Only Christian kids given a prize

[IDontWantRealism]

Can someone help me see reason with this? My kids are atheist but Jewish by ancestry. They go to a non-denominational school but in a very traditional rural area with lots of Christian students. They ran a competition which involved making a profession of faith over Easter. Obviously my kids didn’t enter but many others did. We were told there would be a prize but today at school all children who entered were given a prize leaving out the few non-Christian children and the few other children who didn’t enter. That’s not ok is it? I need some help navigating this as the school have form. We’ve previously had to moan about them being taught other problematic views.

Students were given candy for agreeing to take part in a distinctly religious activity.

you can say it was their choice, but how far does this go?
is it ok to say, come to this assembly where we are eating sweets and playing video games while we tell you all about the wonders of Jesus or go run laps in the rain? The students have a choice, so are their rights being violated?

Anything that excludes children by reason of a protected characteristic is certainly a big deal. Surely no-one thinks it would be OK to run a competition requiring children to produce a poster saying "White people are the superior race" and claiming that is absolutely fine because black people can enter? How is this different?

And this isn't just a matter of some children being unable to enter, because every single child who did enter won a "prize". If your child's school ran an event in which they said every child with a penis would win a prize, would that be a big deal?

Reminds me of the shoebox appeal at Christmas. I did this with my dc until I found out that religious pamphlets were included in the box.

In order to enter they would have had to do something directly against their beliefs. It wasn't a case of not wanting to enter, they couldn't enter. It isn't for the purpose of learning about religion, it was solely about directly professing a particular faith.

Imagine if an atheist group had come into the school and set up a competition under which children had to decorate banners saying "There is no god, all religions are nonsense", and then gave out prizes only to the children who produced the banners, just imagine what an almighty fuss there would be. The Daily Mail editor would have apoplexy.

Without knowing what the competition was, it's not really possible to say. That's why I'm asking.
If it was writing out the Lord's Prayer with decorative boarder, of something, I don't really see the issue. Slightly odd choice for a competition, but it's not discrimination. It was a voluntary exercise, the OP didn't see the value of it, so her kids didn't enter, so they didn't get a prize. As long as the school also offers opportunities fir minority religions to hold special assemblies etc., I don't think it's worth making a fuss over.

What a strange post yr children didn’t enter so we’re never going to be given a prize.

Non denominational in Scotland means that it isn't catholic not that it isn't religious

Do people genuinely not care about children being discriminated against based on their religion? In school. It might just be chocolate. But teaching children in school that it’s OK to discriminate against people based on a protected characteristic does seem… odd.

@Dobby123456 read the OP's posts and you'll know exactly what the competition was

In fact, it wasn't even actually a competition aside from if you don't enter you don't get a prize.

Maybe try reading all of the OP's posts and you will see that she later on said they had to write "Jesus saved me" and illustrate it.

Wow! I can't believe that there are responses here that think this was reasonable. It's disgusting. Schools may teach religion, but it's not their place to convert children.

The activity was not inclusive, as children who are not Christian are unlikely to have taken part. It unfairly singled out children who did not participate. It gave a treat to the majority who did. The children who didn't get a prize then probably felt left out, disappointed and othered. It's a total mundfuck - puts unfair pressure on them to participate next time and to join the majority, and to become Christians.

It's really, really dreadful and I wouldn't hesistat to complain ti the head OP.

No she didn’t. She said they had to decorate something ‘along the lines of Jesus saves’.

Would you consider that getting children to decorate an Eid card is exclusive?

This was different

Read OP's post at 18.29 today:
The issue here is not that they didn’t get a prize. The issue is that they, and others, were excluded from taking part. They were then singled out whilst everyone else did go up. It’s hardly a prize if everyone gets one. It wasn’t rewarding anything other than saying “Jesus saved me” which is surely not ok to make kids say if they don’t believe in Jesus

Would you consider that getting children to decorate an Eid card is exclusive?

If the school gave chocolate only to children of any specific religion and excluded only a few other children (who were of another religion or none) regardless of the mechanism of getting there, I’d be pissed off.

Writing a religious statement is different to decorating something. I wish my neighbours and friends Eid Mubarak, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas. None of them expect me to profess belief in the tenets of their religions to do this. And Eid card is NOT the same as a statement of faith.

Decorating an Eid card, or Pesach, or Easter or Hannukah or Christmas is not the same as making children write "Jesus saved me" and then giving all children who wrote that a prize as part of a competition.

I'm surprised that they haven't learned about any other religions by that stage? Mine has been learning religions from the start of school.

I think I would have entered the competition with DD anyway, even though I am atheist. I would have explained that Easter is a Christian holiday, just like Eid is a Muslim one etc, and just explained that the statement was from a Christian perspective. However, I suppose that comes with the caveat that I would expect similar things to be done for other religions too, and I would then do the same for those. If they are not doing this for Christian traditions, I would take issue with it.

Although, DD is adamant she believes in God and Jesus at the moment (7), I just explain that other people believe different things spiritually, and I don't believe in any of it. I'm happy to let her form her own beliefs though.

Also, it perhaps puts children from other religions in a tricky situation, because the statement might go against their religious beliefs completely. Whereas I wouldn't have such an issue with it.

Decorating an Eid card, is not anti-inclusive no, but that's not equivalent to the situation the OP described.

If the vast majority of the children were Muslim, were asked to profess their faith in writing, decorate it and then given a public reward, that would not be inclusive of the minority, non-Muslim children who could not participate. It's really poor of a school to give rewards to children purely on the basis of their religion.

Schools should teach about faiths, not teach faith.

There is a significant difference.

This whole "competition" sounds so weird. I don’t like it at all.

The Ops school definitely sounds like its over stepped the mark.

I dont even remember doing anything like that back in the day. The only thing I can remember was an easter bonet competition.

Just to clarify one thing as it keeps coming up. I didn’t stop them entering. I didn’t know about the competition until today. They both, independently of one another, didn’t enter. Nor did their some of their non-Christian friends. It was pitched to them as part of a session on how Jesus died to save Christians.