Catholic secondary schools -how do you get in?

[allok]

OK, my ds is only 3.5 but we're applying for schools at the moment.

I'd like the option of ds to go to a catholic secondary should he not get into grammar school. dh is catholic and I'm not a christian. DS not baptised as I strongly feel that we should do itwhen he says he's ready and he's had no tuition from his catholic side as yet. But in any case I reckon he'd be between 6-9 years old before he gets it.

I though that secondary catholic schools want baptised kids and that's all - but I'm now really worried as lots of catholic kids at ds's nursery are applying for catholic infant/junior school in preparation of getting their little ones into catholic secondary school.

I was planning to sending ds to the infant/junior opposite my house which has the best reputation in our area.

What should I be doing? Does a kid need ot have gone to a catholic junior school in order to be considered by a catholic senior school?

Tessa I can assure you that co-habitating would not cause even an eyebrow to be raised in this parish. And I am pretty sure one of the teachers is gay unless my gaydar has let me down. Truly no-one cares.

Maybe things are different elsewhere...

Tessak - leaving aside your thing against Catholic schools (bet that's an interesting story) I would appreciate sources for the research you mention. If it's the sources I think it is these typically compare a self-selected sub-set of Catholic schools with intakes within neighboruing community schools and the FSM statistic from that LEA. The problem with this is that community school in-take is inevitably more local whereas Catholic school intake come from a wider range of LEAs. Nationally the FSM measure is about the same as community schools. But please post the research details - that would be good.

TessaK ds's Catholic high school takes all the ASD kids in the area, Catholic or not.
You are talking shite!

I think, TessaK, in your obvious ignorance, you are confusing the statistics for CofE schools with Catholic

TessaK I live in a prosperous area with two faith schools: one Anglican and one Catholic. Both are heavily over-subscribed but do not "cherry pick" their students based on ability or wealth - families just have to meet the admissions criteria which are centered on babptism and church attendance. There is no ability test to get in to the schools and both have SEN and FSM levels in line with the rest of the area - in fact the SEN levels are slightly higher in the Catholic school compared with other local schools. All this info is included in the Ofsted info for a school.

As for not employing gay or co-habiting staff - well that certainly isn't the practise in the schools I know.

I still can't believe the rubbish TessaK was spouting!
Catholic schools are very socially mixed.

HI

Really busy today but will get back to you asap.

And no, I don't especially have it in for Catholic schools.

Hi

Sorry to keep you waiting. This document contains all the evidence about faith schools. It was compiled by Accord, which is mostly made up of religious representatives (no, I don't work for them).

If you would like to have an informed debate rather than just talking about individual schools you happen to know, then I'd be happy to discuss it after you've read it.

www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/dossier-of-independent-evidence-on-faith-schools.pdf

Some catholic schools require the christening to have taken place before the child's first birthday. And I suspect that over-subscribed schools are more likely to be sceptical about later christenings.

Ours is for catholic children who have been to a catholic feeder primary school, are baptised catholic and live within the catchment area.

The school is so good that if you fall outside these guidelines then your chance of entry are minimal.

Tessak - you are kidding? Accord's sole purpose is to get rid of faith schools and the 'useful idiots' from some of the faiths are not representative of their churches, synagogues etc. But what really annoys me about Accord is that they profess to want kids educated together while some of Accord's supporters send their kids to private schools.

Accord, "Working with our supporters across the country to resist the expansion of state-funded religious schools" - unbiased, my arse!

Yes TessaK I read your 'report', it makes no mention at all of RC schools, just faith schools overall, so is entirely irrelevant.

Fine, if you want to end your kids to a Catholic school, then go ahead. The Pope thanks you.

I can't speak for all RC schools and their admission criteria, but following on from the thread I started recently, I contacted the local RC school this morning to see if my CofS daughter would be able to attend, instead of the failing primary she was due to go to.

I was told that the "school welcomes children from all faiths" and she will be enrolled there in January.

Fine, if you want to support a religion that covers up child abuse by priests, that tells people not to use condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS and even lies about condoms letting AIDS through, that says non-believers are less than human and that gay people are more of a threat to the planet than global warming. Yes, there is evidence for all of this.

Your first priority may be to get your children a good education but what kind of moral example are you setting them?

"If you would like to have an informed debate...then I'd be happy to discuss it after you've read it"

Right after your venomous bile above, I think I'll pass.

I don't want to inflame any debate but the only interview that dh 'failed' was one for a Catholic School who said they had to interview him as he was better qualified than the other candidates but they wouldn't appoint him as he wasn't Catholic.

They told him in the interview that he was the most qualified but that they would take the lesser qualified candidate.

After he became aware of their employment procedures dh wouldn't have worked for them anyway.

It's completely irrelevant but entertaining - they ended up hiring a lapsed gay Catholic (they didn't know he was gay) and the Governors were horrified when they found out.(through facebook)

DH had a lucky escape and they missed out on a married Christian local preacher (in the Methodist church) who is obviously a practising Christian

Blimey TessaK where on earth did all that come from?! Not exactly unbiased, are you?

unfit we looked at our local catholic school but DH is an atheist - wouldn't agree to say the words for the ceremony. Good on him too, hate the lying that goes on to get into faith schools grrr!

Although on the plus side, I don't think you'd see TessaK's kids there...

Good point!

Shag the local priest?

Oops sorry unfit, for some reason thought you were the OP

just came across this, if it helps my DS is at a Catholic primary school and will probably be going to a catholic secondary school ( if he gets in) where we live secondary schools are very oversubscribed and it's basically luck of the draw I think.
most RC schools like to take catholic children foremost but will also take children of other faiths ( or no faith) too, at least they do in my area.
I personally am not Catholic but wanted to just add Tessak your talking bollocks.

So Tessak the thin veneer of your concern for SEN children hides a sad but virulent anti-Catholicism.

I totally understand why parents have strong views as to where their children go to school but I cannot get my head round the idea that parents should have even stronger views as to where other people's children go to school.

Catholic schools aren't perfect but rather than engage in a sensible discussion of their place in the wider education sytem your remarks make clear that your have no understanding of the values that Catholic schools promote. You should visit some to get a better feel for their strenths and their weaknesses.

My concern is not especially for SEN children, that was just one example.

I'm not anti-Catholic, just against religious schools being state-funded.

A lot of bile has been heaped on me here so I responded in kind - which was probably not the most adult thing to do but it's frustrating.

I do understand Catholic school values - quite a few of my cousins went to them.

There are issues of cohesion - there has been research that shows it's better for society and for children if they mix with people of all ethnic, religious and social backgrounds, which many religious schools (not just Catholic) don't help.

Secondly, what values are you talking about? Do you mean Catholic beliefs or social values in general, which are not specifially Catholic?

It's not so much about having views about where other people 'should' educate their children, more about social equity and tax payers' money being used to the benefit of everyone. What people choose to believe is up to them and is no one else's business, but when it affects the wider social sphere, that's when it bothers me.

I do also think that children should be taught about all religions and allowed to make up their own minds what they believe (if anything) rather than being identified from an early age by the religion of their parents.

Some schools are better at teaching all the options than others. Archbishop Williams said that a church school is a church, which shows what he thinks their job is. One of the leaders behind a Muslim school in London said that "The ultimate aim of Islamic education is the realisation of complete submission to Allah on the level of the individual, the community and humanity at
large?. Archbishop O'Connor said that newcvomers to schools should be made to feel part of the Catholic commnunity.

So you can see that religious leaders do feel that religious schools are there to create the next generation of believers.

While some schools are more open-minded, it's too much of a lottery to depend on the whim of a headteacher and staff.

Tessak - at least you are honest: that you want no state funded faith schools. Be in no doubt though that if the state kicked the church out of education parents would form low cost private Catholic schools as happens in other countries as the purpose of Catholic schools is to support parents in bringing their children up as Catholics; with the emphasis on 'support'.

As for social and ethnic diversity I am sure you find more of this in an average Catholic school (polish, irish, caribbean, Philipines etc) than many other schools in similar areas particularly where admission is determined by postcode and ability to move house.

As for the values of the Catholic faith and its schools (truth, social justice, excellence and personal best based on the gifts we have, forgiveness, peace and the essential dignity of each person regardless of race, colour, sex etc) these are ones which are attractive to parents. It is the strength of these universal Catholic values that plays a critical role in uniting what is a diverse and essentially immigrant-based Catholic community in the UK's Catholic schools.

Of course Catholic schools are not perfect and sometimes fail to live up to these values but what you have to answer is why so many parents would favour a school which espouses these values and the practice of faith over the values of some community schools, which are less clear cut or appealing.

It is easy for the likes of some of the Accord supporters to demand that everone else's child goes to the community school while sending their DC to private schools or postcode protected voluntary controlled schools like Camden School for Girls and William Ellis.