I don't want my kids to be segregated at school, whether for academic or religious reasons – why do other people?

When I first moved, there was no space available in our local school, so I cheerily applied for my then five-year-old son to go to the other, even nearer school. I was told he had to be Catholic. ‘Can you send me the forms for that?’ I asked. Apparently not

Private, state, religious, grammar? There are too many choices for our kids’ schooling – it should be egalitarian (Getty)

I’m writing this column, as I always do, in my local coffee shop and I’m shamelessly eavesdropping on the conversation of two mums from my son’s Year Five group. There was a time when eavesdropping would reward me with stories of affairs, shoplifting and lanced boils, but these days, in this coffee shop by the school, the intense, hushed chatter is, of course, about schools.

Parents who are past this stage – and those who don’t have children – find talk of combing through education options as interesting as learning about a charcoal soup recipe. But as my good friend Whitney once said, I believe the children are our future – teach them well and let them lead the way.

I used to live in a very fancy-pants part of London. Most of my fellow parents put their kids in the local, “outstanding” primary school (“Because why pay for colouring in?” honked one neighbourhood mum), then paid for private school or moved away to Kent or Surrey in time for secondary school.

I moved to a more egalitarian manor, where there are more middle class parents who, for both financial and political reasons, want to keep our children in state schools.

When I first moved, there was no space available in our local school, so I cheerily applied for my then five-year-old son to go to the other, even nearer school. I was told he had to be Catholic.

“Can you send me the forms for that?” I asked the helpful lady from the council.

“I’m sorry, the forms for what?” she replied.

“Catholicism. I’ll fill in the Catholic forms and you can let my child in. You said yourself there is space.”

I felt a bit rotten about this nice lady patiently explaining the concept of faith to me but also in awe of the fact she took my comment utterly seriously. It made me think what other numpties these poor civil servants have to endure that a request for a Catholic form was dealt with with such a straight face.

A space finally became available at the local non-denominational school where my boy was able to play and learn alongside kids from Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic and Satan-worshipping backgrounds.

Today it was announced that thanks to campaigning led by Humanists UK (of which I am president, or, as I prefer to be called, the High Priestess of Secularism), plans to scrap the 50 per cent cap forcing religious schools to take half their intake from children whose background are not the same religion of the school have been shelved.

This is a relief. Few things are more baffling than demanding the segregation of children and expecting others to pay for it.

Ten per cent of our state schools are Catholic. Ten whole per cent! That’s a lot of school places and I don’t know on what planet anyone could think it was in any way helpful to society when we educate Catholic children in isolation. Now more than ever we need our children to tumble through school with mates from all religions and no religions to feel they are part of a tolerant community.

Faith schools, by their very existence, create segregation. The lift on the cap was madness thankfully averted.

Faith schools have to follow the national curriculum but can teach what they want in religious studies. My own little godless girl came home singing, “It’s Diwali, festival of light, see the Divas twinkling in the night!” and that’s OK. It doesn’t undo any of the values I teach her; it just gives her more of an insight in her mate Anoushka’s world. Unless fear and mistrust are your thing, then don’t fight to shut children out of one another’s lives at the place they spend the biggest chunk of their waking hours.

The fight is not over yet as, well, faith school still exist, but now, having lost the argument for 100 per cent selection in faith schools, the government is making more funding available for opening new 100 per cent selective voluntary-aided faith schools. This is coming out of the free schools pot, and it’s sneaky. Very sneaky indeed.

Of course, the proposals can be opposed, so it leaves those of us who do think this is a bad idea to play whack-a-mole as each application to take money which should be for everyone is made.

The government also announced a £50m cash boost today to expand grammar schools. That’s £300,000 per school. Middle class families, for the most part, have the means to tutor their children to get into grammar schools. Yes, there will be some academically brighter working class children who will also be helped along to get a place, but overwhelmingly it’ll be the middle class parents who know how to walk the walk, talk the talk and navigate this complicated system, getting their kids in easily.

This cash boost for solely selective schools is mightily unfair. It’s an acceptance that the less academically gifted children or those with parents who don’t have the resources or, frankly, the confidence to push forwards and upwards will be left in underfunded state schools with teachers doing their best for huge classes of children with wildly differing needs.

Honestly! You’d think this government was deliberately preventing class mobility and academic excellence among children from poorer backgrounds.