Religion to Get Into School?

thriftyemma

I am a Christian, if I had to put a label on it I would say CofE, but I have worshipped in churches of several different denominations.

When my me, OH and children moved towns (before they were school age), I specifically chose an area of town that was in the catchment area of a very good Voluntary Aided CofE primary. And when it came to choosing my new local church, I purposely chose the CofE church that was attached to the school. As a regular worshipper, I was virtually guaranteed a place for my children come enrollment time.

It made no major difference to me which denomination of church I went to, but knowing my children would get in to one of the best schools in the county made the decision so much easier. I may have played the system, but I don't think I 'cheated' it.

To the doubters who are afraid of 'indoctrination', my children (and their classmates) have collective Christian worship, regulary visit their church, and RE lessons are taught from a majorly Christian viewpoint. ie: They are taught that God made the earth in seven days. But they are also taught about jewish celebrations, hindu gods, and visit muslim places of worship. I don't think they are taught "one religion as fact".

maman

bouicca21 wrote: »

Religion has no place in a state funded school, except as part of teaching comparative religion, and understanding cultural values held by different religious groups.

That may be your personal view but it's not the law as it stands currently.
I'd suggest OP gets hold of the admission policy for his local catholic school and maybe others and read up what the requirements are. But a lot can happen in 5+ years.

onlyroz

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Then send them to a non-religious school.

There is no such thing as a non-religious school in this country.

onlyroz

silvercar wrote: »

Problem with your view is that faith schools do well, even allowing for the areas they are in and the number of supported pupils etc So there is no way the government is going to abolish the state schools that are performing well and keep the sink schools going.

We need to learn why they do well and apply that teaching to all schools.

Is it really the religious ethos that makes these schools "better"? If the government passed a law tomorrow that banned schools from giving religious instruction would these schools immediately sink to the bottom? I imagine the answer would be no, assuming that the standard of teaching remained high.

As an atheist I have actively avoided sending my child to a faith-school. My kids are taught enough religious fairy tales at the regular school they attend, so I can hardly bare to imagine what things would be like at the local CofE school.

*max*

thriftyemma wrote: »

It made no major difference to me which denomination of church I went to, but knowing my children would get in to one of the best schools in the county made the decision so much easier. I may have played the system, but I don't think I 'cheated' it.

To the doubters who are afraid of 'indoctrination', my children (and their classmates) have collective Christian worship, regulary visit their church, and RE lessons are taught from a majorly Christian viewpoint. ie: They are taught that God made the earth in seven days. But they are also taught about jewish celebrations, hindu gods, and visit muslim places of worship. I don't think they are taught "one religion as fact".

Oh? They aren't taught that as fact then...Right.

seven-day-weekend

silvercar wrote: »

Problem with your view is that faith schools do well, even allowing for the areas they are in and the number of supported pupils etc So there is no way the government is going to abolish the state schools that are performing well and keep the sink schools going.

We need to learn why they do well and apply that teaching to all schools.



I am certain my ability to prepare my children socially for the adult world would not be possible by home schooling. I am certain that it would be far easier to educate your child not to believe everything they hear in school than to home educate.

They do well BECAUSE they are faith schools. There is a common ethos to follow which everyone gives at least lip service to, parents are committed because they have had do something positive (attend church etc) to get their child into the school,as opposed to going there by default, so they are supportive of the school.It's also often to do with the social and ethnic mix, usually more varied because believers come from all colours and backgrounds, children learn tolerance and respect . It's not, imho, to do with better teaching (although of course the teachers will be part of the ethos too), it's to do with ethos and commitment, something you don' get in Harse End Comp down the road, where it reflects the catchment and the kids are all from the same social class , and quite often monocultural.

Find a Comp where they have a common ethos and the majority of parents and staff are motivated and commited and it will be a good school. Howeever, it's not easy to have a common ethos when there is nothing to tag it onto and not everyone respects it.

Jagraf

GlasweJen wrote: »

My sister went from agnostic to rabid catholic to get her kids into a frankly mediocre catholic school.

I'd rather sacrifice my kid to the Flying Spaghetti Monster than send it to a catholic school my education was appalling but the school was one of the better in the area.

We spent am unhealthy amount of time doing RE
sex education was part of the RE syllabus not science
The standard grade biology required that we knew how the contraceptive pill worked - we just skipped that part
We also skipped the higher biology module that talked about evolution
Only catholic teachers were department heads meaning we had loads of talented teachers working under morons
Career advice for girls was "you'll have babies soon, don't worry about uni"
The school had more religious statues than it did educational posters
I wrote an essay about Galileo for my standard grade English and got told to write another

I could go on.

My daughters just finished at Catholic school. We are c of e, she is agnostic. Her education has been far less 'religious' than my c if e primary school was in the seventies. She's had no more RE than any other gcse subject. I think nowadays you have to look on a school by school basis. I have no regrets sending her there. She can hold her own when it comes to world culture and beliefs and has her own perspective. I think if your had a bad educational experience (I went to an inner city school where the religion was fighting and beating people up) then you find something better for your kids.

Tlg1991

Okay a lot of people calling me out for being a hypocrite, probably like a huge majority of other people. my main point i suppose was i am worried that other subject like science which i value very highly will be obscured by the school religious stature.

Like someone has already mentioned further up and the stories i have heard and also gone through when i was at school, mine wasn't so bad but looking back i can't remember doing about evolution or the big bang and when we did do sex education it was in our drama class as the teacher felt strongly we needed to be taught it so she took it into her own hand.

I know i could teach my child what to listen to and what to question, but surely its the schools job to ignite a bit of imagination in kids and give them knowledge to ask questions, not brain wash them with religious beliefs which from what i've heard is the only way i can describe what some schools do.

seven-day-weekend

My son (now 35) always attended Cof E Schools from nursery upwards and I can assure you that, while the Christian faith was obviously the one they used in assemblies and when they worshipped publicly they went to church, that other faiths were also taught about. Science was taught in science lessons and RE in RE lessons. There is a National Curriculum, remember!

They were not taught about Creation, other than studying the bits about it in the Bible (in RE). They had dedicated Science teachers for Science, like any other school does, in fact my son loved Physics and Biology.

My son had a balanced and well-rounded education, and whilst he is now an agnostic, he has said he is glad he went to church schools because it gave him access to a part of life he would not known about otherwise, and more knowledge to make an informed choice . The fact that he has not yet made that choice is irrelevant, he knows what the choice is.

We are not C of E, nor any other type of Anglican, but are practising Christians, we told no lies on his application for his Secondary School; he was given a place on the 'Christian - any other denomination' allocation.

I would however, not fake a faith to get a child into a particular school. Most church schools (afaik) have places available for children of non-religious families who it is felt will benefit from being at the school, you might try and get in under that criterion.

bouicca21

I think there is research to show that faith schools do better because of the extent that they can control their admissions and use the criteria they set to exclude children from problem families.

My ex was a Catholic who had gone through the catholic education system. He refused to even consider sending our children into a system that he described as organised child abuse. Presumably it has changed with the times but being baptised is no guarantee of admission, I remember talking to one mum who was a devout Catholic and could not get her child into the local catholic primary school because the (essential) reference from the parish priest stated that she attended mass fortnightly instead of weekly.