Sharing/conflict resolution at nursery school?

onlyroz

Nicki wrote: »

There is no choice for parents who want a secular education...

Other than exercising their legal right to withdraw their child from any religious practise by the school. (Afaik you cannot withdraw them from the bits of RE specified in the national curriculum) but you do have a right to withdraw then from assembly and prayers. A right you want to choose not to exercise it would seem.

I have been thinking about why I haven't withdrawn my children from the school assembly, and it is a difficult question.

I have come to the conclusion that I do see merit in having a daily session where the school comes together to discuss moral and social issues. I do not even particularly see the problem in taking a moral story from a religious text and having a discussion about it. I also would not mind if a religious leader came into a school to explain aspects of their faith from a "people of my faith believe in this" sort of viewpoint - as long as people from a wide variety of faiths are invited in and the material is presented as opinion and not fact. And so I do think that probably the majority of school assemblies do cover material that is of benefit to the majority of the pupils. This is the main reason why I have not excluded my children.

There is the secondary issue of what would a child do if they were taken out of the assembly? How would they feel about being forbidden to participate in an activity along with the rest of their classmates? Do you say to your child "When your teacher is in the classroom they are wise and you should listen to what they have to say. But once they step into the assembly hall they spout nonsense that you should ignore". No, I think that would just confuse and alienate them even more than allowing them to join in.

So while most people will emerge from a religion-based education relatively unscathed I still resent being denied a real choice over how my children are educated.

mountainofdebt

I have the feeling that we're going around in circles here.

I don't know why the OP doesn't do what I told Junior to do with his welsh lessons - pay lip service to it and give it as little attention as you can get away with.....

Mojisola

onlyroz wrote: »

I have been thinking about why I haven't withdrawn my children from the school assembly, and it is a difficult question.

The main problem with keeping out children of assembly is that a lot of school notices are given out and whole school issues are talked about. Any children who are withdrawn are going to miss out on information that everyone else is given.

Nicki

It's only stigmatising or an issue though because yours is such a minority opinion onlyroz. If a third or half the class weren't going to assembly and missing prayers then your kids wouldn't feel odd and it wouldn't be an issue of respecting or not respecting the teachers, just a choice some parents make for their children. The fact that most parents don't make that choice however suggests that either you need to canvass parents in your children's class and get a sizeable chunk to opt out or if you can't achieve that accept that most parents think their children benefit from this part of the day.

If enough parents kept their children out school notices would be given in the opt out rooms as well as the assembly.

onlyroz

Nicki wrote: »

accept that most parents think their children benefit from this part of the day.

I have said that I do think the majority of assemblies are beneficial. I would just much prefer it if religious instruction (i.e. prayers, or "we believe XYZ", or hymns about how God made the world) was kept out of it. Religious instruction should be something you opt into (by attending a church/mosque/synagogue/temple) rather than something you need to opt out of (by excluding your child from assembly).

notanewuser

mountainofdebt wrote: »

I have the feeling that we're going around in circles here.

I don't know why the OP doesn't do what I told Junior to do with his welsh lessons - pay lip service to it and give it as little attention as you can get away with.....

Erm, I thought I had said something exactly along those lines not so long ago.......?

Being 3 though, it may be a hard concept to explain to DD at the moment!

notanewuser

Nicki wrote: »

It's only stigmatising or an issue though because yours is such a minority opinion onlyroz.

Do we know that?!

Nicki

Well you certainly seem to be assuming NANU that it is only (or mostly) the card carrying religious believers or the apathetic who are happy with the status quo, on little evidence I can see.

If there was a sizeable majority who didn't want their children experiencing this, why are they not withdrawing them? Why isn't this issue being discussed amongst parents, and their right to opt out being exercised en masse? Even in central London, with its reputation for stand-offishness, parents do congregate and discuss what the school is doing and whether they agree or disagree - on anything and everything from school uniform to the materials being used for different parts of the curriculum. If this was an issue here for even a significant minority, it would certainly come up certainly amongst like minded friendly groups, and people would be withdrawing their children with safety in numbers.

I keep coming back to the PSHE curriculum (because this also has a statutory right to withdraw so is a good parallel) and when this came up in Year 2 and 6, some parents chose to go in, and look at the materials available, they then discussed this off their own bats with other parents in the class group, and 3 out of 30 decided to withdraw their children because they did not like what was to be taught. Similar things happened with respect to school dinners. It is inconceivable IMO that the majority (or even a significant minority) of parents are silently objecting to this part of the school day and not doing anything about it. And frankly insulting to say that the reason it isn't happening is because parents don't care about their children's education, as most parents do care very deeply about this.

notanewuser

I didn't say they didn't care. I said they might not know - entirely possible based on our experiences this week.

Nicki

notanewuser wrote: »

I didn't say they didn't care. I said they might not know - entirely possible based on our experiences this week.

Because this part of the prospectus for the school isn't clear that there will be daily religious worship? Or because they will have been too apathetic to read it?

notanewuser wrote: »

The prospectus for nursery starters is silent on it, except the following:

"Joint Worship
Every day begins with a period of worship, as either a class, department or whole school. This period of joint worship is in addition to the requirements of the National Curriculum.

Parents have the right to withdraw their child from these assemblies."

The fact it doesn't spell out that they say grace at lunch and a prayer at home time doesn't mean that they don't make crystal clear to all parents that there is some religious "practise" over and above the national curriculum on a daily basis, from which parents can choose to withdraw their children.