Prayer and non faith schools

[chachachachacha]

DS attend a community school and at the harvest assembly this week they had the local vicar attending who gave a talk on the work they do with the homeless.

No problem with links with the local church as it's quite active in the local community in terms of using the hall as base for lots of activities etc.

At the end of the assembly the head asked the vicar to say a short prayer. I chose the school on the understanding that religion wouldn't be practised in this way. The vicar then went on to talk about the shoebox appeal that they were running (which is a whole different thread I know!)

So - for those of you whose children attend community schools - would this happen in your schools?

The school ds attends is fairly new so is still establishing its ethos so all early days in terms of this. DS is my first child to have been through school so I'm not sure if I'm being over sensitive?

[primarymum]

Schools have by law to provide daily collective worship, wholly or mainly of a Christian nature. This applies whether the school is a faith school or not.

[piscesmoon]

I can't belive how often this topic comes up-every few months on average!!! There is no such thing as a secular school in this country. All state schools have to have an act of collective worship every day-by law. It has to be broadly Christian.See here
I do think schools should make it clear to all new parents and then there wouldn't be the common misunderstanding.

[piscesmoon]

I have found an old thread to save going through it all again. hereIt is fairly typical. If you run a search for the last year and put in collective worship -lots of threads will come up-all started by people who feel the same way.

Sorry I meant believe in my last message.

[chachachachacha]

Yes - I didn't realise this at all. Could collective worship be without prayer? I agree with teaching christian values but not overkeen on the prayer aspect - especially as it is something completely alien to ds - he is aware of church etc but we are not bringing him up within a religion. I think I'm probably more shocked by it after years of my own catholic schooling and wasn't expecting to see religion practised in my sons school.

Thanks for the link btw

[piscesmoon]

If you have collective worship then you have to actually worship -which means hymns and prayers. A lot of schools get around it by having a period of reflection and saying a few words and before they start they say 'if you wish to make this your prayer, say amen' but I think it is far too subtle for a 5yr old.
I can see that if you went to a Catholic school you can have missed the fact that all schools are broadly Christian. I think that it should be made clear to parents-so many are under the impression that if they don't choose a faith school they are choosing secular.