Sectarian schools, not faith schools.

Let’s call a spade a spade.

There’s something very wrong with the label “faith school“. It’s a piece of PR. The word “faith” conjures up images of pious, light-bathed young girls, hands clasped in prayer, gazing hopefully towards heaven, believing that their innocuous prayers for the wellbeing of various friends and relatives will be answered by a benevolent god – or, perhaps as often, Jesus. Faith schools, they would have us believe, are places where students learn peace, love and tolerance for others.

The reality of “faith” when applied specifically to schools, of course, is quite different.

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‘While the poor receive free school meals, the Church receive free schools’

This just in from the NSS‘s Newsline email (which you should subscribe to, as well as joining or donating to the NSS, of course):

Shropshire County Council Cabinet has decided to proceed with its plan to create six new faith schools. Twelve existing schools are to be closed, the pupils from each pair going to a new faith school.

Four of the schools to be closed are inclusive Community Schools. The changes will result in the loss of hundreds of community school places to the advantage of the Church of England. The chairman of Governors of at least two of the community schools destined to close do not want to become part of a faith school, and fear the religious agenda.

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No faith? No chance.

Apparently non-faith schools are now considered a “political impossibility” by the (UK) government. This article in the Observer yesterday chronicles a headmaster’s attempt to set up a secular school.

Crisis of faith in first secular school.

Bastards.

And the Guardian have archived all their Faith School articles here.

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