Catholic school questions..

Hello!

We have a toddler, and are thinking of buying a house, and are trying to take all of our school options into consideration.  We both attended Catholic school as children, and while we aren't especially religious, we're considering sending our child to one, as well.

My question is, does anyone have any odeas about the fees at Catholic schools in England?  I assumed they would be as expensive as they are in the US, and so I was planning on having my son go to the local primary school then maybe switch for secondary school.  However, I was just talking with a friend (who lives in another county, so unfortunately I can't ask her specifically about our local schools) and she looked baffled when I started talking about tuition fees and how we would like to avoid them as long as possible.  She said, essentially, that she didn't pay tuition for her children to attend their local Catholic schools.

sooo... is this normal here?  Any advice about Catholic schools here would be appreciated.  (and we're in Loughborough, Leics, in case anyone happens to be very local and can give even more specific info.)

Just doing a bit of internet searching, I have discovered that we have 4 Catholic primary schools in our county (South Gloucestershire) and all of them are free to attend. In the next county (Bristol), there are about 13 free Catholic primary schools across the city.

For secondary schools, there are 3 free Catholic secondary schools in Bristol, but no Catholic secondary schools in South Gloucestershire. I believe there is only 1 private, fee-paying Catholic secondary school in Bristol (it takes pupils from age 4-16), which costs between £6,000 and £9,000 per year to attend.

Looking on schoolsnet.com, it looks like Loughborough has 2 free Catholic primary schools (Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School and St Mary's Catholic Primary School) and one free Catholic secondary school (De Lisle Catholic Science College). Of the private schools in Loughborough, I can only find one fee-paying Catholic private secondary school (Our Lady's Convent School) and no fee-paying private Catholic primary schools.

When we moved over my daughter went to the Catholic High School- it was indeed free of charge. A big difference in the UK is since there is not seperation of church in state there are many 'public state funded schools' that are faith based.

We were very pleased, the Catholic school in our area is an excellent one and has a much better reputation  then the other schools, since my daughter was baptised catholic she was given a place right away.

The schools that are affiliated with churches here are free, you will need to meet their criteria (for instance, you might have to prove that you attend church regularly or that your child was christened etc)

I went to a catholic primary and then secondary school (all non fee paying)

When I went, they were fairly easy to get into you just needed to be baptised, but because of their good reputations and because of the higher percentage of eastern europeans in the UK now who are often catholic (that's not a criticism, just a fact) they are now very competitive to get into, my sister is going through this with her kids, the oldest is 8 but she's making sure they have their first confession, communion etc and are attending church regularly, as the schools often have a list of criteria of how they admit children such as
"Catholic from non-catholic family, not attending church regularly" will be below "catholic from catholic family, baptised, communion, attending church regularly"
It is a great school though, much higher rated than any of the other schools, I left with 13 A* GCSEs.

Catholic secondary schools often have intake schools from catholic primary schools, so if you know the secondary school you want her to go to, it would be worth getting her into one of the "intake" catholic primary schools.

There is a comedy series called "Rev" running on BBC at the moment featuring a priest (Church Of England). The central character is the Reverend Adam Smallbone.

"Episode one saw his minute congregation suddenly swollen by middle-class parents attracted by a rumour of a forthcoming good Ofsted report for the local church school. With a hole in the stained glass window to repair, Smallbone's conscience is sorely tested by this new and potentially lucrative source of income."

I think that the schools (probably) and God (certainly!) know who is going to church to boost their kid's chances of school admission, and who genuinely believes. Makes me think of Pascal's Wager.

wow ksand, thanks so much for that info!  I couldn't find anywhere that mentioned tuition for the local schools.. just out of interest, where did you find that out? 

I appreciate all of the comments here.  I had heard about the system for deciding entrance, eg baptised Catholic versus baptised + regular churchgoer.  It's quite possible we'll be attending church again anyway now that my son is getting a bit older.  We did in our previous town (when we lived in Germany) but fell out of the habit. 

My next step will be to look into, as cheesebiscuit says, which school feeds into the secondary school we like.  I don't even know if we'll be here that long, but might as well be prepared in case we are.    And we really don't like the look of the local public secondary schools...

wow ksand, thanks so much for that info!  I couldn't find anywhere that mentioned tuition for the local schools.. just out of interest, where did you find that out? 

No problem . You probably couldn't find anything about fees for the local schools, because they don't have any fees (e.g. there are 34 primary schools in Loughborough, but only 2 of them are fee-paying and 32 are free) . Usually if a school doesn't say anything about tuition or about being an 'independent' or 'prep' school on their website, they are a free school (free primary schools are usually 'voluntary aided', free secondary schools are usually 'comprehensive' or 'community' schools). Normally you can find out the tuition fees of private schools by checking the website of the school (although the Catholic one I found in Bristol didn't list their fees).

If you go on www.schoolsnet.com, you can search the area you're looking in (i.e. you can put Loughborough in the search section) and then select the type of school you want to search for: If you select 'State Primary' or 'State Secondary', it will come up with a list of all the free schools and if you select 'Independent Secondary' or 'Independent Preparatory or Junior', it will list all the fee-paying schools.

Just to chime in what others have said - I have had 2 experiences that I have heard of. BIL's niece had to be confirmed in order to attend her catholic primary school and my cousin wanted to attend the only catholic secondary school in our town - she couldnt because she was not catholic (but had been baptised CoE) That year they only took 1 non-catholic child, the year before there wasnt room for any!

Our school barely made it past admitting anyone other than siblings this year, unless you were a sibling no one other than Christians were admitted.

BIL's niece had to be confirmed in order to attend her catholic primary school

Isn't confirmation around age 13 or so?  Primary school is a younger age, isn't it?  Or am I confused again?  (was 8th grade for me, but then that was many many moons ago)

Or, was your niece transferring schools at a later age etc?

If we do decide to send him to Catholic school, we're happy for him to have his sacraments and all that comes with them.  I just meant to say that we are not currently a part of the Catholic community in the area, and thus I didn't have any insider knowledge as to how the schools work.

As it is, from what I've heard, having him baptised late might be working against us.  He might be 18-20 months by the time we're able to get the date correct for all the grandparents etc to attend.     I know some schools can be picky about this, but well, we can't change it now.

Ah yes! Maybe she was having a different ceremony (communion?) I dont know too much about it, i just remember that my sister and her husband attended the ceremony at a catholic church when she was about 8 or 9 and it was something to do with her attending a school, maybe a junior school?

Ah yes! Maybe she was having a different ceremony (communion?) I dont know too much about it, i just remember that my sister and her husband attended the ceremony at a catholic church when she was about 8 or 9 and it was something to do with her attending a school, maybe a junior school?

Probably first holy communion (takes Host for the first time at Mass) and first confession.

You do your confirmation around 14-15 (around the "age of reason" *eyebrow raise*). It's a more serious commitment as you do it as an adult basically.

Does having had a bar-mitzvah disqualify a kid from admission to a Catholic school? It sure would be a shame, it's the best one in our area. Maybe we could all convert? My husband is not being helpful over this.

Does having had a bar-mitzvah disqualify a kid from admisison to a Catholic school? It sure would be a shame, it's the best one in our area. Maybe we could all convert? My husband is not being helpful over this.

Weren't you raging in another thread about admission fraud? Seems unfair that you don't feel it is okay to rent a house to get in a catchment area (I agree with you on this by the way), but it is okay to "convert" and pay lip service to a religion for your children to attend Catholic school - no? Unless this is just more sarcasm.

The OP in this case is Catholic was attending church regularly in Germany, is planning to attend more often again and would have considered paying fees to get her child into a Catholic school , they also went to Catholic schools themselves. It's not a huge reach, and doesn't seem calculated to just get their kids into school, my sister is doing something similar, she was an up and down Catholic, attended church but not diligently or regularly, but started to do it more after the girls were born for lots of reasons, including the good catholic school, but also because as they got older they understood more about God etc and what Church meant, so they could grow with faith.

My DB and I both attended Catholic schools but are now both vehemently not Catholic, therefore we wont be doing anything to get our kids into Catholic schools, although we may apply if we feel like it, but we'll just be honest. If that means not getting a place, so be it.

I don't believe having the baptism later will affect your application. I believe I had mine later because my parents (i.e my Dad) wanted to have it in Cork, rather than in England where they were living.