School choice

Classical or Faith-based?

Classical and Faith-based differ most on technology at school, money and distance and who else is there. They agree, more than most people expect, on what the family can put in, mixed ages and measuring it. Neither is the correct one. What follows is what each asks of a parent, and where the difference actually shows up on a Tuesday.

Classical

A specified body of knowledge, taught in a deliberate order, on the argument that you cannot think critically about something you do not know. The trivium stages it: facts and memorisation while memory is easy, then logic, then rhetoric. Often Latin, usually history in chronological sequence, and always explicit instruction from the front.

What it asks of you

  • Comfort with memorisation and recitation, which are unfashionable and central here
  • Accepting a canon, and that choosing one is a value judgement however old it is
  • Homework, and a household that supports it
  • Checking which tradition a given school belongs to — the name covers a wide political range

Faith-based

Education inside an explicit religious frame, where the worldview is not confined to a lesson but runs through the day, the year and the community. For families who hold a faith this resolves something no other option does: the school is not neutral about what matters, and is not neutral in the same direction as the household. The cohort is usually more homogeneous, which is both the attraction and the cost.

What it asks of you

  • Accepting a narrower range of families than your area actually contains
  • Clarity about what happens if your own beliefs shift, or your child's do
  • Involvement in a community, which is usually part of the arrangement rather than optional
Side by side

Where they differ

Classical is the filled marker, Faith-based the hollow one. Widest difference first.

E3Technology at school
kept out until latebuilt in from the start

Classical sits firmly toward kept out until late; Faith-based sits between the two.

C2Money and distancewhat your life allows
free and local, or it is not an optionwe can pay, and we can travel

Classical sits a little toward we can pay, and we can travel; Faith-based sits toward free and local, or it is not an option.

V2Who else is there
a broad, mixed intake matters mosta community that shares our values matters most

Classical sits a little toward a community that shares our values matters most; Faith-based sits firmly toward a community that shares our values matters most.

L2When formal academics start
when the child is ready, and late is fineearly, and ambitiously

Classical sits toward early, and ambitiously; Faith-based sits a little toward early, and ambitiously.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

  • What the family can put in. Both sit a little toward being in it, daily.
  • Mixed ages. Both sit toward classes of the same age.
  • Measuring it. Both sit toward graded and tested regularly.

Neither of these is the correct one

Which fits depends on what you value and on what your week actually allows — and the second of those is the half nobody writes about. The questionnaire scores both.

See which one you are already doing