When it comes to getting your child into a good school, what lengths would you go to? Would you move towns? Sign away your savings? How about feigning a lifetime of religiosity and sacrificing your Sunday mornings to the church?
With VAT now slapped onto already sky-high private school fees, parents are being priced out, forcing them to change course. For many, this means setting their sights on the lofty heights of a school with an exceptional Ofsted report, with some hitting a snag when they realise their best option comes with a caveat of the ecclesiastical kind: offering preference to those with the same religious leanings.
This stipulation, however, is a minor detail for some — and it’s not uncommon for parents to opt for a few years of counterfeit Christianity to secure school admission.
While faith schools are technically free, the cost of entry for those looking to edge their way into one often comes to about two church attendances a month for two years, a baptism (or christening), plus potential ad hoc church duties. Fibbing, unfortunately, doesn’t cut the mustard, and admission requirements include proof of baptisms and a record of church attendance signed by a priest.
It’s a charade that requires time and dedication, but, for some parents in certain areas, pretending to be Christian and spending two years at church feels like a necessary sacrifice. In London 95.4 per cent of faith schools can boast either “good” or “outstanding” status, making them a consistently attractive choice for parents, especially when faced with a lack of alternatives.
Ben, 34, who lives in Wandsworth, describes his area as “Nappy Valley”. He says there are two outstanding schools in the area, but they have tiny catchment areas of about 400m. “Then there’s a C of E school or a big catch-all school that people are desperate to avoid.” And so, in times of adversity, when faced with a catchment area the size of a thumb or a school no one wants to go to, many of his neighbours turn to the church.
For those of regular churchgoing tendencies, there’s a predictable cycle of new parents who are replenished every few years. According to Phoebe, 36, who lives in Teddington: “The vast majority of people attending our school have faked their way into it, and the vicar is very aware of what they’re doing.” It’s not uncommon for priests to find themselves presented with four-year-olds whose parents seemingly “forgot” to baptise them 36 months prior.
“You have to go to church for two years before applying for school,” Phoebe says, and such is the churn once the application deadline has passed that the congregation’s devoted core amounts to a fraction of the churchgoers.
Although it would appear the clergy are, at least, in on the joke. The revolving door of parents at Phoebe’s church has prompted comments from her vicar as he looks out on his dwindling congregation, declaring: “Ah, I can see it’s the annual exodus of soon-to-be reception parents.”
Another parent was left mortified when they belatedly attended church in the hope of getting into a faith school, only for their son to be greeted by the priest with a knowing declaration, “And you must be four.”
For schools, however, the “Christian-ness” of would-be students is more administrative than anything else. According to Lucy, 38, a teacher at a Catholic school in north London, eyebrows are rarely raised if a child was seemingly baptised minutes before applying for the school: “We don’t care if they were only just baptised — we have to strictly follow our admissions policy. As long as there’s evidence of their baptism at the time of submission it doesn’t matter when it happened.”
And while the traditional route to faith school acceptance is church attendance, baptisms and volunteer work, Lucy has also seen parents attempt other ways to sneak in. “When I sat on the admissions committee a parent handwrote a ten-page letter about how she came from a big Irish family and supports the church — she didn’t go to church but felt like this was proof enough,” she says. In this instance, verbose anecdotal evidence regarding vague Catholic leanings helped and the child was admitted, though lofty claims of Irish lineage usually don’t fulfil admissions requirements.
Faking religion to get into a better school is hardly a new concept. Ben, who identifies as Christian (but he’d attend church less if it weren’t for his son’s school requirements), describes the “relief” his mother felt when she didn’t have to pretend to be Protestant any more. “She had to do the readings at church, and the moment my brother and I got into the school she immediately packed it in,” he says.
There is, at least, some good news for agnostic parents with schooling on the horizon — declining birth rates have made some faith schools less picky. Lucy’s daughter was admitted to her school via their nursery without any religious requirements, and another mother in north London says she was spared church attendance owing to the shrinking pool of reception-aged children. So perhaps there’s hope for the heathens out there manically googling priests to baptise their four-year-old — you might just get away with honesty these days.
