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.

The OP is in Scotland.

It was "Jesus saved me" - OP posted this in a later post.

The Law in Scotland isn't much different, i believe schools must hold regular acts of religious observance.

Which for most ND schools is a Chaplan and maybe 3 or 4 services a year.

This seems to have gone OTT.

Yes, it's gone over the top because the school has allowed untrained random members of the congregation (CofS or baptist - OP doesn't know which) to come in much more regularly to teach the children about Christianity, or whatever the purpose of these visits is supposed to be.

Apologies. I hadn’t RTFT. It’s even worse here in Wales.

Wow, English schools have to have an act of Christian worship every DAY?

In Scotland "The Scottish Government advises that every school should provide opportunities for religious observance at least six times in a school year," but it doesn't have to be specifically Christian (though they recommend schools draw on the country's Christian tradition).
And it can be called "time for reflection" as well as / instead of religious observance.

I didn't know it was as much as 6 times a year.

Just for clarity, the Education Act calls for a daily act of collective worship "of a broadly Christian nature" This is in all English and Welsh schools. There is, therefore no such thing as a secular school in England or Wales.

I believe, post-devolution, that the Welsh government strengthened the requirement to an act of Christian worship but would have to check.

You have more of an issue with children being given a critical view of a religion than being forced to participate in it? I find that very strange. Most religions have gone through periods of actual persecution and they are very keen to talk about the people who were brave in those periods. But now hearing (I assume fairly mild) criticism is an issue?

If Catholics don't want to be criticised I'd have a think about all the truly dreadful things the church has been involved in in the last 100 years. Including but not limited to:

Encouraging unsafe and painful births in order to avoid c-sections and make more babies.
The AIDS epidemic
The wholesale cover up of sexual abuse
Forced labour
Forced adoption
The neglect and possibly murder of children
Genocide of Indigenous people
Forced relocation

Anything else? Well yes, but the list is getting too long. If teachers are saying, "Catholics are bad" to children, that's an issue. Talking about the actual history of what the Catholic Church has done recently, fine.

Maybe it's because I'm from the West of Scotland, and spent many years in Glasgow, but I read "anti Catholic view" as blatant sectarianism, prejudice and bigotry rather than a nuanced critique of the Roman Catholic Church.

That's how I read it too.

Thanks vilepig. Wow at least "is my saviour" might have been new vocabulary/spelling for some

I'm also west Scotland and I struggle to believe any teacher would express an "Anti catholic view" in any school over the last 50 years. Unless we are picking up Catholic to mean RC, while the poster means the wider meaning of Catholic, meaning Christian.

Even at that I can't believe any teacher would express an anti any religion view, could you imagine the up roar if they were to express an an anti Muslim or Sikh view they'd quickly be pulled as racist?

I'm in England so nothing to do with Scotland.

I'm talking about a teacher giving kids false information about a religion/denomination. So think things like Papal Infallibility, teacher saying, "Well if the Pope says it's raining and it's actually a sunny day Catholics believe him because they believe he's infallible." Either the teacher is ignorant and shouldn't be teaching the subject because that isn't what Papal Infallibility means or she is deliberately lying. So for a teacher to be sneering about our beliefs and using examples that aren't true is unacceptable whether you have issues with the Catholic faith or not.

It wasn't in Scotland.

Giving children false information, see my example of Papal Infallibility. Is it OK to give kids false information about other subjects, I mean would you object if the maths teacher was telling kids 2 and 2 make 5 or the English teacher was telling them that correct spelling of school is actually skool. I don't think false information is OK in any other subject so why would it be OK in RE?

@Iwasafool Well if the Pope says it's raining and it's actually a sunny day Catholics believe him because they believe he's infallible."

I don't believe any teacher would even come out with that, however I'll give RC people a bit more credit than to be fools that believe him.

"Well, Father, I suppose it would be sort of spiritually raining..."

It was said to my kids 20 years ago, well not them personally but in their class. Said to GS this year, he knew nothing about what was said 20 years ago, it wasn't his parents so if he's made it up it is one hell of a coincidence that he thought of the same story as his aunt and uncle.

I'd be just as annoyed if the RE teacher was telling them things that weren't true about any other religion but of course I might not know it was untrue just like the non Catholic kids might not know that that isn't what Papal Infallibility means.

The "if the Pope says it's raining..." thing is from Brideshead Revisited. Cordelia Flyte, then aged about 13, was teasing her prospective brother in law, who was receiving instruction before his marriage, about many things- the Sacred Vatican Monkeys among others....

It was a very memorable scene in the TV adaptation of the book, and I think also in the film.

A Pope has only spoken ex cathedra twice in nearly 200 years. It's ok not to know about another religion, it's not ok just to make up things to fill in the gaps in your ignorance.

FAB!

Ah that's interesting, she must have got it from there. Who needs a university education to be a teacher. It wasn't the only thing, not understanding the difference between the Immaculate and the Miraculous Conceptions was another that annoyed me. I don't expect teachers to know everything but it would be good if they could grasp that things aren't true just because they say they are.