Arrgh. Good luck whatever happens. OK, I didn't realise quite how common the problems were (I've only come across fluffier religious schools who couln't care less), that is utter pants. Though... (sorry) even if religious schools were banned tomorrow, there would be similar, not as severe, problems cropping up with selective schools I suspect. Maybe not getting on the bus, but say the local good school is a sports academy, and you have a kid who is borderline dyspraxic and couldn't care less about team sports, like muggins here. And then there's the whole Grammar school issue...
I dunno, I just feel that we're more than capable of messing things up with or without religion, and worrying about it distracts us from real issues of discrimiation, prejudice, greed, stupidity etc that will still happen whether it's there or not.
This is true. I'd be much happier, though, getting her through academic hoops than religious hoops, partly because I think we both have that particular aptitude but partly because I think academic capabilities are inherently Good and should be nurtured, whereas I think religious observance is worse than useless and I wouldn't want to expose her to it anyway. Sports Academies are an interesting thought-experiment, since that's an aptitude I don't have, in spades, and I'm not interested but I'm not desperately anti either, and it doubtless would correlate with academic results. But I don't imagine she's going to be naturally sporty, and you don't want to go somewhere where you're not reasonably good at what they value. And even if she is I'd rather she spent the time on academics than kicking balls around [fx: Oxbridge snob].
FFS. Why can't they make schools which give good sound general education and allow individual kids to specialise? All this beacon school crap is exactly not the direction they ought to be going in.
And besides, if your school decides to specialise, and decides it wants to specialise in IT or languages, it gets told it can't because other schools have specialised in those already, and it has to specialise in Sport, even if its interests and enthusiastic teachers are in languages and IT. So it has to fake a specialisation in something it isn't interested in or good at, to get the extra kudos and funding, and what's the point of sports academies anyway?
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 07:24 am (UTC)I dunno, I just feel that we're more than capable of messing things up with or without religion, and worrying about it distracts us from real issues of discrimiation, prejudice, greed, stupidity etc that will still happen whether it's there or not.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 08:45 am (UTC)FFS. Why can't they make schools which give good sound general education and allow individual kids to specialise? All this beacon school crap is exactly not the direction they ought to be going in.
And besides, if your school decides to specialise, and decides it wants to specialise in IT or languages, it gets told it can't because other schools have specialised in those already, and it has to specialise in Sport, even if its interests and enthusiastic teachers are in languages and IT. So it has to fake a specialisation in something it isn't interested in or good at, to get the extra kudos and funding, and what's the point of sports academies anyway?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 09:25 am (UTC)