# Catholic Primary School



## nolenurse2000 (Sep 24, 2010)

We had our telecon with our school coordinator for relo. My 4 year old will be in reception as soon as we arrive to the Macclesfield area. While we were chatting, she mentioned Catholic School. Both of my sons were baptized Roman Catholic.
SO- catholic school IS an option if we want to explore it.
I think she mentioned they are "state schools"- are they FREE?? ( i know, nothing is free! but ...cost the same as a State school...vs private school).

I have been on a couple websites for schools there, but I can't find anything about yearly costs?
Pos or Neg of Catholic schools there in the UK?

Any recs?

TY!!!


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

nolenurse2000 said:


> We had our telecon with our school coordinator for relo. My 4 year old will be in reception as soon as we arrive to the Macclesfield area. While we were chatting, she mentioned Catholic School. Both of my sons were baptized Roman Catholic.
> SO- catholic school IS an option if we want to explore it.
> I think she mentioned they are "state schools"- are they FREE?? ( i know, nothing is free! but ...cost the same as a State school...vs private school).
> 
> ...


Most Roman Catholic primary schools are state schools and no fees are levied on parents. You have to pay for uniform (almost all schools have it), school lunch (if you opt for it) and maybe contributions to school trips. State (maintained) RC schools are called Voluntary Aided (VA for short). 
Faith (church) schools are very popular in England, not just because they have a clear ethos (Christian teaching, worship, first communion etc), but also many of them are high-achieving, with good behaviour and well managed. For Catholic parents, there is a clear advantage in having their children educated in a school where the faith takes the centre stage and growing in faith is taken as seriously as academic progress (most RC schools are very strongly Catholic). Faith schools do get a stick from anti-religious, secular, atheist sections of society and the media, but the fact is very large number of parents, not all of them practising Christians, opt to send their children to church schools.
Read the latest Ofsted inspection reports on schools you have in mind - http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Inspection-reports/Schools


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## sebek358 (Jan 13, 2011)

I actually would suggest being a little careful to be honest; I was educated in a catholic school...great teachers and ethos, but this was a disadvantage in some instances, as the school allowed itself to be a dumping ground for all the bad children in the area; all the children who were expelled from the other school in the area were allowed in.

I think a lot of this depends upon individual schools.


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## bunty16 (Sep 26, 2009)

sebek358 said:


> I actually would suggest being a little careful to be honest; I was educated in a catholic school...great teachers and ethos, but this was a disadvantage in some instances, as the school allowed itself to be a dumping ground for all the bad children in the area; all the children who were expelled from the other school in the area were allowed in.
> 
> I think a lot of this depends upon individual schools.


The catholic schools in that area should be of a high standard, there are many affluent towns and villages surrounding macc', the standards should be high, quite shocked to read last post about them being 'dumping grounds', I have lived in many different towns and always got the impression places were hard to get.


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## clarebear (Sep 17, 2008)

If you are within the catchment area of the school and your child is baptised you will be priority. I managed to get my daughter into an excellent catholic school as she was the only baptised child on the waiting list even though I wasn't in the catchment area. I also applied really late and still got her in. The good thing is they will automatically be eligible for the high schools later which are usually better than average.


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