Faith schools

[Moos]

louisiana Wrote:

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> As the OP, maybe I should remind peeps that the

> original point of this post was to draw attention

> to this stunningly poor 'faith school' in our

> borough, not a couple of miles from our front

> doors.

I agree that the discussion on faith schools is an important and relevant one. But the issues raised by Katharine Birbalsingh are not about faith schools, they weren't even specifically about the school, although she drew examples from it. Nor does the Standard article or the OFSTED link the status of the school to its performance. The school's performance is a red herring to this discussion - either we argue that faith schools criminalise children and cause them to underperform - and no evidence for this has yet been given on this thread - or we argue that faith school often perform well but are unfairly discriminatory as they exclude children who would want to attend them.

[mockney piers]

In all fairness, when I was growing up every school in the country was basically a faith school. Christian assembly was required by law and I doubt anyone under the age of 35 went to at least a junior school that didnt sing hymns, carols and teach us the whole gospel version of events, meanwhile senior schools were required to do religious education for pupils under 14.

The result, one of the most secular populations in the world and a generation utterly uninterested in religion.

Let em teach creationism, kids are natural rebels and we should credit them with a little more intelligence.

That said I don't support the diversion of precious educational resources to institutions that are by definition divisive, if someone wants to pay that's fine, but my tax money, ih-uuuur*.

*not sure how to spell the sound the family fortunes computer used to make.

[Moos]

mockney piers Wrote:

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> ih-uuuur*.

>

> *not sure how to spell the sound the family

> fortunes computer used to make.

Surely it has an h in it?

But other than that important point, I very much agree.

[mockney piers]

Ooh, and well said moos. I read the linked documents and didn't see anything that specifically linked faith schools with a gang mentality, rather a faith school with a gang problem, of which i'm sure its inner city geography and a general trend towards demonising youth in this country will be much greater causal factors than anything to do with religion I'm sure.

As a lettered economist I'm sure the OP must have done lots of work to make sure coincidence and causality weren't confused so I can only infer that it was deliberate misdirection rather than unfortunate misinterpretation; an analysis of past posts might support such a theory....or perhaps its just a coincidence ;-)

[Ridgley]

You absolutely right, Mockney Piers I was of that generation you are referring to but I still feel it down to parental choice.

[Senor Chevalier]

OK, so in this instance the faith school does not even have the redeeming feature of getting good results. So whatever side of the FS fence you are on the school appears to be failing due to the demographic challenge placed upon it notwithstanding the Herculean efforts of certain saint-like(?) teachers. The title of this posting could have been "Shockingly Bad School" as the faith probably has nothing to do with it. Whilst the kids are busy terrorising teachers and eachother and skipping lessons they are no doubt missing out on the education and inculcation (I just love that word and all its derivatives) in equal measure.

[SeanMacGabhann]

To be fair Piers, the country you refer to has, like Ireland , not shed it?s religious past entirely

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/4734734/Spain-prepares-to-fully-legalise-abortion.html

I know plenty of secular irish people who, because they were brought up by de preests, unable to shed their teachings on this topic. For example

[mockney piers]

Is that words in mouth. 30% consider religion an important part of their lives. That's hardly 'shedding its religious past entirely', it's 1/3 of the country, which actually probably supports one in 3 schools being faith ones doesn't it?

It does however put it right down the bottom of world leagues for religiosity.

[mockney piers]

here's a pretty little graph which will probably bring a whole load more questions up, but ones perhaps for another thread

also that data on Ireland cant still be true can it?!?!

[mockney piers]

Oooooh, you thought I meant Spain. Noooooo, noooo I meant Britain. I've been at school here since I was 5!!!

I'd put Spain about 10 years ahead of Ireland, but much like that country it is politically hampered by the aggressively vocal presence of the church in politics. It ahs some very cosmopolitan urban centres but is still a divided society in terms of traditional/modern, religious/not so much, rural/urban.

[Jeremy]

Keef Wrote:

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> With regards to the argument that you're excluded

> from 1/3 of schools if you're not religious,

> surely it could be argued that you have 2/3 of

> schools open to you, whilst a religious person

> only has 1/3 to choose from.

I don't see it that way. You don't have to attend a specialist religious school if you (or your parents) are religious. There are plenty of other ways to get your religious fix. In fact, I would say that religious teachings are best done outside of school... it shouldn't interfere with mainstream education. It would be healthier to have a division between the two.

silverfox Wrote:

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> However, if parents believe the mumbo-jumbo why is that wrong?

The answer's in the question... the parents believe it. Is that a good reason to indoctrinate the children too? To teach mythology and tales of the supernatural as if it were fact - alongside maths, science and languages?

[SeanMacGabhann]

not deliberately word in mouth - sorry

Yeah I thought spain, and read "one of the most secular populations in the world and a generation utterly uninterested in religion" as being about that... my bad

[DJKillaQueen]

this bunch of born again creationists are misguided it hardly constitutes a threat against society

Anything that misinforms is dangerous as history has shown.

Far more damaging to society, I would argue, have been the secular and left-wing views that brought in comprehensive education in the 70s and 80s that condemned a generation of children to substandard education for ideological reasons.7

Err the comprehensive school I went to was excellent and still is to this day. I came away with 13 O'levels and four A'levels with high grades in spite of a poor working class background and I wasn't the only one...so kind of blows your assumption there.

[mockney piers]

You may well have done DJKQ, but you also came out of it* a dangerous pinko leftie subversive and an enemy of the State!!!!! (as did I)

*it being a (indefinite article) comprehensive school not a specific comprehensive school

[silverfox]

Jeremy, my point was people believe many things. Mumbo-jumbo was your dismissive phrase.

I see that Druidism has now been given the status of religion. Personally I think it's a load of nonsense and all that welcoming in the Summer Solstice a bit batty. People believe in homeopathy, again nonsense. But people pay money to take courses in the 'subject' and go on to be practitioners and people pay them for their dubious quackery.

If the Druids set up a school with state funding would I object? No. Nor to Homeopathy schools but I wouldn't send my children there even if every pupil got A-stars at A-Level and I wouldn't feel discriminated against either.

As long as such views are not taught to the exclusion of pre-agreed standards in academic subjects. That is, faith schools are more about the ethos of the school. They do not say 1+1=2 because God says so, or God really invented Archimedes Principle. My limited understanding of Creationist schools in the US is they are not allowed to teach creationism exclusively, but together with and as an alternative view to evolution, which, don't forget, is only a theory that cannot explain the origin of life on earth, albeit a compelling one.

[silverfox]

Well DJKillaQueen we can't all be as smart as you - that's why faith schools are so popular because they have a generally high standard of education combined with a degree of discipline that helps those who are not naturally brilliant like yourself.

I still maintain that comprehensive education let down a lot of people in this country. At least the old Grammar/Secondary Modern system catered for the less academically gifted with practical skills and training rather than dismissing them as failures because they didn't get so many Ucca/Pcas points.

[DJKillaQueen]

You may well have done DJKQ, but you also came out of it* a dangerous pinko leftie subversive and an enemy of the State!!!!! (as did I)

HA HA...just fell of my chair....very good MP ;) lol....

At least the old Grammar/Secondary Modern system catered for the less academically gifted with practical skills and training rather than dismissing them as failures because they didn't get so many Ucca/Pcas points.

But you forget that early comprehensives also had streaming with more vocational curriculums for less academic pupils. What you are talking about is curriculum and that has changed for the absolute worst over the last 20 years with the demise of streaming. But in the 70's and 80's, the comprehensive system did well in may places, with the usual thing of those schools in more middle class areas generally doing better than those in the middle of poorer demographic areas....nothing has changed in that respect.

In the grammar school system before, great if you got into a grammar school (which my father did only to be denied the chance to go to University because his parents couldn't afford to keep him) and not great if you didn't like my mother. Just as many children were failed in that system of education as what followed.

I'd argue it is the drive to dumb down that has damaged the education system (the notion that all children can achieve in equal measure), whilst meanwhile the public shool system (where most of the politicians tinkering with the state school system send their kids) continues with the same traditional teaching methods it always has and continues to churn out better results on the whole.

Anyway all that is off topic I know :)

[Moos]

Maybe not, DJKQ, but thoroughly relevant to the points Katharine Birlbalsingh was making, and IMO a far greater threat to fairness in education than the faith school question.. ;-)

[SteveT]

The kids I knew who went to faith schools had a far wider knowledge of the religious faith they attended than the rest of us heathens but they were no better or worse during other subject lessons.

People think that if you don't get a good education you are potentially a failure. My education was a secondry school for 11 plus rejects where one chances of obtaining GCE's were nil.

I left at 15 and went to earn a living and was 'encouraged' to learn a trade.

I thought that too until I became financially more successful being a failed gas-fitter from the midlands running my own businesses and partnerships than the 'educated' middle class friends of my ex-wife who were ex-graduates doctors lawyers etc.

Success is not down to education it is far more to do with the individual, their endeavour, tenacity, determination, and savvy with a pinch or two of luck.

Sugar was a stall holder, Branson had learning difficulties, Billy Butlin ran a stall on the beach and could not read or write.

We were all crap at school but we made good in varying degrees.

The best thing 10 years of schooling did for me was to teach me my times tables, which I still use on a daily basis 50 years after the event. I might have said reading but I could read well enough before I new what school was.

[DJKillaQueen]

I whole heartedly agree with everything in your post Steve. Education should be about finding what a child can do, rather than targets that pretend all children can or want or indeed need to achieve the same. Some children will make excellent doctors, others with make excellent bricklayers. Both are needed and both are employable.

The times table issue is an interesting one. Many schools don't teach times tables anymore. And use of calculators have increasigly taken over. The result is that we have higher levels of poor numeracy amongst state school graduates, whereas very few children leave public school not having learned to recite times tables ;) Not hard to see which system works best.

[louisiana]

mockney piers Wrote:

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> In all fairness, when I was growing up every

> school in the country was basically a faith

> school. Christian assembly was required by law

Last time I checked, it still was.

As it stands, daily collective worship is compulsory, and must be must be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character".

Individual heads may decide to deviate from what the law and regulations state, but...

[espelli]

Louisiana, you are right, the law is that there should be a daily act of collective worship (where a deity must be referenced) and that at least 51% of these should be Christian in nature. These are generally referred to as assembly, but the story with a moral is not in itself collective worship and so doesn't count. It is the singing of praise, prayer or other act that counts. This is very difficult to do in a school where children have a variety of faiths or none, and is rarely inclusive.

DJKQ, in my experience, times tables are still a very important part of primary school maths and the calculators are often brought out so rarely that the children never get over the novelty of using them to write words upsidedown rather than seeing them as a tool ;) Not sure about secondary schools though.

One of the key problems for not pretending that all children can achieve the same is that it institutionalizes unequal expectations which mean that there is not equality of opportunity. It also allows the potential for sloppy stereotypes to be applied to children therefore limiting their life chances even if they do have the potential.

There was some work done in the 70's about the basic inequality within education and that, rather than being the socially transformative tool that universal education was supposed to be, supported and sustained the status quo. If vocatonal education is not valued as much as academic excellence then we will continue to force young people through lessons that bore them rigid and give them numerous opportunities to fail by the time they leave school. The Diploma Disease (as it was called) was revisited more recently. The Diploma Disease Revisited Apologies if this is way off topic and not relevant!

[DJKillaQueen]

One of the key problems for not pretending that all children can achieve the same is that it institutionalizes unequal expectations which mean that there is not equality of opportunity. It also allows the potential for sloppy stereotypes to be applied to children therefore limiting their life chances even if they do have the potential.

Yes but pretending they are all able to achieve the same standards is equally self defeating. It's a fact of life that people are good at different things. And unequal expectations have far more to do with demographics than schooling. You can put a random mixed group of children in any school, public or state and there will be an inequality of achievement.

We are not helping children by not tailoring education to recognise this fact. Equality of oppurtunity is about getting the best out of children and giving them the best future they can have if they take the opportunity. It is not about deluding children they can be something they can never be if only they work harder. In fact that attitude is responsible for the failure of too many children who leave school without basic standards of literacy and numeracy. They get left behind and there is nothing in the current system to empower them. Also there are some kids who just don't want to learn anything...or work for anything. Meanwhile the schools still using traditional methods of education continue to churn out pupils with whom these failed kids will never be able to compete for jobs.

A good school system should stream but at the same time should be flexible enough so as not to lock pupils into those streams (which is perhaps where the old system failed for some pupils). Of course it also has to be taken into account that there are very few reasonably well paid but unskilled jobs compared to 30 plus years ago. The country has changed (with technology) and formal skills are more important, but that doesn't address the problem of how we deal with those who will never achieve that minimum standard at school. And there are plenty of them.

[mockney piers]

It would seem it's not just faith schools.

Bad science schools are trying to get in on the act

Steiner Waldorf schools apply for free school status

i love his list though

Homeopathy: giving patients medicines that contain no medicine whatsoever.

Herbal medicine: giving patients an unknown dose of an ill-defined drug, of unknown effectiveness and unknown safety.

Acupuncture: a rather theatrical placebo, with no real therapeutic benefit in most if not all cases.

Chiropractic: an invention of a 19th century salesmen, based on nonsensical principles, and shown to be no more effective than other manipulative therapies, but less safe.

Reflexology: plain old foot massage, overlaid with utter nonsense about non-existent connections between your feet and your thyroid gland.

Nutritional therapy: self-styled ?nutritionists? making untrue claims about diet in order to sell you unnecessary supplements.

Spiritual healing: tea and sympathy, accompanied by arm-waving.

Reiki: ditto.

Angelic Reiki: The same but with added ?Angels, Ascended Masters and Galactic Healers?. Excellent for advanced fantasists.

Colonic irrigation: a rectal obsession that fails to rid you of toxins which you didn?t have in the first place.

Anthroposophical medicine: followers of the mystic barmpot, Rudolf Steiner, for whom nothing whatsoever seems to strain credulity

Alternative diagnosis: kinesiology, iridology, vega test etc, various forms of fraud, designed to sell you cures that don?t work for problems you haven?t got.

Any alternative ?therapist? who claims to cure AIDS or malaria: agent of culpable homicide.

Libel: A very expensive remedy, to be used only when you have no evidence. Appeals to alternative practitioners because truth is irrelevant.

[louisiana]

Which is kind of the point, MP.

Mumbo jumbo is mumbo jumbo.

Camp Hill communities do good works in the same way as religious groups.

Like many 'thinkers' Steiner had some interesting ideas and some potty ones.

But we are currently running a system that promotes the potty at public expense. Next stop Scientology? (They're working pretty hard at getting charitable recognition everywhere they operate.) In fact we are currently sending cheques from HMRC to fund seriously doolally groups across the country (through gift aid, charity tax breaks etc.).

I have no beef with people doing this stuff with their own money. Just not with mine. That is why I think a secular approach is best: do not involve religion or pseudo-religion in government, state education etc. Then people can make their own choices in their own private lives, and pay for it themselves.