| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:DOW - Gunnersbury School Admission Policy | |
| Posted by: | Bernadette Paul | |
| Date/Time: | 04/11/05 11:40:00 |
| I'm not sure I can add anything particularly informative to this thread but I am slightly puzzled about the references to interviews for entry into Gunnersbury boys school as though this is something unheard of. As far as I know this has always been the case. My son attended Gunnersbury more than 20 years ago and I had to attend an interview with him at that time. He was accepted into the school even though he was far from academically gifted in any way whatsoever. I'm afraid he will probably go down as one of their failures and he has never forgiven me for sending him there as they only played rugby and not football. My cousin attended Gunnersbury in the late 40s early 50s and at that time it was a fee paying school run by the Christian Brothers, a particularly sadistic order of monks. In any event the school was built on church land and even when my son started there the main school was still in Gunnersbury Avenue, since then it has of course grown and is mainly now in Windmill Road. From my experience of having a child attend Gunnersbury I would suggest that over the years it has evolved and grown largely as a result of fund raising and the fact that all parents made an annual contribution to the school, mainly a nominal contribution of about £10 or so but more wealthy parents I am sure donated larger amounts. I lived in Chiswick as a child but there was no Catholic school in Chiswick at that time and so I attended St. John's school in Brentford. This was a very small and run down Vicorian building opposite the football ground on the corner of Clifden Road. The children had to go to Brentford Seniors (as it then was) for school dinners as St John's had no facilities. The school was staffed mainly by the nuns from the Convent in the Butts and it was many years before they raised the money to rebuild St. John's in its present position next to the Church in Boston Park Road. Although I don't know for sure I would suggest that this was probably church land in the first place. I then attended Gumley House in the days when it was a grammar school and I also had to attend an interview with the headmistress who was at that time, Mother Josephine of the Faithful Companions of Jesus order of nuns who owned and occupied the convent which housed the school. Since my time at Gumley the old part of the school has been sold off and is now a block of flats, this presumably raised money for the new buildings at the school. I believe they have also sold off some of their playing field area which would also have raised money and parents will contribute an annual amount towards the upkeep of the school. Traditionally Catholic schools have usually been oversubscribed and subsidised by parishioners and parents whatever they may have received from the state. I personally do not understand why anyone would want to send their children to a Catholic school if they were not of that faith. The whole point of a denominational school is to indoctrinate the children into that faith, whatever that faith may be. If the "best" school in the area was a muslim school how many non-muslims would want their children to attend it? My children had a Catholic education because that is what I wanted for them. I would not have been happy if my children had been denied places in those schools because someone of another religious persuasion or no religion at all had taken their place. Times may well have changed since my days at Gumley but the pupils at that time frequently had to attend Mass, Benediction and prayers before each and every lesson. Would a non-catholic be prepared for their children to attend all these religious services? I think not therefore I cannot see how it is discriminatory for schools of a particular religious denomination to accept pupils first and foremost from that faith. |