Faith School Menace? Page #2

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again and again.

I went to meet one couple

who wanted to send their daughter

to what they thought

was the best school in their area,

a Catholic primary.

But the problem was they

weren't practising Catholics.

The SATs was 100%.

So, first child, you just want

the best for your child.

Yeah, we spent four years

going to church,

you know, doing the right thing.

You went in order

to get the child into the school?

Yeah, we went to church every Sunday.

Yeah, that's part of the criteria,

attendance.

The parish priest

has to sort of sign you off.

He stood at the door and ticked

your name off as you went in?

Not quite, but almost. After church,

everyone was crowding the priest

to say,

"Hi, look, I'm here, I'm here. "

Helen converted to Catholicism.

Didn't you?

Converted to Catholicism? From what?

From Protestant.

You were brought up...

Plymouth Brethren.

Plymouth Brethren in Scotland.

Yeah, so that was my commitment

to my daughter.

Did you have to do anything else?

Any other hoops to jump through?

Be nice to the priest.

Be nice to the priest

in what sort of way?

Well, if he had a cough,

you would get him some cough mixture

or just generally feed his ego.

That's not too serious bribery,

was there anything

more serious than that?

I...

It got to the stage where it

was sort of hinted at

that things like, you know,

the church roof needed fixing

and, you know, the fee of 5,000

was sort of bandied about.

5,000?

That if you sort of contributed

that amount,

your child was guaranteed

a place in school.

If you gave 5,000 to the church,

you would get your child

into school?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely.

It's not money to him,

but if his church looks like

its getting bums on seats

on Sunday, erm,

if the coffers are full,

he's doing a good job, isn't he?

He actually said that to me.

It's about bums on seats.

We contacted the priest in question.

He denied these claims

and stated he had nothing to do

with admissions, which were

dealt with by an independent body.

Of other faiths,

the Church of England told us

that not every admission

to their schools

is based on parents' religion

and it hopes no parent feels

compelled to worship

to secure their child a place.

The Board of Deputies of British

Jews makes no apology that parents

must demonstrate a commitment to

the values and ethos of Judaism.

But why are parents

who hold no faith

sending their children

to faith schools?

It seems to be about results.

League tables show that,

of primaries last year

with perfect SATs scores,

two thirds were church-run.

So what's going on?

Are faith schools better?

Surely God isn't

helping pupils in exams?

Through a massive analysis of half

a million primary school pupils,

this man has now has

the authoritative answer.

We can compare children

who live in the same postcode,

so you're comparing houses next

to each other, and if you do this,

and compare children in these

very similar circumstances,

one going to a faith school, one not,

you find actually the rate at which

these children progress

is very, very similar.

There's not much of a performance

advantage measured on these terms.

The upshot is that

all the performance advantage

we observe for faith schools is to do

with the motivation of the parents,

it's to do with the background,

you know, their wealth.

So the evidence suggests

that the idea

that improved results in faith

schools are due to faith is a myth.

It's about the social level of

pupils and the pushiness of parents

prepared to jump through hoops

to get their children selected.

Do we conclude from this

that parents are wasting their time

struggling to get their children

into a faith school?

Looking at the data we've got,

that's the conclusion

you would come to.

It might seem there's nothing deeply

wrong with parents

making a pact with beliefs

they don't hold

in order to get their children

into faith schools -

a little harmless hypocrisy,

perhaps.

But I worry that these parents

may be unwittingly

saddling their children with ways of

thinking that are hard to shake off.

One in three schools in Britain

is now a faith school,

and their number is increasing

throughout

our green and pleasant land.

As a non-believer,

I have concerns about this, but not

for the reasons you might imagine.

"Remember now thy Creator

in the days of thy youth.

"While the evil days come not, nor the

years draw nigh when thou shalt say,

"I have no pleasure in them. "

Perhaps surprisingly,

I'm in favour of religious literacy.

As we glide over the English

countryside,

I really feel that in order to understand

England, the village cricket matches,

Evensong, harvest festivals,

the weddings and christenings,

you need to have an appreciation

of the cultural heritage of England,

and that includes Christianity.

Equally, if you're to understand

our wider world,

the Muslim Koran and

Hindu Bhagavad-Gita deserve study.

"Stay me with flagons, comfort me

with apples, for I am sick of love. "

It's not all that surprising that I

enjoy the reading the Bible so much,

because, at least in the

17th-century King James version,

it is most beautiful English.

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard.

Consider her ways and be wise. "

"Spare the rod and spoil the child. "

"Of making many books

there is no end. "

These phrases and hundreds like them

suffuse our literature

and our language.

You can't appreciate Shakespeare

unless you are steeped in the Bible.

While I think it's important all schools

teach about the culture of religion,

I'm worried that faith schools

are allowed to do far more.

Even the mild old Church of England

has openly set out its aim,

through the Archbishops' Council,

for its some 5,000 schools

to "nourish those of the faith,

"encourage those of other faiths,

challenge those who have no faith. "

What does that mean for those

on the sharp end, our children?

I suppose what we are trying

to indoctrinate into is...

a view that faith matters.

What you would expect here is to find

that collective worship means something.

But the main aim is not just to learn

about the major faiths,

but to have something

of an experience of faith.

One of the things that's very

difficult to do when you're older

is to make a decision on something

about which you know nothing

and have experienced nothing.

So it would be very easy

for someone to say,

"Oh, religion's all a load of rot,"

without actually ever having

encountered what it's like lived.

And so the Christian Foundation

enables some of that to be part

of these children's experience,

not in a way that expects them

to sign on the dotted line,

but to say, "This is what it is like,

"it's part of your learning and

your education to see how it works. "

Janina Ainsworth

and I disagree here.

She feels it's important to

experience faith in school,

but for me, this is indoctrinating

children too young to defend themselves.

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