Religion in schools?

milliebear00001

peachyprice wrote: »

I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but refusing to let your children receive any RE in school makes you no different from those teaching religion. By imposing your own agnostic/atheist values on your children you are not alllowing them to make their own decisions.

Withdrawing your child from RE lessons is not at all the same as withdrawing them from assembly (or more specifically, the act of collective worship). It is perfectly feasible to want your child to know about other people's faiths, but not want them to be forced to enact a 'prayer'.

GobbledyGook

peachyprice wrote: »

I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but refusing to let your children receive any RE in school makes you no different from those teaching religion. By imposing your own agnostic/atheist values on your children you are not alllowing them to make their own decisions.

There is a huge difference between allowing your child to participate in RE and allowing them to be taught a particular religion as fact in assemblies.

I want my child to be taught Christianity in the same way as she is taught every other religion - "some people believe". Not as "God sent his son to earth" as a fact. That is why I sent the to a non-denominational school because I want the to learn about all religions and make their own decisions.

Britwife

Being taught RE is a good thing. They aren't pushing beliefs on children but teaching the differences and traditions and it's not just one religion, it's many. I would love to have real Christian studies at my school, but I believe in God. As mentioned, talk with the school head and get more information before making a decision.

t_obermory

As an atheist whose DD (5) regularly gets the Jesus stuff at school you have my sympathies. I emailed the department for children, schools and family about religious policy in non-denominational schools and got the following reply:

I understand you have concerns about RE at your child's school. However, we believe that effective RE can provide excellent opportunities for pupils to debate questions of faith, identity and diversity that underpin community cohesion. Every maintained school, by law, must provide RE. It is a statutory part of the basic school curriculum not a subject of the national curriculum. There there is no National Programme of study for RE as there is for other national curriculum subjects. Instead RE syllabuses are designed by locally agreed syllabus conferences (ASCs), taking advice from Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education (SACREs). These councils are statutorily created by local authorities (LAs) and are made up of people from a variety of faith groups, teachers and LA representatives. This helps to ensure each religious education syllabus reflects the views and beliefs of an area. It also ensures that all pupils’ voices are heard and the religious education curriculum is broad and balanced.

The non statutory national framework recommends that there are opportunities for all pupils to study other religious traditions such as the Ramadan, Baha’i faith, Jainism and Zoroastrianism and secular philosophies such as humanism.

That said, a locally agreed syllabus must "reflect that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian whilst taking into account the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Britain".

You may want to be aware that every parent has the right to withdraw their child from all or any part of religious education. Parents do not have to state their reasons for requesting a withdrawal. Schools must act on that request, and they must organise supervision for the child.

Schools are required to promote their pupils' spiritual well being unfortunately certainly at my daughter's school this is in a predominantly Christian way (probably due to the reverend of the local church being a governor).

We decided not to exclude her from the religious bits as school's hard enough as it is without being the odd one out. We do talk to her about religions and how people believe in different things and that we don't believe in god but in science etc. It's difficult though as it's not ideal contradicting what her teachers tell her, but I guess we're teaching her to question everything rightly or wrongly.

Sorry its not a positive reply, hope it helps!

Person_one

peachyprice wrote: »

I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but refusing to let your children receive any RE in school makes you no different from those teaching religion. By imposing your own agnostic/atheist values on your children you are not alllowing them to make their own decisions.

Well not really. I'm fairly sure children aren't born religious. People only learn to follow a religion by being taught to/informed about it. Atheism/agnosticism requires no input, you can't 'impose' it, its the default.

mintymoneysaver

milliebear00001 wrote: »

My husband and I are athiests and we have a daughter at a Church school in Year 1. I don't have much of an issue with her learning about faith, but she knows we don't believe in a God. 6 year olds believe all sorts of stuff. Point out that although that man believes God made us, not everyone does, and it will be up to him to decide what he believes. My daughter seems happy with this, and so am I.

Whilst I appreciate that you have the right to send your daughter to any school that you choose, I am not sure why an atheist would choose to send a child to a church school. I am a Christian who really wanted church school places for my children, and would have been really annoyed if they had been taken by somebody who admitted they did not believe. And in answer to the OP we are still officially classed as a Christian country and as such all children are expected to take part in a daily act of worship. ( Having said that, you might get a quick rendition of the Lord's prayer once a week in the school I teach in!):)

Janepig

I have no particular religious beliefs, and the school DD/DS go to isn't a faith school, but they do seem to have more of an emphasis on christianity than other schools I know of. But I haven't got much of a problem with that, and (call me old fashioned ) but I would rather the christmas concert be nativity story based than the sort of PC christmas concerts I used to do in school when I was a child which had nothing of Christmas about them at all.

DD and all the other older children her age and up in the school were given children's bibles just before Easter (welsh ones, so I can't read them ) - the type of picture book bibles iykwim. I was a bit surprised, mainly that each child had been given such an expensive looking book, but I remember my brother had a similar book as a child, (in English, so I could read that!!) and I loved all the stories, and as far as I'm concerned that's all it is, a work of fiction, and on that basis I haven't got much of a problem with it.

Just as long as my two don't get brainwashed into the type of happy clappy bigotted nonsense that FIL has got himself into then I'm fine.

Jxx

milliebear00001

mintymoneysaver wrote: »

Whilst I appreciate that you have the right to send your daughter to any school that you choose, I am not sure why an atheist would choose to send a child to a church school. I am a Christian who really wanted church school places for my children, and would have been really annoyed if they had been taken by somebody who admitted they did not believe. And in answer to the OP we are still officially classed as a Christian country and as such all children are expected to take part in a daily act of worship. ( Having said that, you might get a quick rendition of the Lord's prayer once a week in the school I teach in!):)

My daughter attends her catchment area school, which happens to be a Church school. For us, supporting, and being part of, our community, is much more important than considerations of faith. In any case, although ostensibly CofE, our school (like many 'Church' schools) has barely any religion, outside assembly and RE, at all.

I find it quite bizarre that you feel children should be required to take part in an act of worship simply because the UK is 'officially' a Christian country...does that mean Muslims should be required to take part also? If not, why other children?

milliebear00001

mintymoneysaver wrote: »

Whilst I appreciate that you have the right to send your daughter to any school that you choose...

Last time I looked, I didn't havethe right to send my kids to any school. They would not (for example) be admitted to a Catholic school round the corner from me. They would also not get into the oversubscribed non-denominational school down the road. I have the 'right to request' any school (as do you) - not the same thing at all.

JodyBPM

I have so much sympathy for the OP. We too are atheists, yet have to suffer our children being brainwashed into religion by the (non- religious) school they go to. It's contrary to our beliefs, and makes us VERY uncomfortable, but as a PP mentioned, its not up to us to tell our children what to/not to believe, its up to them to make their own minds up, and as such we don't want to withdraw them from all the religious aspects of school. All we can do is tell them how WE believe things work, and that other people believe other things, and its up to them to make their own minds up.

The thing that gets me most, though, is that with respect to all other religions, information is given in a balanced manner, eg some people believe x, y & z, and we understand and respect their views, yet Christianity is taught as a FACT, eg god makes the seeds grow into plants. Surely it should be, similarly to other religions, some people believe that god makes the plants grow, and we understand and respect their views, as per the teaching of any other religion? Also, atheism isn't taught, as apparently its a belief, not a religion. Not a balanced approach to teaching IMO.