Just to correct the url for the program that has now
changed to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/rams/learningcurve_20040629.ram
Thanks for the pointer. The presentation by the school
is of an idilic atmosphere where children are always
happy and excel. It does seem to be that some of these
faith schools have pupils doing better than the norm.
We have friends who's children have done well their
son getting a double first at Cambridge in
engineering. They were home educated to GCSE while
their parents were missionaries. So there is a
tendency to see their faith as a strong factor.
However a school like the Bethany school is also
selecting children who have involved parents. Children
with parents who are involved in their education do
much better than average anyway and if they are in a
supportive school environment they do even better.
This is true of secular schools. OFSTEAD checks on the
quality of the teaching but depending on specialities
of the inspectors they do not check the content. So as
long as the lesson has a structure and the children
sit still the school will get a good report, no matter
that the content is nonsense except in the restricted
core areas and it is pretty hit and miss even then as
the inspection covers only a 2-3 week period and a
sample of lessons. All schools present their best
behaviour for that period of time. Other friends of
ours had to withdraw their son from a South London
christian school because of bullying!
In case you wonder at teh number and depth of
christian contacts I have over the last few years
moved from fundamentalist christian to atheist. 18
months ago I resigned from my church membership
explianing that I was now an atheist. Over the last 3
years I have had several hospital appointments and
responded from christian to none when asked religion.
This last time I said atheist and got a wry, knowing
sort of smile from the receptionist. This was at Kings
College Hospital which is well into the catchment area
of Metropolitan Tabernacle. Met Tab is a very
fundamentalist church. Authorised version of the Bible
is the only "inspired" translation. Young Earth
Creationist and the bookshop only sells stuff
carefully selected by the pastor. So I reckon the
response you get is more to do with the belief of the
note taker.

--- or ko <orko3001@...> wrote:
---------------------------------
NATIONAL CURRICULUM AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS

What do you have to teach if you are a private school?
The National
Curriculum only applies for state schools, and private
schools are much
freer to decide their own curriculum, enabling them to
teach a curriculum
defined by strong religious or philosophical beliefs:
Steiner or Montessori,
Christian or Islamic.

Lesley Hilton visits the Bethany School in
Netherthorpe near Sheffield which
teaches a Bible based, creationist curriculum to
students until GCSE level.

How do they structure their curriculum? To what
extent do they follow the
National Curriculum at all? Is what they teach a
balanced education?

Liten from about 8 mins in. Here is the link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/rams/learningcurve_current.ram

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