going to be happy with attending church on a weekly basis, and Christian prayers every day. her father complained that those conditions were racist and excluded Muslims.
Didn't get anywhere with it.
Bear in mind that in some areas, a Catholic faith school may well be the most multicultural one in the area.

I don't really see how this multicultural argument works. If you are in a predominantly white area and most of the non-white kids are at the Catholic school (which presumably is the scenario you are talking about, goblinchild?), that leaves you with very few non-white kids in the community school. So how does that help social integration?

No problem with 'faith schools per se, tho' personally think a load of mumbo-jumbo, but it is not very charitable to exclude non-beleivers - surely they should be welcoming all-comers, particularly the poorest and the nrearest. The fact that they apply rigorous and discrimatory rules to exclude outsiders gives the worst possible example of their 'faith' to the children in those schools. They are a cop-out for parent like Tony Blair and David Cameron that enable them conveniently to reject the 20 or so nearer schools to thier home on the grounds of 'faith'.

Theunstrungharp - yes of course they can prioritise children based on their membership of the jewish, cofe, catholic faith etc but only within legally binding rules.

Snorkle - I am not familiar with the point the Koran or the Torah or the Bible which says only those rich enough to afford Chelsea Tractors can be saved.

What people seem to be saying is all schools are divisive - either because of catchment area, faith, indpendence etc. Not sure where that leaves us...

Perhaps only those with Chelsea Tractors can afford to take all the holy days off zanzibar? It's obviously not prescribed by the religions themselves, just the way it works out in practice.

In the Catholic faith, they're called Holy Days of Obligation for a reason snorkle. Although recently, many of them have been moved to a Sunday to enable workers to go to church.
Brighton and Hove tried to break down the divisive nature of schools with their lottery idea, and that didn't please a lot of people either.
Would you be happy with a child going to a Catholic school if they had to pray 4 times a day, attend mass, RE given the same weighting as Science in the curriculum, anti-homosexuality, anti-contraception and family planning as some of the hurdles to face?

Where we used to live, the choices in our borough would have been two failing single sex schools (closest and most likely); two highly successful and exclusive single sex schools (quite local but a very small catchment area, didn't include us); a mixed non faith schools (but tricky to get to and into because of distance). Further afield, but with different catchments, there were the (mixed) catholic and CoE schools (one of each and busable) and then two grammar schools, very nasty journey, plus, guess what single sex and religious.

So as a family that don't like single sex schools, and wouldn't touch a religious school with a bargepole, basically no choice at all.

However, we moved to Canada, where in our town you do go to the local primary (automatic admission) although you can choose to go elsewhere, few people do (there are elementary schools offering Montessori, French Immersion, Science or Arts specialisations). At secondary level there are three schools, which again have automatic entry. All the schools have excellent results, and I have yet to hear anyone complain about the school their children attend, or worry about entry at elementary or high school.

There are two private church schools, but they are seriously religious, and require parental volunteerism as well as regular attendance and priestly sign off. Very much a minority choice.

My view is that all selective schools are divisive by nature (how can they not be), but I would include single sex, grammars and independent schools in the debate.

Oh and I don't actually know anyone who even goes to church on a Holy Day of Obligation, let alone takes the day off (most churches I've attended offer an evening service, so time off isn't required for that), the only days I think (a good chuck of my family are Catholic, which is how I was brought up) that are regularly kept are the Holy Week services and Ash Wednesday. Some of the Holy Days are a little obscure

It depends on what criteria you are looking at and the area. Where I live, the faith schools tend to be more inclusive in terms of social and ethnic background than the state schools - as an example, another MNetter mentioned on another thread that her dd was being teased because of her unusual (non-English) name. That would be very unlikely to happen at my dd's school because so many of the children have "unusual" names as they come from families who have immigrated to the UK in the last 50 years or so...

There is no clear answer to this.

Some faith schools which only take people of that faith could be said to be divisive. However most don't only take people of the faith. At my DS faith school those going are a mixture of those who live near and those of the faith. There are people in all income brackets from millionaires to free school meals. There are children from different ethnic groups. There are very bright children and some who really struggle academically.

It sounds as though this comment comes from an organisation that does not support faith schools and is looking for any old excuse to shut them down.

There are some people in this country that would probably like to see the back of private schools, grammar schools and faith schools. I doubt the education system would be better without them..probably a lot worse.

Happywomble - actually Accord has no issue with faith schools themselves: the issue is with the admissions criteria by which they are able to select pupils (see here. In your area it may be that the faith schools include children of other faiths. In urban areas this is less often the case. In my area it is certainly not the case.

Perhaps a few facts here might help.

So called faith schools must take non-faith applicants when they are undersubscribed - Catholic secondary schools have, across the country around 25-30% non Catholic children on its rolls. Obviously, where schools are over subscribed with Catholic applicants then they tend to meet the admission criteria first.

Accord is against all the things that give VA schools, such as Catholic or Jewish, their character or ethos e.g. being allowed to advertise for a head of that faith and being able to give priority to children of that faith. Accord, and its supporters (some of whom sent their children to non faith independent schools) should come clean.

Ash Wednesday and Easter services are not Holy days of Obligation

Snorkle on Holy Days people are not required to take the day off - just attend mass say in evening or during lunchtime (40mins).

A school's ethos does not come from what the children's parents choose to do on a Sunday. Faith schools could perfectly well function with their ethos intact while abiding by the same rules on admissions as community schools. Arguably more so.

(Incidentally, I had never heard of Accord before reading this thread, but am now signed up as one of their supporters - I am grateful to you for highlighting them.)

My pleasure unstrungharp - your bizzare views will fit well there. Either say faith schools should be abolised but don't try to claim a Jewish school with mostly non-Jews will have any ethos consistent with that great world faith. Similarly with other world faiths such as Catholics.

In a sense though you are right - a Catholic school's ethos isn't forged by what parents and child do on a Sunday but is fostered by what the same family tries to do on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday....

I guess you also are opposed to other, non faith, voluntary aided schools who also retain some autonomy over admissions, within the statutory admissions code.

Well said zanzibarmum.
It's surprising to me how often people say that many Catholic schools get good results, have excellent pastoral care, high expectations and good discipline, and they don't see why they should be allowed to keep all those goodies to themselves and have admission criteria that select.
And so few make the connection between living your school's mission statement and how that impacts on every aspect of a school. It's a Catholic community, and that's what a good Catholic education looks like.

I think all schools funded by the state should have the same admissions criteria and be prevented from discriminating on grounds of supposed religion - supposed because it's judged on the parents' religion, not the child's and because in many places there are lots of people who suddenly develop an interest in going to church at exactly the time the forms require.

Back when I was little, before all this pretence about (non-existent) 'choice', I went to a CofE middle school. It took the local kids - some CofE, some no religion, one girl was in the Sally Army, another was Hindu. Don't remember any Catholics but everyone else was there. No need for special letters from the vicar about what good Christians you were or anything.

In particular, the CofE is the established church which has a legal duty to care for anyone who asks for its services - weddings, funerals, christenings and pastoral care. It is ridiculous that CofE schools have, in many places, become some sort of exclusive club. If the church wants to go down that route, they can jolly well disestablish and lose all the privileges that status brings - like having bishops in the House of Lords.

I find your views equally bizarre. If there is supposed to be "choice" in the state sector, how is it fair that I as a baptised Catholic have the choice of all the schools in my area (assuming that I have my child baptised and attend mass at the local church every Sunday), where my non-Catholic neighbour does not?

I doubt very much that if you did have a fair admissions system you would end up with the scenario you describe of a minority of Jewish children in the Jewish school or Catholic children in the Catholic school, as obviously those schools would not be the first choice for a lot of parents of different faiths/no faith.

Quite, edam

Edam you are wrong on the facts. At secondary level the criteria relate to the child - not the parents practice or otherwise; well at least for Catholic schools.
But I think you are right on your general point - in the old days there wasn't as you say difficulty of getting into good schools of whatever character. Surely though the policy response should be to aim to learn the lessons of the good community and state faith schools and try to generalise these.

Well clearly at primary level it's all about the parents. Unless they have started quizzing 4 year olds on their Catechism before they let them in.

Unstrungharp - not quite sure I understand. On the one hand you want everyone to have the same chance of getting into Catholic, Jewish or Muslim schools but you don't expect many to exercise that right. Is it really worth the effort.

But I agree that people who do not want a faith school should have a "choice" of high quality, community schools. Perhaps the next thread should be what would/does the ethos of such schools look like; what values underpin it; and how do you sustain those against a wider culture that appears at times to be inimical to education.

It is not hard to understand. Realistically, not all parents will want their children to go to their local school if it is Jewish/Catholic and they are not, but some will. And at the moment in many areas they can't. And yes it really is worth the effort.

Faith, Grammar and Independents are all to some extent discriminatory but that does not necessarily equate to divisive. However, I think its been clear enough in Northern Ireland that faith schools there perpetuated division appallingly. In the case of Grammar schools, I'm not sure that discrimination should be viewed as entirely negative - having myself been to a school which was in the process of turning from Grammar to comprehensive, at which my dad taught, it was fairly clear that mixed ability classes served no-one well.

Dictionary definition of discrimination:
1 a: the act of discriminating b: the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently
2: the quality or power of finely distinguishing
3 a: the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually b: prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment

It seems to me that Grammars allow for meaning (2) whereas faith schools tend to meaning (3)

Goblinchild - you are right: "living the school's mission statement" is critical to sucessful educational, pastoral etc outcomes in a "faith" school but also no doubt in excellent community, independent or Grammar Schools. The difficulty of course is how does a school maintain its values under pressure of the educational market place and narrow league tables - I would argue some GS have lost sight of their mission and become exam factories for ever chasing the able child in an ever expanding catchment area.