In case Americans (in particular) are confused.

Most Catholic schools in Britain are funded by the tax-payer and are part of our state school system. It comes from the history of English schooling where it was largely the churches (in particular the Church of England and Catholic Church) which created mass-education; this mixed with the fact that we're far more relaxed about the relationship between church and state, means that there are religious schools up and down the country paid for alongside saecular ones. The vast majority are either C.ofE. or Catholic, though there are a few Methodist ones and I believe at least one long-standing Jewish one - more recently I think that a few Muslim ones have been established.

They tend to be popular with parents, regardless of whether the parents adhere to the faith in question or not.