Religious conversion in schools

Treevo

maman wrote: »

It's not a matter of choice for schools or parents. It's statutory for all schools whether 'church' schools or not.

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/schoolethos/a0064979/collective-worship

It is a choice for parents as you can opt your children out.

Newly_retired

Yes, parents can opt their children out, or make a fuss.
My parents opted me out of RE at primary school because they did not go along with the particular brand of C of E teaching ( it was a C of E school with a very high church vicar) - and I was thus deprived of learning about a different point of view from theirs.
At secondary school they embarassed me by taking issue with the RE teacher over some of her teaching.
I would far rather they had just let things ride and allow me to hear all points of view. I remain a committed Christian but after I left home I made up my own mind about which particular direction to follow, without their help.
So what I'm saying is, try not to worry. Though if so many parents are objecting to this particular guy's approach, you may have a point. I find it hard to believe that someone could honestly say that his is the ONLY way of helping the community.

maman

Treevo wrote: »

It is a choice for parents as you can opt your children out.

claire16c wrote: »

We sometimes used to have the odd vicar or something similar come in.

I never got the point - we were at school to learn about school stuff not religion!

Plus it's not as easy as just choosing a non religious school, in some places you don't get much choice over schools.

Sorry, I expressed myself badly Treevo. What I meant in response to claire's post was that you won't find a non-religious school as it's the law that religion is taught. Parents can't stop the school teaching this but they can, as you say, opt out their child.

Spendless

Can you describe the 'board game' more? Do you mean in order to win the board game you had to accept Jesus into your community, by doing something on the game, eg pick up a certain card etc or do you mean the children were being told the only way to be in life was to accept Jesus?

The first wouldn't particularly bother me, the second might, depending on the age of the children and my particular views.

Person_one

maman wrote: »

Sorry, I expressed myself badly Treevo. What I meant in response to claire's post was that you won't find a non-religious school as it's the law that religion is taught. Parents can't stop the school teaching this but they can, as you say, opt out their child.

Its the law that children are taught about religion, which is slightly different!

At my non-church affiliated schools we were taught about the Egyptian and Greek gods and goddesses, about Hinduism, Judaism and Islam, and about Australian aboriginal and American Indian beliefs. The only gods/beliefs that were ever presented as fact, as truth, were Christian ones. That's the problem.