DS is at a non-religious school (our local, non-selective state school) that is part of a wider school federation. His school is not religious, but the federation has another school which is. The school doesn’t have its own board of governors - there’s one board for both, and one Executive Head for both. The other school in the Federation is a C of E school. The Executive Head is very religious and the local Reverend is on the Board of Governors. As it isn’t a C of E school, no church funding goes to DS’s school, it does go to the other school in the Federation.
I don’t mind DS being exposed to religion at all. I’m very happy with religious/bible stories being used to show values that we all believe members of society should have (i.e. the innkeeper letting Mary and Joseph in can be a discussion around empathy/kindness/ingenuity or a bible story teaching forgiveness or patience or whatever). I wouldn’t mind a story from any religion for these purposes - or a non-religious text (like Aesop’s fables, etc). I don’t personally know what I believe religion-wise and I’m happy for DS to have his own opinions and beliefs as long as he’s a good person.
However, there have been several occasions now where I feel that the school are hugely overstepping in terms of the religion that they’re teaching DS. Two examples from this week are (we were not informed about either):
- The Reverend came into the school and spoke to the class. DS reports that if someone is a good person or helps other people, that makes them at Christian and if they don’t do those things then they aren’t a Christian. I obviously wasn’t there and don’t know exactly what was said but that is the belief that DS left with. I strongly disagree with this - I believe there are people of all religions and none who are good people who help others, and bad people of all religions and none too. I strongly do not want DS to be taught that any demographic in society are morally superior to another.
- The second issue is that their story of the week is the story of Zachheus. I’m not well versed in the bible but my understanding is that the message of this story about coming to Jesus. There doesn’t appear to be any message to the story other than that coming to Jesus makes you a better person. Google says that the message of the story is “the transformative power of encountering Jesus”. Again, I am not ok with this. I do not accept that DS (or anyone else) needs to find Jesus to be a good, moral and happy person.
I think that the school are completely overstepping here and pushing a narrative that should not be happening in a non-religious school. I think it’s harmful and undermining the message we teach at home (to not judge other by their labels, backgrounds or demographics). It’s far more aggressively religious than my primary school (which was a C of E school).
What are thoughts? Am I being precious?