The parents of two Catholic boys have been left disillusioned after they were told their children have not shown enough strength of faith to gain a place at their first choice of secondary school.
The explanation came as a shock to the parents of 11-year-old Hayden O’Connor and his cousin, Robert Fiddimore, who have both been regular churchgoers for their entire lives at St Elphege’s Church in Wallington and took their Holy Communion there in May 2003.
Hayden’s mother, Celia O’Connor, who lives in Wallington, said the John Fisher School in Purley should have said there were not enough places.
She said: "It was very judgmental of them to say the boys hadn’t shown enough strength of faith how can they prove that? They need to readdress their admissions criteria because they are pushing people away from their religion. My whole family are Catholics and I feel this is almost bordering on discrimination.
"I ticked nearly every box for the school’s criteria except my son is not an altar boy and he doesn’t attend Scouts."
I guess she should have taped a mustard seed on their applications.
She feels so strongly about her son’s rejection that she has written to the Pope explaining her concerns and said she feels the school’s explanation is a contradiction of the Bible, which states those who engage in prayer must not be seen as hypocrites.
Headteacher of the school, Pat Liddiard, said he could not comment on individual cases but explained the school had more applicants than places.
He added: "We are required to put into rank order the boys to whom we offer places. Quite rightly, academic ability cannot be considered and we have no means of gauging it.
Well maybe the family is better off. A school that has "no means of gauging academic ability" has something wrong with it. Do they send blank report cards home?
17 comments
Not enough strength of faith? Yet the school also states it cannot consider academic ability. So it must have a Faith Test, but no test in math, science, English, etc. How does that work?
I’m confused. The school has no means of gauging academic ability, but they can gauge “strength of faith”?
I’ll have to go back and look at the Jester product catalogue and find out what they used for gaugin faith. Does it work like a Geiger counter? Hmmm.
They have them get out of a boat and see if they can walk on water. If they start sinking – they don’t have enough “strength of faith.”
Michael
How the system works in Britain is that public schools (non-feepaying ones) are not permitted to select students on the basis of academic ability. They are not allowed to ‘cherry-pick’ the brightest pupils as this is seen as discrimintating against those who may be less academically able.
Thanks to the publication of ‘league tables’ where schools are ranked on how high the grades obtained by pupils in final year exams before leaving school, parents see that faith schools regularly place high on the table. They take this to mean that if they send little Johnny or Mary to school A rather than school B, little Johnny or Mary will get better grades and go on to university and from thence to a well-paid job. So Mummy and Daddy swear blind that of course they’re pillars of the local parish (whether Roman Catholic or Church of England) simply to get Johnny or Mary in.
It’s not just faith schools that have this problem; any school ranked highly has to deal with this as well. People have been known to rent houses or flats in the catchment area of a desirable school just to be able to put the proper address on the application form.
It’s a little hasty to judge the school just yet as we don’t know what’s going on; maybe the parents are orthodox and devout Catholics and their kids are being unfairly treated; equally, they could be queue-jumpers who are relying on ‘cultural catholicism’ to get their kids into a good school.
That’s certainly an odd thing to say. Don’t Catholic high schools have academic rankings anymore? When I was a child in NY, boys who were incredibly bright got into Regis, and the next highest batch divided themselves up between Molloy, Power, Pius X, Chaminade, and so on. Boys who weren’t academically qualified for these schools went to less selective ones, or to public school.
That sounds really hurtful, I feel so sorry for the little boys to be so summarily and demeaningly dismissed- What happended to a simple sorry, but there isnt any more room letter. No, they have to add an invective to mercilessly injure these little souls. I hope they get their commupance and not a little too soon.
“this is seen as discrimintating against those who may be less academically able.”
Excuse me, but what the heck does that mean? I thought a school was supposed to discimrinate on the basis of academic ability! I can assure you, you will be discriminated against on that basis when you try to get into the university! I discriminate on that basis every time somebody bombs my Biochem class and doesn’t get into medical school. That’s one part of my job, to separate the wheat from the chaff. Yeesh!
Doesn’t anybody remember that the opposite of “discriminating” is to be “indiscriminate?”
Fuinseoig explained why the school doesn’t have any way to measure academic ability; it would be illegal to do so, no?
As for the “not Catholic enough” idea – I wish they’d have done that at my alma mater. I had classmates who attended Mass every week, received the Eucharist, went to confession – and thought that they would be reincarnated. And proceeded to argue with the deacon who taught our religion class. And had their parents come in to defend their religious beliefs against attack. Oh, and I also had their father as a teacher in CCD – and he spouted the same nonsense there.
Notice that the parents did not offer proof of the children’s “strength of faith”. That suggests to me that the parents, as well as the children, probably have little knowledge of their faith. Since there seems to be no articulated, objective criteria, they should develop one in order to compare their children “strength of faith” with the other children. For instance, a parent could argue that his son has never missed Mass on Sunday or any Holy Day of Obligation, frequently goes to Confession, recites the daily Rosary and has a number of Catholic prayers memorized. In addition, he has a solid understanding of Catholic catechism, relative to his classmates, and is willing to prove it, like in a spelling bee. If the kid knows his faith, let him prove it, and in so doing, will show the folly of the school’s subjective standard. If the child does not know his faith, the parents should stop bellyaching and admit that they are to blame for their children not knowing their faith.
Remember, this is only one side of the story, but I also find it quite strange that they can’t measure academic rankings. What got my attention was the mother saying, “They need to readdress their admissions criteria because they are pushing people away from their religion.”
Another point being that if they don’t have enough faith, isn’t that a reason they should stay?
Yeah, I don’t buy the “no means” stuff with the academic criteria. How can you judge someone’s “strength of faith”?? I mean, isn’t that for God to judge? Schools often judge character, service and other “personal” or “personality-based” criteria, usually through essays and interviews. Doesn’t seem like that was done here, and if it was, they should have stated it as being a “character” assessment or something similiar. They’re just making themselves look bad and dumb.
I do believe these kids are better off as well. Sounds like the Mom should have sent the whole mustard tree
Firstly, I rather think firing off a letter to the Vatican because your kids didn’t get into the school of your choice is just the tiniest bit of an over-reaction, no?
And shock, horror! the school didn’t admit little Johnny? Oh, no! My whole family who have been Catholic are going to change their religion over this! Why, yes, that sounds just like the lost verse of “Faith of Our Fathers”: you know, the one that goes “Dungeon, fire and sword are powerless to frighten us, but school admissions policies…”
Not to be a pain in the posterior about this, but may I recommend the following links? You can see for yourselves the school inspection report for 2004 for the school and explanations of the terms used. You can also see the layers of bureaucracy involved.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/education/04/school_tables/secondary_schools/html/319_5402.stm
The John Fisher School
Peaks Hill, Purley, CR8 3YP
Tel: 020 8660 4555
TYPE: Voluntary aided, comprehensive, boys, sports
AGES: 11-18
ABSENCE:
5.5% authorised (6.2% locally, 7% nationally)
0.2% unauthorised (0.8% locally, 1.2% nationally)
GCSE-LEVEL PERFORMANCE
158 eligible, 10.8% of whom had special educational needs
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/cgi-bin/performancetables/dfe1x1_04.pl?School=3195402
Background Information
Total number of pupils (all ages) 965
Number of pupils on roll with SEN, with statements 15
Percentage of pupils on roll with SEN, with statements 1.6%
Number of pupils on roll with SEN, but without statements 84
Percentage of pupils on roll with SEN, but without statements 8.7%
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/reports/103/103009.pdf
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SCHOOL
The John Fisher School is a voluntary-aided Roman Catholic School for boys, with sports college status, in the borough of Sutton and the Catholic diocese of Southwark. The school is average in size (1007 pupils, including 214 in the sixth form). All are Catholic in the main school. The attainment of pupils on entry is a little above average but with few of very high or low ability. The school works alongside local grammar schools. The proportions of pupils with special educational needs and with statements are below average. Most pupils with the higher levels of needs have specific learning disabilities (dyslexia) or speech and communication difficulties. While no pupil is at an early stage of learning English, about five per cent have a home language other than English. The proportion eligible for free school meals is well below average, at 3.2 per cent. The proportion of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds, at 25 per cent, is below average for outer London. They come from European, Asian, Caribbean and African backgrounds, with no predominant group represented. The school is popular and over-subscribed, and mobility is low. Pupils come from homes across a wide area from Surrey to inner London, which greatly exceeds the affluent area in which the school is sited. About 70 per cent of pupils come from the borough of Croydon, which borders the school. The sixth form has grown in recent years and is a little larger than most, nationally. A few students (in 2004, 15) join newly in Year 12, attracted by the school’s reputation in sports and the general sixth form provision. Overall, the composition of the sixth form is similar to the community in the main school. Sixth form opportunities are extended through collaboration with neighbouring girls’ schools. The school’s high results have been rewarded by the School Achievement Award in successive years.
Cancel my comment, then. I missed the fact that the school in question is in England, and I have no idea what educational politics and practices there are like. My last information about English schools came from P.G. Wodehouse and E.F. Benson.
State funded Catholic schools in England cannot select their pupils on grounds of academic ability, nor can they determine their Catholic status by any other means tha a reference from the Parish priest and evidence of Catholic baptism.
Legislation currently before Parliament could force them to admit 25% non-Catholic pupils.
John Fisher only stopped selecting its pupils using 10+ interviews with boys and parents back in 2008. The school was selective between 1991 and 2008, with the Schools Admissions Code (2008) outlawing First Preference First and parental interviews. John Fisher recruited boys from all over London and SE until this type of selection was made illegal.
Today the school operates as a regular Catholic school to all intents and purposes.