Yes they did.



Although the head at the primary school discouraged them celebrating Halloween and listening to John Lennon's "Imagine".



On the other hand when I was at a secular primary school the teachers there discouraged us from growing our hair over our collars and wearing cowbells to school in the summer of love (1967, not some cheap imitation).

My son went to a church school (because it was the best available, so I'm another hypocrite

). After the first day he came home and said he didn't like it and didn't want to go back. We asked him what was wrong and he said 'they have a dead bloke nailed on the wall', which was a full size model of Jesus on the cross.

The key question you all need to be asking is WHY faith schools are generally the best in any area?

If WE all need to be asking that, you obviously know the answer. What is it?

That's for YOU to ask YOURSELVES and decide.

For the same reason that all schools with a selection policy are generally the best in any area - because as part of the selection process, even an undisclosed part of the selection process, they can select the more academically inclined, leaving the less able to be picked up by the non-selective schools - you may as well ask why grammar schools invariably had better academic results than secondary schools.

Is that really true of, say. Muslim schools? Jewish schools? etc?

No as they dont get the same funding from both the goverment and church.

Not in my opinion, you have to do what's best and give your kids the best possible start.



If you refuse to send your kids to these schools their the ones who pay, getting the church out of schools is down to people in higher places (and I don't mean god).



And it's a good test to see if their stupid, if they believe in "god" (which ever they get taught out of the 2000 and odd) when they get to 13/14 start worrying.

Do you mean to ask if they get to pick and choose their pupils ?



Yes of course they do.

They do get funding though. For example, two or three years ago, the local council free sheet announced that agreement had been reached to provide funding for an Orthodox Jewish school for girls in Stamford Hill.



It would mean, the article explained, that the pupils would spend 50% of their time on the national curriculum and 50% on their other religious studies.