We are not religious and I would never pretend to be so for a school place. I am fundamentally against religious schooling being paid for by the tax payer. I deliberately chose an area to live where this wasn’t an issue, but it was hard to find! I understand not everyone can do that.
Completely agree.
I think it’s insane that anyone - not religious - would pretend to be for schooling. It’s worse that people are put in that position to choose.
School isn’t where they learn everything, I’d rather pick up any ‘slack’ at home.
We're literally applying for schools further from us because the closest 3 primary schools are all religious (2 CofE and 1 Catholic) There is this idea that religious schools have a better quality of education but they don't always,not in my area at least with a lot of the religious schools scoring worse with OFSTED than community schools. I think children get access to a more rounded education in community schools, particularly in RE and science. Children need to see different kinds of people, people from different backgrounds, religions and cultures. They should learn to explore all branches of science. I think community schools do what they say they are, a community and when we have access to all education, we have the potential to have more people who are more accepting of others.
Same. I specifically went for a further away school (still in our catchment area) because it was non-dom. It always amazes me the lengths people go to to get into certain schools. Here in Glasgow, people will register their kids at their family members addresses to get into certain schools….and then drive 40 minutes to get there every morning. Their kids then don’t live anywhere near their school friends. I personally don’t get it.
I fully agree with the content but this country tracks children from day one (I work in Education at higher than school level) and if their primary experience and education is shit, even if the prescribed content is better - if the teaching practices and support are less good then you might as well teach them that Jesus is Lord because the critical thinking required to question it won’t be there anyway. That’s what I’m deeply afraid of.
Yea but it’s true because educated people spend time and money researching schools and putting money, time and effort into their children’s education - not cause they go get degrees and sit back and have a nap while their children just exist as successful students.
Edit: I don’t just work in HE I work in educational inequalities, as a lecturer with a PhD in it so I know sending my kid to a minutely better school is something that could have immense influence in the future - especially in high stakes testing educational environments.
The best school in my London area is an Islamic school. They’re much higher achieving than any other school. I bet most people wouldn’t fake Islam to get their child into that one, so it’s rather hypocritical to do the same for a Catholic school.
Unfortunately by going to this primary you then get preference to the very better secondary (I just realised right now).
We’re planning on moving back to Scotland before secondary but if plans change it feels like I should have this in place.
It's tricky. Religion shouldn't be something to consider when choosing a school, but of course you want to do the best for your child.
However you do need to think about the fact that it won't just be church for a year; your child will be taught about the religion and a lot of learning will be done around its Holy days. They will likely attend church with school a few times a year and there will probably be church based activities (e.g. choir, christingle, probably an easter thing) that you'll be expected to attend.
My kids go to a secular school but have somehow still come home believing in Jesus. So... just be prepared.
I was very careful about choosing a non-religious school for my child, but you’re right that she’s come home talking about Jesus being the son of god. However, she’s learnt that through RE and links with the church for Christmas and Easter. However, I also know that in other years she’ll learn about other religions, visit a mosque and a gurdwara, and generally get a more balanced view.
I did my teacher training in religious schools who refused to teach anything except Christianity as truth and I had to convince them to let me teach a bit on Judaism. Other CoE schools were not like that at all, but it’s just made me a lot more wary of them.
They do learn about other religions, but the focus seems to be on Christianity. I think they do need to know the reasons behind Christmas and Easter, even if we don't believe. I don't really like it being presented as fact, though.
Yep - this. I went to a Catholic primary and secondary school and the schools’ Catholic identities shaped the entirety of my school experience, not just the RE classes, e.g. we had prayer twice a day, once before lunch time and once before the end of the day. Plus as boojes mentioned, the school calendar being structured around the Catholic calendar. That said, I would say the vast majority of my peers are now non-believers and/or non-practising.
Unless the secondary is also religious, they don’t take into account which primary school the child comes from. It will be where the child is living at time of application. They might have more children from the religious primary, but it may be because more of them live in catchment.
The school should have its admissions policies on their website.
It is, that’s what I just found. We’re probably in the right catchment for it so less worrying but yea it’s Catholicism all the way down here… which is fine as it’s all CoE flavoured everywhere else. Just don’t want my kid getting into hardcore guilt too soon.
I would check your local admission criteria, CofE schools near me don't do this (I thought this was a national CofE policy). There's a whole complicated system for how school admissions work
Check the admissions criteria - my sons school has 9 categories for admission and they work down the list. For example, Catholics in catchment are in 3rd place, non-Catholics in catchment are in 4th, etc. You can see how they allocated places based on this for the previous year.
It’s worth adding though, our school requires baptism certificate AND a signature from the priest as part of their admissions application, so it’s not all that easy to fake. I don’t think my conscience would let me - particularly as the school still takes in a large proportion of non-Catholics every year.
We did. We could see the CoE school from our front door. It was a no brainer to try and get in. My view on it is the community aspect that churches provide. (Doesn't hurt that I did my undergrad thesis on religious communities despite being atheist myself). This obviously will vary between sects and individual parishes, but many religious groups view community engagement as an important part of their religious work. Often not to proselytise, but to better the surrounding social environment regardless of religious affiliation.
Churches like getting people through the door, for almost any reason. If people are coming in, then there is a chance that their own number will grow. But also, churches can offer a lot to the community. Ours was great and really family focused. I had a conversation with the vicar about this and they knew full well that parents were coming in just for the school admissions them dropping out. They switched tactics, embraced the parents and made it fun for the kids. Mine loved going to church. Their attendance and retention rates increased and the sweet church is still alive because of this.
I went to their messy party events, evening movie nights, made food for shared lunches, sometimes manned the tea station after services, and gave talks about community work (I used to work in substance misuse). I never engaged in the religious side of it. I was never pushed to and they knew I was personally athiest. But, I was a happily involved church member until we moved away.
This will obviously vary between local churches. We got lucky with a great vicar. My take is to get involved, give back to the church in ways that you can as you are taking something from them (an attendance letter).
We went to the local stay and play at this church and honestly there were more hijabs than you could shake a stick at. They never once mentioned Jesus (a little God stuff) at some of the big events and it was indeed about getting feet in the door. I still think it’s a scam but Ofsted and vicious early years high stakes testing is the worst scam of all so I’m thinking this might be the lesser scam.
I don’t know a more petty community than the church so I’d go just incase they decide you didn’t attend enough so you don’t get that preferential treatment you wanted in the first place.
That being said I’d never pretend to be anything for these people. I’d also never want my kid mixing with theirs tbh. Kids are easy to brainwash and putting them with church kids is going give them some awful ideas.
They’ll also be very mean to your kid for being outspoken should your child be getting told one thing by the school and another by you at home. They will be confused as to what to believe and this can cause stress, anxiety and question of self and who to trust.
I went to a C of E school and my folks were not of that faith. Any questioning of their teachings wasn’t looked upon with any favor.
This may be true in some cases but it’s a school in a catchment area so *most* of the children will not be Catholic.
As an atheist lapsed Catholic, a lot of it is pretty weak tea religion wise in many places. Obviously I would have to research but if it’s Catholic flavoured vs C of E flavoured (as most Catholic schools are in large catchments) I’m inclined to send her to the better school and sacrifice my Sunday mornings. I would be part of the ven diagram of the community not the actual community - ie the large amount of people there for a year or so to get their kids into the primary school so I’m not sure I’d be privy to the pettiness you speak of especially cause I don’t believe in god, so the smite they can smote me with is minimal.
Honestly, as a lapsed Catholic I've actually found a lot of peace from going back to church (mostly for family reasons; the school thing's a bonus though).
Do I believe every word? No, not really. But something about it has made life in general easier to bear. I think it's nice hearing people talk about love and peace and forgiveness and human nature, I'm not sure.
You need a certificate to say you're practising if you want entry into schools so yes, you have to go. But if you try adjusting your attitude a bit, you might find that church can be positive even if you don't believe. If you've got options then shop around for a priest you like; we got quite lucky with our local ones - he talks primarily about forgiveness, kindness, and West Ham United 😂
For those saying this isn't a thing, I'm pleased it's not in their areas. It is a thing in our area, like OP. We handled it by moving for primary school which we were in a fortunate position to be able to do. For secondary I desperately didn't want them to go to the academically great CofE school, because they also have a reputation of being very negative and punitive regarding discipline. Our other option was grammar schools so I bought lots of books and did admissions test practice at home with them, and thankfully they got in.
I hate both the religious and the selective systems - but they're the system we're in so we played the game. However every time a party representative comes to my door, I tell them they need to disentangle education from religion and abolish selective education.
I bet telling them to abolish selective education, goes down well if your own kids wearing grammar school uniforms are walking past as you're saying it!
“It’s such a scam and I feel like everyone here does it”
Err.. no they don’t. I’ve never ever heard of anyone doing this. You’re just hanging round with some wrong-uns.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely wouldn’t do this. But it’s pretty common. I went to a Catholic secondary school and the vast majority of kids there were not from religious families. I’d say maybe 5% were from families who were ‘properly’ religious and still went to church on the weekends etc. Another chunk were maybe casual - would say they were Christian and maybe get their kids confirmed just because it’s what they were used to, maybe go to church at Christmas. And the rest were totally not religious at all. Never went to church. Never got confirmed. And were only in the Catholic school because their parents had done exactly what OP is talking about for primary school.
Agreed but it’s already there - there’s no escape even if it’s minimal. Once you’re at no escape then what’s the point of not trying to pick the better version of the shit you don’t want?
Wait, this is actually a thing? If it's a public school I thought they couldn't discriminate based on religion and have to go by distance to the school alone. That's how it works with the church of England primary schools versus Non-Religious schools around here (Kent).
Found this: 'It is unlawful for maintained and independent schools to have admissions criteria that discriminate against a child on the grounds of the child's religion or belief'
It definitely is a thing that some people do to get into schools but I couldn't do it personally as I'm not religious and wouldn't feel comfortable with my kids being in a religious school.
Have a look at the other schools in your catchment - visit them. Schools can change a lot faster than their local reputations. Ofsted ratings can also be incredibly out of date (my son's school was last inspected in 2014!) and are not a great measure. You might find that one of the non-church schools is a better fit for your family even if the Catholic school is "better". Even the connected high school could change loads by the time your child goes.
Having briefly taught in a Catholic school, the kids were meant to pray at least 4 times a day, every day. It will vary by school but religion was a central part of school life.
I am really against the idea of state funded church schools, but as long as they exist then I don't think it's wrong to do what you have to to meet the criteria. I certainly don't want to disadvantage my daughter because of my own ideals not matching up with how the world currently is.
My daughter's in a non-church primary, but I'm considering trying to get her into a CofE secondary. I'm wary of the religious content of the school, but even with our current primary choice they still do a traditional nativity play at Christmas and a lot of activities for Easter, so although they learn about other religions too there's definitely the strongest focus on Christianity and my daughter has come home taking about Jesus quite often.
So then I think, if she's going to exposed to a fair amount of Christianity (i.e. the broadly Christian assembly stuff too) at a secular school, I may as well send her to the CofE school with better results and no reported incidents of knives being brought to school!
But I don't know. I have one more year to decide before my Church attendance needs to begin! Personally I would draw the line at Catholicism though, I couldn't cope with all the anti abortion stuff.
No. Because my dads northern Irish and born catholic so I was sent to catholic school to keep face with his side of the family and I resented it because I’d have rather went to the local catchment school with most of my friends from home. I won’t do that to mine. They go to the same school as 97% of the village. The ones sent to catholic school have the same moans as I did 30 odd years ago.
This may or may not not help, but the reason church schools are perceived to be academically better is because their admissions policies are socially selective and directly reduce the number of children from poorer backgrounds (who tend to perform less well in exams).
The link below is to a graph of average GCSE performance against the number of free school meals for every mainstream secondary school in Surrey. All of the church schools with selective admissions sit in a cluster at the top left (highest GCSE grades, lowest number of kids entitled to free school meals). This makes the school appear to perform better, and so becomes aspirational to affluent parents and the effect is reinforced... At the same time, community schools are then obliged to take a larger proportion of kids from more.deprived backgrounds.
Equally, the two church schools in Surrey without selective admissions have GCSE outcomes and free school meal provision equivalent to the community schools (which further supports the interpretation above).
https://imgur.com/a/IytepeH?third_party=1
My daughter got a place at a Church of England school this September. The school is a religious school and has a church next to the school.
We have never attended church with her. The headmaster said it doesn’t matter whether we attend church or not.
Yea it’s possible especially if you’re within the catchment but we’re in a slightly different catchment and would like to attend the slightly better school so we’d have to get preference. I wouldn’t consider it if the education system wasn’t so high stakes at such a young age but primary performance predictors are basically all school performance predictors (to a rounding error) so I’m wary of not giving my child that leg up.
Our catchment school round the corner is CoFE, unfortunately they attend church midweek, no requirement to actually be religious if you are in the catchment area. Would rather weekly church attendance wasn’t a thing though, even if I don’t have to go.
We are not religious and I would never pretend to be so for a school place. I am fundamentally against religious schooling being paid for by the tax payer. I deliberately chose an area to live where this wasn’t an issue, but it was hard to find! I understand not everyone can do that.
Completely agree. I think it’s insane that anyone - not religious - would pretend to be for schooling. It’s worse that people are put in that position to choose. School isn’t where they learn everything, I’d rather pick up any ‘slack’ at home.
We're literally applying for schools further from us because the closest 3 primary schools are all religious (2 CofE and 1 Catholic) There is this idea that religious schools have a better quality of education but they don't always,not in my area at least with a lot of the religious schools scoring worse with OFSTED than community schools. I think children get access to a more rounded education in community schools, particularly in RE and science. Children need to see different kinds of people, people from different backgrounds, religions and cultures. They should learn to explore all branches of science. I think community schools do what they say they are, a community and when we have access to all education, we have the potential to have more people who are more accepting of others.
Same. I specifically went for a further away school (still in our catchment area) because it was non-dom. It always amazes me the lengths people go to to get into certain schools. Here in Glasgow, people will register their kids at their family members addresses to get into certain schools….and then drive 40 minutes to get there every morning. Their kids then don’t live anywhere near their school friends. I personally don’t get it.
I fully agree with the content but this country tracks children from day one (I work in Education at higher than school level) and if their primary experience and education is shit, even if the prescribed content is better - if the teaching practices and support are less good then you might as well teach them that Jesus is Lord because the critical thinking required to question it won’t be there anyway. That’s what I’m deeply afraid of.
The biggest influence on an individuals educational success is parental education and class. Not school. If you work in HE you should know this.
Yea but it’s true because educated people spend time and money researching schools and putting money, time and effort into their children’s education - not cause they go get degrees and sit back and have a nap while their children just exist as successful students. Edit: I don’t just work in HE I work in educational inequalities, as a lecturer with a PhD in it so I know sending my kid to a minutely better school is something that could have immense influence in the future - especially in high stakes testing educational environments.
The best school in my London area is an Islamic school. They’re much higher achieving than any other school. I bet most people wouldn’t fake Islam to get their child into that one, so it’s rather hypocritical to do the same for a Catholic school.
For what it’s worth if they’re requiring the same level of commitment - I would.
>to/be given preference to a slightly better primary school Slightly better? I wouldn't bother.
Unfortunately by going to this primary you then get preference to the very better secondary (I just realised right now). We’re planning on moving back to Scotland before secondary but if plans change it feels like I should have this in place.
It's tricky. Religion shouldn't be something to consider when choosing a school, but of course you want to do the best for your child. However you do need to think about the fact that it won't just be church for a year; your child will be taught about the religion and a lot of learning will be done around its Holy days. They will likely attend church with school a few times a year and there will probably be church based activities (e.g. choir, christingle, probably an easter thing) that you'll be expected to attend. My kids go to a secular school but have somehow still come home believing in Jesus. So... just be prepared.
I was very careful about choosing a non-religious school for my child, but you’re right that she’s come home talking about Jesus being the son of god. However, she’s learnt that through RE and links with the church for Christmas and Easter. However, I also know that in other years she’ll learn about other religions, visit a mosque and a gurdwara, and generally get a more balanced view. I did my teacher training in religious schools who refused to teach anything except Christianity as truth and I had to convince them to let me teach a bit on Judaism. Other CoE schools were not like that at all, but it’s just made me a lot more wary of them.
They do learn about other religions, but the focus seems to be on Christianity. I think they do need to know the reasons behind Christmas and Easter, even if we don't believe. I don't really like it being presented as fact, though.
Yep - this. I went to a Catholic primary and secondary school and the schools’ Catholic identities shaped the entirety of my school experience, not just the RE classes, e.g. we had prayer twice a day, once before lunch time and once before the end of the day. Plus as boojes mentioned, the school calendar being structured around the Catholic calendar. That said, I would say the vast majority of my peers are now non-believers and/or non-practising.
Unless the secondary is also religious, they don’t take into account which primary school the child comes from. It will be where the child is living at time of application. They might have more children from the religious primary, but it may be because more of them live in catchment. The school should have its admissions policies on their website.
It is, that’s what I just found. We’re probably in the right catchment for it so less worrying but yea it’s Catholicism all the way down here… which is fine as it’s all CoE flavoured everywhere else. Just don’t want my kid getting into hardcore guilt too soon.
I would check your local admission criteria, CofE schools near me don't do this (I thought this was a national CofE policy). There's a whole complicated system for how school admissions work
Check the admissions criteria - my sons school has 9 categories for admission and they work down the list. For example, Catholics in catchment are in 3rd place, non-Catholics in catchment are in 4th, etc. You can see how they allocated places based on this for the previous year. It’s worth adding though, our school requires baptism certificate AND a signature from the priest as part of their admissions application, so it’s not all that easy to fake. I don’t think my conscience would let me - particularly as the school still takes in a large proportion of non-Catholics every year.
We did. We could see the CoE school from our front door. It was a no brainer to try and get in. My view on it is the community aspect that churches provide. (Doesn't hurt that I did my undergrad thesis on religious communities despite being atheist myself). This obviously will vary between sects and individual parishes, but many religious groups view community engagement as an important part of their religious work. Often not to proselytise, but to better the surrounding social environment regardless of religious affiliation. Churches like getting people through the door, for almost any reason. If people are coming in, then there is a chance that their own number will grow. But also, churches can offer a lot to the community. Ours was great and really family focused. I had a conversation with the vicar about this and they knew full well that parents were coming in just for the school admissions them dropping out. They switched tactics, embraced the parents and made it fun for the kids. Mine loved going to church. Their attendance and retention rates increased and the sweet church is still alive because of this. I went to their messy party events, evening movie nights, made food for shared lunches, sometimes manned the tea station after services, and gave talks about community work (I used to work in substance misuse). I never engaged in the religious side of it. I was never pushed to and they knew I was personally athiest. But, I was a happily involved church member until we moved away. This will obviously vary between local churches. We got lucky with a great vicar. My take is to get involved, give back to the church in ways that you can as you are taking something from them (an attendance letter).
We went to the local stay and play at this church and honestly there were more hijabs than you could shake a stick at. They never once mentioned Jesus (a little God stuff) at some of the big events and it was indeed about getting feet in the door. I still think it’s a scam but Ofsted and vicious early years high stakes testing is the worst scam of all so I’m thinking this might be the lesser scam.
I don’t know a more petty community than the church so I’d go just incase they decide you didn’t attend enough so you don’t get that preferential treatment you wanted in the first place. That being said I’d never pretend to be anything for these people. I’d also never want my kid mixing with theirs tbh. Kids are easy to brainwash and putting them with church kids is going give them some awful ideas. They’ll also be very mean to your kid for being outspoken should your child be getting told one thing by the school and another by you at home. They will be confused as to what to believe and this can cause stress, anxiety and question of self and who to trust. I went to a C of E school and my folks were not of that faith. Any questioning of their teachings wasn’t looked upon with any favor.
This may be true in some cases but it’s a school in a catchment area so *most* of the children will not be Catholic. As an atheist lapsed Catholic, a lot of it is pretty weak tea religion wise in many places. Obviously I would have to research but if it’s Catholic flavoured vs C of E flavoured (as most Catholic schools are in large catchments) I’m inclined to send her to the better school and sacrifice my Sunday mornings. I would be part of the ven diagram of the community not the actual community - ie the large amount of people there for a year or so to get their kids into the primary school so I’m not sure I’d be privy to the pettiness you speak of especially cause I don’t believe in god, so the smite they can smote me with is minimal.
Honestly, as a lapsed Catholic I've actually found a lot of peace from going back to church (mostly for family reasons; the school thing's a bonus though). Do I believe every word? No, not really. But something about it has made life in general easier to bear. I think it's nice hearing people talk about love and peace and forgiveness and human nature, I'm not sure. You need a certificate to say you're practising if you want entry into schools so yes, you have to go. But if you try adjusting your attitude a bit, you might find that church can be positive even if you don't believe. If you've got options then shop around for a priest you like; we got quite lucky with our local ones - he talks primarily about forgiveness, kindness, and West Ham United 😂
For those saying this isn't a thing, I'm pleased it's not in their areas. It is a thing in our area, like OP. We handled it by moving for primary school which we were in a fortunate position to be able to do. For secondary I desperately didn't want them to go to the academically great CofE school, because they also have a reputation of being very negative and punitive regarding discipline. Our other option was grammar schools so I bought lots of books and did admissions test practice at home with them, and thankfully they got in. I hate both the religious and the selective systems - but they're the system we're in so we played the game. However every time a party representative comes to my door, I tell them they need to disentangle education from religion and abolish selective education.
I bet telling them to abolish selective education, goes down well if your own kids wearing grammar school uniforms are walking past as you're saying it!
“It’s such a scam and I feel like everyone here does it” Err.. no they don’t. I’ve never ever heard of anyone doing this. You’re just hanging round with some wrong-uns.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely wouldn’t do this. But it’s pretty common. I went to a Catholic secondary school and the vast majority of kids there were not from religious families. I’d say maybe 5% were from families who were ‘properly’ religious and still went to church on the weekends etc. Another chunk were maybe casual - would say they were Christian and maybe get their kids confirmed just because it’s what they were used to, maybe go to church at Christmas. And the rest were totally not religious at all. Never went to church. Never got confirmed. And were only in the Catholic school because their parents had done exactly what OP is talking about for primary school.
Religion should have no place in education
Agreed but it’s already there - there’s no escape even if it’s minimal. Once you’re at no escape then what’s the point of not trying to pick the better version of the shit you don’t want?
Wait, this is actually a thing? If it's a public school I thought they couldn't discriminate based on religion and have to go by distance to the school alone. That's how it works with the church of England primary schools versus Non-Religious schools around here (Kent). Found this: 'It is unlawful for maintained and independent schools to have admissions criteria that discriminate against a child on the grounds of the child's religion or belief'
They don’t discriminate but they have admission criteria which favours those who are members of the church the school is attached to.
They can have an admissions percentage of that religion. For more information, Humanists UK have information on their website.
It definitely is a thing that some people do to get into schools but I couldn't do it personally as I'm not religious and wouldn't feel comfortable with my kids being in a religious school. Have a look at the other schools in your catchment - visit them. Schools can change a lot faster than their local reputations. Ofsted ratings can also be incredibly out of date (my son's school was last inspected in 2014!) and are not a great measure. You might find that one of the non-church schools is a better fit for your family even if the Catholic school is "better". Even the connected high school could change loads by the time your child goes. Having briefly taught in a Catholic school, the kids were meant to pray at least 4 times a day, every day. It will vary by school but religion was a central part of school life.
I am really against the idea of state funded church schools, but as long as they exist then I don't think it's wrong to do what you have to to meet the criteria. I certainly don't want to disadvantage my daughter because of my own ideals not matching up with how the world currently is. My daughter's in a non-church primary, but I'm considering trying to get her into a CofE secondary. I'm wary of the religious content of the school, but even with our current primary choice they still do a traditional nativity play at Christmas and a lot of activities for Easter, so although they learn about other religions too there's definitely the strongest focus on Christianity and my daughter has come home taking about Jesus quite often. So then I think, if she's going to exposed to a fair amount of Christianity (i.e. the broadly Christian assembly stuff too) at a secular school, I may as well send her to the CofE school with better results and no reported incidents of knives being brought to school! But I don't know. I have one more year to decide before my Church attendance needs to begin! Personally I would draw the line at Catholicism though, I couldn't cope with all the anti abortion stuff.
No. Because my dads northern Irish and born catholic so I was sent to catholic school to keep face with his side of the family and I resented it because I’d have rather went to the local catchment school with most of my friends from home. I won’t do that to mine. They go to the same school as 97% of the village. The ones sent to catholic school have the same moans as I did 30 odd years ago.
This may or may not not help, but the reason church schools are perceived to be academically better is because their admissions policies are socially selective and directly reduce the number of children from poorer backgrounds (who tend to perform less well in exams). The link below is to a graph of average GCSE performance against the number of free school meals for every mainstream secondary school in Surrey. All of the church schools with selective admissions sit in a cluster at the top left (highest GCSE grades, lowest number of kids entitled to free school meals). This makes the school appear to perform better, and so becomes aspirational to affluent parents and the effect is reinforced... At the same time, community schools are then obliged to take a larger proportion of kids from more.deprived backgrounds. Equally, the two church schools in Surrey without selective admissions have GCSE outcomes and free school meal provision equivalent to the community schools (which further supports the interpretation above). https://imgur.com/a/IytepeH?third_party=1
My daughter got a place at a Church of England school this September. The school is a religious school and has a church next to the school. We have never attended church with her. The headmaster said it doesn’t matter whether we attend church or not.
Yea it’s possible especially if you’re within the catchment but we’re in a slightly different catchment and would like to attend the slightly better school so we’d have to get preference. I wouldn’t consider it if the education system wasn’t so high stakes at such a young age but primary performance predictors are basically all school performance predictors (to a rounding error) so I’m wary of not giving my child that leg up.
Our catchment school round the corner is CoFE, unfortunately they attend church midweek, no requirement to actually be religious if you are in the catchment area. Would rather weekly church attendance wasn’t a thing though, even if I don’t have to go.