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founding

hmmm lets take a step back here.

If they are faith schools and if my memory servers then the church concerned are mostly responsible for the "infrastructure" but teachers are supplied by the lea. This was after the the state intervened and did not like schools being able to have teachers as the same faith of the school. This means that Roman Catholic schools can not longer, i believe, state a teacher must be a roman catholic and the same for Anglican schools.

These are Christian schools. They are not Muslim schools or Hindu schools so yes I would expect them to include more students from a Christian background than a Muslim /HIndu/Other back ground. Along with this I would challenge that the only reason other none Christian traditions apply to these schools is not because of their teaching excellence (and having two daughters who came from Archbishop Blanch it is not that great) but because they are single sex schools .

This is not discrimination in the sense of not having someone because of a character but because they make a definitive statement of what type of school the are. The are a Christian school. which means they should have a Christian ethos and should give priority in teaching Christianity above all other traditions. Before you say they are all the same I beg to differ. Christianity is not the same as Islam as much as Islam is not the same as Hinduism.. The do not worship the same deity or hold to the same rules.

I am a tad disappointed in this article in that it has not got to the facts of the story or challenging a narrative . This story is a naked attack on Christian school accusing them of being sectarian when that is far from the truth (it has changed a lot over the years) and I wonder if the journalist who wrote it bothered to interview the Muslim parents who were protesting to see why they wanted their children to go to a explicitly Christian school that would be forced to change to accommodate Muslim sensibilities.

Although it is story of interest if only it shows the attack that happens against Christian schools and not only in Liverpool . One wonders why the real story is not covered . That education in this city mostly sucks. Teachers are under so much pressure and underpaid for what they do and schools have been closed as demographics change yet now the city is on the up where are the new schools for an increasing population. That is the real story that needs to be answered not some tawdry attack on faith based schools that are doing their best in very difficult situations.

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You say that the Council will be busy with appeals for secondary education over the summer. I beg to differ - the appeals system has been outsourced to a London based company and is an almost farcical waste of time. If your target school says it is full, end of story.

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Surely there are two issues here, neither of which are really to do with faith. The first is 15 years of woeful underinvestment in public services, which is why schools/the NHS/social services/the criminal justice system, the police etc are all just staggering along. In this case it's the fact we don't have enough schools for secondary age children. And secondly, parents all want to get their children into the highest rated schools. In other parts of the country, this means living in the 'right' area where selection is done by catchment area - in Liverpool many of the highest achieving schools are faith based so it's inevitable that their selection processes giving preference to those of a particular faith will lead to some losing out. People would complain about the catchment area system if that was used in Liverpool.

I understand that there is a wider philosophical debate about the existence of faith based schools but this article is really a criticism of the lack of schools investment and the 'parental choice' selection process that leads to some schools being massively oversubscribed

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I know this is a bit late but I’ve only just read this edition.

You pointed us in the direction of one of your favourite reads about Curtis Warren, so I thought I’d have a look.

I clicked on the link which took me to the Sunday Times article only to find I had to subscribe to the Times to read it.

Why point us in this direction, I can’t be the only person who doesn’t want to subscribe to the Times.

This is not the first time this has happened, could you not add that to read the article you will have to subscribe, thank you.

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So many issues around admissions which unfortunately I have some experience of (as a parent). Belvedere Academy right in the middle of L8 has criteria using the fair banding process. This is about as fair as it can be imo, but results in the school being heavily over subscribed.

It would seem too obvious to suggest a Muslim school opening, and St Hilda’s is now accepts boys too, which would probably not be preferable for Muslim parents.

I have sympathy with anyone trying to negotiate the appeals process. The idea of faith schools seems anachronistic but it drives a number of quality schools in the city, and a particular faith group feels they are losing out.

King David High School is a faith school, but isn’t oversubscribed from the Jewish community. Maybe they could.......no I’m not saying it.

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There is no secondary education in Knowsley, irrespective of faith.

The issue is not the selective policies of Faith schools it is the lack of alternative school places and the lack of funding for those places.

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author

Yes that certainly seems to be the largest issue by far, I agree. That said, I can see why there's some frustration in specific areas like in L8 where larger Muslim populations struggle to find school places and various faith schools have very small Muslim quotas. Nonetheless, as you say, the lack of options/funding is the key point

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