Church of England/Catholic Schools

[Garryb]

Hi,

My partner and i have just had our first child and are currently considering his christening and considering i'm catholic and she is church of England you can understand we have a dilemma!

What i would like to know is, do Church of England schools encourage their pupils to attend church on a regular basis in the same way as the catholic schools do?

Any help would be great, thanks

[noxlumos]

I'm Roman Catholic and my wife is Jewish so we chose to inform our kids about both religions but not actually introduce it to them as fully paid up members. It's a bit more complex for us as clearly my wife's faith doesn't recognise christ as the son of God, but our kids are very cool about the whole thing and will doubtless make up their own minds when they grow up,so if I were you I'd just not christen him at all and wait until he can make his own informed choice.

[muppeteer]

i was never raised with any religion & was accepted in a catholic convent school (they had to take a percentage of non catholics). i was treated the same as the others & was accepted 100%.
choose the schools without religion in mind & teach your child yourself about catholicism, christianity, budhism, hinduism, sikhism, muslim & all the other ism's you can find & teach them to be open minded & accepting of others.
if they know the difference between right & wrong & have guidence (no matter which religion it comes from) you wont go far wrong.

[petes_dragon]

hi,

my husband and I are both Cof E (non-practicing) and my son hasn't been christened, but he is going to go to a Catholic School in September as it was the best in our area.

All church schools MUST take a percentage of non- denominational pupils. Bu generally speaking the schools don't 'force' chindren to attend church but there is more of a focus on 'morality' etc

A xXx

[RATTER15]

You don't need to blight your child with any religion, you will do him no favours, most christenings are carried out because its the done thing!! he doesn't need to be christened, my kids weren't and they survived without all the hangups of any religion.

[harriman]

My husband is catholic and I was raised by non religious parents but went to a CofE school.
Our children go to catholic school and i find that it is a very warm, loving school that concentrate on the importance of family values. It also has the best ofsted report of any school in our area. Of course, this may be the case in whatever school you choose whatever the denomination.
My parents felt that i should choose for myself when i am older BUT what i find now is that as I haven't been shown any particular religion i have nothing to choose for/against.
My children are being raised as catholics but if they choose to not go with it then that is fine by BOTH of us.
I think you really need to visit both types of schools and get a feel for the whole ethos of the school and see what suits your family.
Good luck!

[annavc]

I don't have children but I can speak from my own experience. I went to a C of E boarding school at the age of 11. I believed in God then (in the unthinking way a child does) but after 5 years at that school I no longer did and I still don't. It completely changed my view of it - we were forced to attend religious assemblies every morning, attend chapel every thursday morning and attend church on sundays - there was no choice in it you had to go whether you wanted to or not. I'd always seen church as a voluntary thing and being forced to go made me hate it. The final straw came at the age of 14 when the vicar gave a sermon about the evil of divorce and that people who did not respect the institution of marriage would not enter heaven. My parents were going through a divorce at the time and it made me hate church, religion and everything about it. My views haven't changed.

I guess what I'm trying to say is if you do send your child to a religious school, think carefully about it - find out what their policies are and be aware that it could have the opposite effect from the one you hope for. I realise not all religious schools are like the one I attended but they are around so be careful.

Good luck - I'm sure you'll make the right choice for your child. :-)