Atheist sending kids to a church school?

onlyroz

In our area anybody can apply to the church schools but you get higher priority if you are a regular church goer.

Personally I would avoid the church schools unless the other schools in the area were particularly bad.

Also, bear in mind that in this country there is no such thing as a secular education. My son comes home from his regular ordinary primary school telling me that "I'm a Christian", because somebody came into the school and told him that he should be. My response to him is to tell him about my devout belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and to try to get him to justify why his God is more believable than mine.

podperson

I went to a Catholic secondary school, even though am not Catholic and while my parents classed us as CofE on the application we never went to church. I don't know if this is still the case but at the time faith schools actually had to take a small percentage of pupils outside their own faith (I guess in the interests of diversity). We visited all the schools in the area and jointly agreed that this one seemed to have the best facilities, nice atmosphere and their results were really good. The faith part was a secondary issue for us.

Apart from prayers and assemblies (and mass once a fortnight) the 'regular' lessons weren't really any different. I know it did make me question religion more for it to be such a large part of my daily school life - and I did have a short period where I dragged my dad along with me to church lol! - but as I got older I made my own choices and am now not religious at all. Just something to bear in mind that your son may have questions for you about your own religious choices or start to make his own that you may not particularly agree with.

loveasale

Both my sons go to church schools, and have from reception, now 14 & 16 they are becoming lovely young men, no, not because of the school but the home life.
However a school along the road has iPad given to all pupils and is state of the art, my sons school is old and not n iPad in sight but I know all their mates, I can approach the school teachers , and to me a better school for my 2.
I would never be a hypocrite !

alinwales

The missus called as she was comiong away. It was a very brief visit. The main things to come out of it is that they do have very close ties to the church (a clergyman was apparently in the foyer and missus was asked if she knew him!).
Also, last year they turned away 4 children, so in time oversubscribing will get presumably worse (though they think admissions will drop for a time because of the new flashy ipad school). And because of the oversubscription, the governors are in discussion now as to tightening up the admission policy - including introducing the referral letter! So matters may be taken out of our hands after all that!
It's not a big big deal to us, it was only in the last few weeks that we have heard a lot of good things about the school, and particularly the feeder nursery (it was looking at nurseries for the age3-4 year time that got us looking into the schools).
Next up will be taking a closer look into the school we had previously assumed would be the one. A bit closer, but with issues in the past that are being overcome (in their 2005 report was noted 8 heads in the time from the previous report!!).

newcook

Would it be like the church of England schools rather than a catholic school? If so, I don’t think religion will be with every subject.

I went to a CofE school (Im not religious) and thoroughly enjoyed it! The assembly’s were normal/non religious apart from once every so often the local vicar would come and do one – but he made it fun! He would tell a story from the bible but use a flip chart and shade in boxes as he went along which would eventually spell out a word or a phrase.

all the lessons were religion free (apart from RE - but that taught us about all religions and rituals)

We used to go to church once a year for a Christmas carol concert – but the parents could opt you out of this if they wanted (same as vicars assembly).

Thinking about it, there was a girl who’s parents were Jehovah witnesses and she used to get rather jealous of us all having ‘special’ assembly’s and singing carols in the church as she wasn’t allowed to join in

Frith

My sons went to a Church of England primary school. We are atheists but all the village schools locally are C of E. I would have had over a 12 mile drive to find a non-religious school.

There was hymn singing in assembly and the occasional prayer. Apart from that, once a week the vicar would take an assembly but they always liked what he had to say! In yr 6, the vicar did and Q and A session with my older son's class and he found it fascinating and they asked the vicar if he believed in hell (he doesn't!) and all sorts of other questions.

Other religions were taught as well and for 2 years my son had a teacher who was a Muslim. I never felt that the Christianity part of school was a big issue.

indebtinsussex

If its the best school for your childs needs then go for it.

Just dont do what a couple of militant atheists done at my ds's school which was start moaning to everyone because their child was given a new testament bible!

Gigglepig

indebtinsussex wrote: »

Just dont do what a couple of militant atheists done at my ds's school which was start moaning to everyone because their child was given a new testament bible!

I bet plenty of parents would have complained if their kids were handed religious texts, what about a scientology text or a qur'an?

All kids should be able to access good education, irrespective of their parents' religion. Complaining about the state of affairs where education is mixed with religious opinion is hardly militant.

Gloomendoom

Gigglepig wrote: »

I bet plenty of parents would have complained if their kids were handed religious texts, what about a scientology text or a qur'an?

All kids should be able to access good education, irrespective of their parents' religion. Complaining about the state of affairs where education is mixed with religious opinion is hardly militant.

How does being given a Bible, qur'an or scientology text stop them getting a good education? I would have thought the opposite was true.

IMHO All children should be able to access good education, irrespective of their parents' beliefs, or lack of them.

indebtinsussex

Gigglepig wrote: »

I bet plenty of parents would have complained if their kids were handed religious texts, what about a scientology text or a qur'an?

All kids should be able to access good education, irrespective of their parents' religion. Complaining about the state of affairs where education is mixed with religious opinion is hardly militant.

if they choose to send their children to a religious school they need to accept that there is going to be religion involved, and not moan because its against their beliefs. (the bible was a gift from the local church during the queens jubilee)

There is also a very good non religious school in the same catchment area which they could have sent their child to, but wasnt convenient to the mum for her gym sessions.