No it’s not a whoosh; if their results are achieved by their selection policy, rather than their academic methods, then it’s not a better school.
It is so far as results are concerned. And faith schools are perceived as being better and ofsted reports lend credence to this. Of course eevryone concerned swears blind there is no selection policy but the religious filter, combined with the ‘cost of entry’ premium on house prices in the catchment areas of good schools is a de facto selection policy even if interviews of prospective parents are banned.
It’s not like the government were legislating inclusiveness and social cohension etc because they’d run out of civil liberties to deprive us of in The War Against Terror and needed to fill the legislative calendar.
If you’re involved with a faith school it’s dollars to donuts Parent’s Evening is full of Sunday Christians.
I’d prefer religions were not given a free hand to warp children’s minds with superstition and would love a proper seperation of church and state like in the USA. But clost Catholic Blair is hell-bent on the opposite route of pandering to religions, particularly Islam, which I do think is particularly divisive
The good news is that only a few percent of Muslim children attend them as yet.
If people want to indoctrinate their kids with superstition they should not be doing it on the tax-payers dime. Schools should be for learning. By all means - learn about religions of the world and help pupils develop critical thinking but that is not what is going on in the curriculum as it stands. And being a cynic I strongly doubt any Islamic faith school is adopting a take it or leave it approach to Islam.
Actually Mangetout, I don’t really agree with you there.
You could take the same kids and stick them in a sink school and they would generally get nowhere.
A good cook will use good ingredients, a bad cook will ruin good ingredients.
Personally I find this selection stuff utter nonsense, the UK Grammar and Direct Grant schools were an excellent way of getting the most out of kids - even if they had a disadvantaged background.
Until A levels I went to schools where classes had very mixed abilities, initially in the depths of the country and latterly a peculiar private place that operated on that principle. It was extremely tedious.
I went through a grammar school too and I did fine. My brother was written off at 11. The comp that replaced the grammar school blew our A level results out of the water.
But I agree - some level of ability streaming would I feel be useful. But not through selection based on your ability to afford a house in a certain area or willingness to pretend you belong to a religion. And pupils should not have to suffer religious indoctrination for the privelge of a better education.
Does there not exist in the marketplace then, a huge opportunity to set up an excellent non-faith school that achieves the same results as the faith schools, but without burdening the children with superstitious nonsense, and without burdening the parents with keeping up a religious facade? Is there anything preventing such schools from coming into existence?
Gawd no, schools should have overlapping cachement areas, also kids can travel a fair distance - my school from 8 to 16 was 7 1/2 miles away.
Instinctively I am against any form of religious school, what worries me is that closing them or taking them over would destroy something that seems to work.
Recently I was listening to Simon Schama’s ‘A History of Britain’, and he made a point of how irreligious the British were in about 1900
I genuinely believe that people should be educated according to their abilities regardless of their background. While it is true that comparatively well off people tend to be quite bright (or vice versa) there is plenty of scope for ‘trawling’ - which is why the grammar schools were successful.
If you’ll forgive the term, amen to that. 
And who would set these schools up? The problem is you can’t just establish a good school without significant capital investment, and the only place that really can come from is the state. Lots of the Academies that have opened in the last few years have started to see very good results but have no religious element (other than the minimum statutory requirement to provide for collective worship and ensure RE is taught). But at the same time there are several Academies that have done well that are quite heavy on religion, and the government position on educational diversity seems to be that the faith sector is key - I have no idea why.
Again, the reason many of these religious schools are seen as good is that they’ve been open a long time and have good reputations (thereby incentivising the committed and pushy parents to send their bright darlings to them) and they can select on the basis of religion (which in a least some cases is used to filter people out). Any school that selects and trumpets its consistently high results is only really saying “look how well you can do when you don’t have any chavs or dimwits holding you back”. Unfortunately such a position is no viable for the whole education system, and personally I think it compounds the problem of educational inequality that we have in the UK (well, England anyway).
I think that in the UK we call those ‘Public Schools’
My feeling is that in the 1960’s a lot of people became teachers who should not have done.
No. education is not a market-place and nor should it be. The only route is being stinking rich and getting your mouth stuffed with gold to set up a special academy on the grave of a school that has been killed off for failing. Which is proving to be another way to expand evangelical education
I take it you don’t agree with the Academies programme then?
Ability to travel is a filtering factor, especially considering this recent case of Chgristian charity.
Christianity in action - take up thy bed and walk. And stop that bloody coughing.
Not when it allows religious nutters to suck at the tax payers teat. No. We have Intellingent Design being taught in them now.
Astonishly-simplistic. You don’t demonstrate anything with statements like this.
No longer in the job, FWIW.
No, he’s now the head of the DfES - where he is sensibly keeping such opinions to himself. 
Given that we’re talking about race, not creed, I must disagree.
As you failed to quote:
I’m not sure I agree. I’m not sure that state-run schools are such a good idea. They aren’t working too well at the moment. An element of competition might just do the trick.
I’m wondering if the schools themselves should be independently run, but funded by the state? Just like universities.
Quartz - you are Andrew Adonis and I claim my £5.
‘An element of competition’ has been tried over and over in various guises.
Not a fair comparison. I’m sure we can all agree that vast differences between universities is a good thing. Equivalent massive differences between schools isn’t a great idea. And in any case, it’s hardly like universities are operating with true independence, anyway.
In the state sector? Do tell. I remember the vouchers for nurseries (or was it primary schools?) in the mid 90s being a big hit with both parents and schools.
Why aren’t universities a fair comparison? (See your last remark).
I disagree, but that’s a matter for another thread.
Why not? I’m a firm believer in meritocracy, and if we can use the plutocracy to promote that, why shouldn’t we? Equally, if parents decide to sacrifice themselves for the education of their children, why shouldn’t they? Further, do you not agree that parents should have the freedom to move their children away from bad teachers?
Exactly my point.