Sunday school - still a thing?

[NashEnquirer]

My kids were asking about Sunday School today - we walked past a Wesleyan Chapel, and that led to me dredging up anything I could remember about the Methodists etc, and it reminded me that I used to go to Sunday School at our local (tiny) chapel as a kid. I think it was held even when there was no service, and the kids attended it instead of the service, when that was on. (We also sometimes went to a bigger church elsewhere sometimes where the kids all marched out 10 minutes after the start of the service to some other buildings over the road, for age-streamed groups doing craft etc.)

I'm sure most churches will still have a children's group on during services, but is it still commonly called Sunday School? Do anyone's kids go like I used to, almost as a social thing? (My parents didn't even attend chapel - they just sent me the fifty yds down the road on my own.)

I used to go to Sunday School when staying with my church-going aunt. I always wondered what the adults were doing in the service that meant that us children had to be ushered away.

Locally, I've not heard it called Sunday School. When I was little, you could go to Sunday School without actually attending the service and without your parents

Ours isn’t called Sunday school, it’s children’s church. Or age appropriate learning

The sermon! That's why I volunteered to help with Sunday School. Wrangling pre schoolers was more fun...

I'm not sure if it's called Sunday School but DS definitely goes to this every week. They do some kind of linked activity in a room off the main church and then join a bit of the service. It's quite sociable and there are normally at least 4 or 5 children from his class in the group too.

My children go to Sunday school. Highlight of the social week.

Messy Church round here. In a little chapel with some very enthusiastic volunteers.

A lot of my youngest's friends go. DD has been and loved it. I find it ..... a very long couple of hours.

It's called Children's Liturgy in the Catholic church we go to, but basically Sunday school, yes.
When mine were little, we did Messy church at our local Church of England sometimes but that tended to be on a Saturday and once a month.
I have a vague recollection of sorting my bricks as a child; the big bricks went to church and the little bricks went to Sunday school....really I just put them in different areas in my room.

Yes. I remember staying with a friend and us kids being sent off to Sunday School with the mum and dad going nowhere near the church. I understand why now.

Our Sunday school
Was in the local village hall, run by the Salvation Army on a Sunday afternoon. I was there from about 2.5 years old with my brother and sister! We made something, listened to a story and sang songs! Parents loved dropping us off and having a couple of hours in a Sunday free!

Yes, I teach Sunday school every Sunday 🙂. We’ve sometimes called it by a different name, but it has somehow reverted back to Sunday school.

I think most places Sunday School is an old fashioned term for it but it’s still a thing. I think it would maybe be seen as slightly odd for kids to be dropped off at it without adults going to the service, at least in the churches I have been to as it’s primarily intended for the children of adults attending the main service (though there is a church locally that does “messy church” in the afternoons which is clearly marked as open to anyone and others that do kids clubs during the week etc for the wider community), however I also don’t think anybody would actually turn the kids away if you did just randomly drop them off 🤣 If you’re looking for something like this why not contact your local churches and see what opportunities they have for kids, lots will be very happy to have them along to whatever kids activities they run.

I'm in an RC parish in the US, and like all well organised RC parishes here, religious ed classes are held weekly for kids in the public schools. (Children attending the parochial school have religious ed as part of the school day). There are sessions two evenings a week and one on Sunday mornings. Parents pay per child per semester. Volunteer catechists teach the classes.

On top of that, there are classes for kids preparing for first communion, first reconciliation, and confirmation - weekend sessions and weekday evenings. Confirmation candidates also have to complete volunteer hours - not hard to find in a busy parish with a lot of outreach programmes.

There is also a liturgy of the word for children up to age 8 every second Sunday during a morning Mass - they troop off to a side chapel with religious ed teachers before the first reading and return after the homily to take part in the offertory procession, then scamper back to their families. My parish also had a Montessori style session weekly for preschoolers, during the day. It's a national programme called Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.

Sunday Schools exist in loads of Churches, but do go under various different names.....
Junior Church
Children's Church
Young People's Group
(When there are different age sections, they will often have different names)

Usually it happens at the same time as the service I suspect, nowadays, although there are many 'Messy Church' groups that happen during the week at lots of Churches.

It is actually very unlikely that a Messy Church group would accept unaccompanied children. It would be a safeguarding nightmare having parents of other children who aren't DBS checked and unaccompanied children.

Some churches do still run Sunday school but often called Junior Church or children's church. Many churches (especially rurally) don't have enough children, or enough volunteers, to run one anymore. Hence running a group on Sunday afternoons/weekdays where carers are invited along too.

Very interesting, thanks all!

Sounds as though @EMary12345 , @ChompandaGrazia and @Printedword attended the same sort of set-up that I did, back in the day.

@mathanxiety that sounds like a triumph of logistics and organisation!

My kids go to quite a religious school - one of them has been very much turned off religion as a result, but the other one is a bit more ambivalent. I've no desire for them to start going to Sunday school - I was just musing on the set-up I used to know and wondering whether that was still common. (I'd forgotten Messy Church, but there was certainly a phase around where we live of churches offering this, but seems to have calmed down a bit now.)

Yes, definitely still a thing. Ours is on during the service. We don't generally have kids whose parents/ grandparents aren't in the service but could make it work if asked to. They also have youth fellowship after the evening service some weeks, mostly just games and snacks.

Genuine interest - When I used to go in the 90's, I was taught Creationism, do you still teach that?

We call it Children's Church rather than Sunday School but yes it's basically the same. Kids are part of the service at the start with an introductory welcome, opening prayers and a 30-second spot for highlighting to everyone what topic Children's Church will be thinking about today, then there's a prayer for the children and they all troop out to their age-segregated activities and they return just before communion near the end of the service.

Ours has it once a month. Sadly not enough kids to justify every week

I don't think there are many Sunday school type groups that children go to without parents these days. In my church we have children's groups during the sermon but we expect a responsible adult to be on site throughout the time. I used to help out at a Christian Sunday morning kids club as a teenager in the 90s but I haven't heard of anything like that recently.

That'll depend on the church's stance. There are some that do, but plenty don't.
I misread your post at first and thought you were talking about "young earth creationism"! That's pretty niche in UK Christian circles but more common in the US.

Just to add, we can leave our children at children’s church from 1 year old as they are with volunteers who are dbs checked. They have 4 different ages groups and usually at least 30 children each Sunday is not more. Over 80 children on the books - it’s a very family friendly church!

people can’t just leave their children if they aren’t attending church themselves

I've known it be children's church, not a separate event at another time on a Sunday, for many years. So children join the service about half way through, having had a separate instruction.