The joy of secondary school selection

Well I was goin' to sit back and listen to the Sunday sermon tonight - but its not available yet!  So I thought I'd rant on about the joy of going to a Church that doesn't easily get our son into the school of our choice.

About me, in the past 27 years I have been involved in many different Christian activities.  I have been involved with the Church of England (CofE) and worked along side many CofE members - Prison Fellowship, HTB Caring for Ex-offenders, The Boys' Brigade for the past 7 years ... the list goes on - in fact :

Prison Fellowship
Evangelical Alliance
Lawyers Christian Fellowship
Counties
Open Air Campaigners
Healing on the Streets
Caring For Ex-offenders
Alpha Course
Youth for Christ
Boys' Brigade
Christian Resources Exhibition
CARE
More Than Gold
Our Fathers House (Forteleza)
Greenwich SACRE
Voice of the martyrs
Christian Concern
Greenwich Church
Greenwich Churches Olympic Forum

These are the main groups I have either been involved with or prayer support on a regular basis.  I would stand along side these organisations.  When I was a member of a CofE church I helped run a prayer meeting at 6:30AM and their youth club - and got married in their church!

So here is the issue, our oldest boy currently goes to an oversubscribed CofE secondary school that we want our youngest boy to go to.  He appears in the Bexley SACRE multi-faith DVD where he talks about his faith and what it means to him to be a Christian - organised by the school.  On the application form, Criteria 1 is that we frequent a CofE church - which we dont - but I help run the BB which is part of the youth ministry associated with the CofE church.  Criteria 2 is that our church is part of Churches Together in England - New Frontiers does not appear on the printed list of recognised members of Churches Together in England but New Community Church is part of Churches Together in Sidcup which appears to come under the umbrella of Churches Together in England.  So that is a mystery!  Criteria 3 is a practising member of a non-Christian faith.  Criteria 4 is sibling.

There lies a dilemma - worshipping at New Community Church (Sidcup) which is a New Frontiers church may not be good enough to get our second son into the secondary school of our choice.  New Frontiers is larger then most of the churches listed in Churches Together in England on the school admission application form, and they work along side many CofE churches across the country on a variety of projects.


So our youngest boy would only get into the school on criteria 4 as a sibling - and they never reach criteria 4 in past selections!  So my church is simply not good enough - which puts them into criteria 5 - worshippers at a church not members of Churches Together in England.  it does bug me!!

I'll let you know if he doesn't get in ;(