Atheist sending kids to a church school?

lobbyludd

hayleyc wrote: »

The only thing that makes me a bit uncomfortable is knowing how to answer my son's questions and comments. For example he said something the other day about Jesus dying on the cross, and then said about god making the world. I think I said it was a story, then he said his teacher thinks it's real.. wasn't really sure what to say to that because I don't want to undermine the teachers.

I said: yes that's what some people believe - other people believe other things, for example - I believe.......... we talked about creation stories around the world and how some people believe that only their beliefs are true and noone elses are, and whether anyone can know for sure - it was a very interesting discussion!

christmas is an especially good discussion - I believe that christmas comes from a mixture of northern hemisphere dying sun festivals, that early christians found similarities to their own "dying sun-god" story and found it expedient to take over the existing festivals (christmas wasn't celebrated on the same day everywhere.....).

At one point ds called himself a polytheist because he wanted to belive in a christian god and Zeus et al, plus an old pagan god that led into fatehr christmas.

I find it all adds to the richness of life, rather than being worrying.

olgadapolga

Based purely on my experience of a non-believer parent sending their child to a church school - don't do it.

The church school we sent our child to had the best Ofsted report in the area but it was a truly awful experience for our child and us.

We visited the school prior to applying, twice, and on the surface, it seemed absolutely fine. The school had been recommended to us by other parents.

I am all for discipline but the school were totally over the top with it, the children had to pray five or six times a day and religion took priority over everything, including education.

Methods of "punishment" were also extremely old-fashioned and inappropriate.

Halfway through the spring term of our child's reception year, we removed her as it was proving to be a corrosive environment that reduced our child from a happy one to a miserable, reticent one.

And they were always sending letters home asking for money, not to fund the children's education but to provide for church funds, so if you are not happy to contribute to the church, rather than educational ones, just don't go there.

I would sincerely hope that this sort of behaviour from this school was limited to just this school but actually, from speaking to friends and family, I don't think that it is.

osian

Both my husband and I are atheist. Our daughter has just started at a CofW school. We haven't had to pretend that we are religious, it was just one of the nearest schools to us and she got in as she is in the catchment area.

Looking at the school, it doesn't seem to be too religious. The other parents don't seem to be very Christian either, in fact there are a couple of children from other faiths in her class. Thinking back to my school days (non church schools) we had to attend a religious assembly every morning and pray before eating food and leaving school so I am guessing it is not much different to that. It is funded partly by the church and has links to the parish church (where they do the Christmas concerts and festivals etc), but it doesn't seem that different to the average school.

She is coming home and talking about praying, Jesus and God slightly but I'm sure that religion plays a big part in normal state schools anyway. It certainly was when I was a child and not just in R.E.

I would choose the school that suits you and your child best. If that is the CofW school then that is fine.

steve-L

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I've always tried to say "Christians believe...", "scientists believe...", etc. Now our eldest is 8 I'm happier to have discussions about what I believe (which, as it happens, matches what the "scientists" believe).

I think that helps me anyway......

My son is only just 3 but will be going to school reception at 4 due to being born at the very end of August. This worries me in some ways, academically I don't have any problem (he is well ahead of the kids his age) but emotionally he is the same as other kids his age.

I worry about his emotional age being lower than his intellectual one in terms of indoctrination by religion. (He is able to learn and talk about topics he isn't emotionally developed enough to understand emotionally).

I think for me the difference is 'scientists believe because ..... and this might change as we find out new things about our exciting universe' as opposed to Christians (or any religion) believe because a book tells them to.

Funnily enough when I was at school my father was the atheist and my mother slightly agnostic.... My father is unfortunately not capable of giving advice anymore .... and my mother has become increasingly agnostic.....

I'm really unsure how to answer the questions, especially the 'non believers will burn in hell' type but also how the story about Jesus being the son of God is the teachers opinion/belief as opposed to 'putting your hand in a fire will burn you'.

How do I explain the teacher has opinions/beliefs that are just the teachers opinion/belief vs when the teacher says 'putting your hand in a fire' isn't opinion but fact?

JimmyTheWig

steve-L wrote: »

How do I explain the teacher has opinions/beliefs that are just the teachers opinion/belief vs when the teacher says 'putting your hand in a fire' isn't opinion but fact?

I find "Yeah, I heard that story once" is enough to satisfy myself that I've done my bit to re-enforce that it's a story.
Or "That would be nice if that happened", or "Wow, I wonder how he did that", or "That would be an impressive trick".

Person_one

Mojisola wrote: »

In the same way that your parents let you find your own way, you have to do the same with your child and, if he decides to follow a religion, accept his choices.

For that to make sense you'd have to be sending them to a different religious school every day of the week to be sure they knew all the options!

I've been in a few Christian primary schools and found it very disconcerting. What bothered me was the lack of any questioning of the religion, God was talked about as though he was absolutely definitely real and that was that.

The Catholic schools had little altars with crucifixes and candles in every classroom, the CofE ones had wall displays about how great God is and one had a huge banner up in the dining room reminding the children to thank God for their dinners, in some schools the teachers led a prayer several times a day.

I would never do it, I think its unfair to the children, they deserve to only be taught things that are true when at school.

Mojisola

Person_one wrote: »

I would never do it, I think its unfair to the children, they deserve to only be taught things that are true when at school.

But if the only other choice in your area is a poorly performing school, it may be better to send them to the church school, knowing that you can counter the religious teaching that the school will push.

In the same way that we should be teaching our children at home to "read" adverts and understand peer pressure, we can provide examples of other people's religious beliefs and show that they are just "beliefs".

However, none of that affects the fact that our children may choose to become members of a religion. We wouldn't disown our children or constantly argue with them if that was the case.

loulou123

I went to a catholic high school, as a non catholic, I know when I went there, they were happy to take non Catholics, but you had to agree that your child would join in with all the religious aspects the same as the other kids.

We went to chapel every morning for assembly and prayers, at Easter and Xmas these could easily go on for a hour. There was crufixs everywhere and you regulary saw nuns walking around.

It was a good school overall though and we had very little problems with bullying etc.

The one downside was when we got to the sex education age...(which obviously won't matter at primary school, but thought I'd mention it anyway) it was basically don't do it until your married, then do it to make a baby! Nothing about safety etc, which proberly explains why we had several teenage pregnancies in the final year!

Janepig

Personally I wouldn't send my children to a "faith" school, and absolutely not a catholic school, but mine don't go to the closest primary school to us anyway (a CiW school) as they go to a welsh medium primary so that got me out of that dilemma. However, that school, despite not being a "faith" school, provides a great deal of religion in the day to day running of the school, I think the headmaster is very religious himself (although he's a brilliant headmaster which helps me see past that!). It's about at the limit of what I personally can cope with, and I try and remind myself that when I was growing up and going to school, all schools had a religious element to them. It's a good job I've only got a pretty basic understanding of welsh though so that I can't understand all the words of the songs they sing in school concerts, because I do enough to know that they're all about Jesus <rolls eyes>.

Jx

amus

I am firmly atheist but have had my kids baptised catholic to get them into the Catholic school down the road from me.

Some may call it hypocritical, i call it making the best out of a bad situation i.e. the fact that the government allow faith schools. I'm certainly not willing to drive out of my way to send my son to a non faith school. To be honest I'm not even sure if there
are any round this end.

I do admittedly find it a little disconcerting when my son comes home saying prayers which include phrases like 'i belong to god' but thats to be expected i suppose. Never did me any harm.