To wish school would stop this God crap

[MrsGravy]

DD is in Year 1 at school, in nursery class and reception they would sing the odd hymn and did a nativity play at Christmas, but other than that there wasn't a lot of religious stuff going on.

By the end of her first week in Year 1 she has come home with two prayers to learn (which they have to say before lunch and before going home) and talking about how God made the world and when you pray you are talking to God.

As you can probably discern from the title of this thread, I am an atheist. I don't mind DD being taught about the various religions that exist, but I actually really resent her being told these things as fact. I resent the fact that her teacher is expecting me to spend a significant amount of time teaching her prayers.

AIBU to question why christianity is playing such a big part in a non-church school??

That would be so sweet.

Brass rubbing with live monks!

Burn a saracen!

Ban contraception in the third world!

Let me say as the second Christian poster here that I'm offended by curryfreaks language and find her post totally over the top and unreasonable. Bruxeur in my experience this is not normal Christian behaviour.

Lol MillyR - good point, where is the imagination, where is the learning through play??!

bruxeur - I am sorry about that. Hopefully you will find some better examples. Curry really is very offensive and repulsive.

This thread crops up regularly every few months. People make the wrong assumption that a non church school is a secular school and it is merely non denominational. England doesn't have any state secular schools. Your DCs school is following the law-they have to have daily collective worship of a broadly Christian nature. It is all laid down in the education acts. I think that schools should explain this when a DC starts in reception.

I feel your pain, MrsGravy. Ds (6) is just emerging from a year-long phase of barracking me for my intransigent atheism.

Would reception year children understand that enough though pisces?

there are lots of religions, and presumably lots of Gods since they seem to have incompatible policies. AFAIK hardly any of them have a current or recent policy of covering up and protecting child abusers and other criminals, and moving them to other areas where they can start off with a clean slate and do it all over again.

It just seems a bit unfair that young children who don't know any better might be told that the religion they are introduced to is the true one which surely implies that all the others are untrue.

In this case, the childrem appear to be being taught "a religion" not "about religion"

YANBU!

It's plain wrong for a Year 1 child to be taught to pray to the ridiculous concept of 'God'.

I see someone raises the old, "but Christianity teaches good things like 'Love your neighbour' " argument, as though humans need to bible to teach us to be compassionate!

Is it daily collective worship? Really?

And that can be interpreted in so many different ways. It is not ok for teachers to be talking as if God is real and as if he made the world and that you can talk to him etc etc. It does not mean evangelism is ok.

It is so so hard to object to, though, because of this silly law.

Ah but we're in Wales piscesmoon, surely our wonderful Welsh assembly should have done away with that in the same way they got rid of SATs and league tables?!

When she was in reception she sang 'Iesu Tirion' (Gentle Jesus I think) at the end of the day before going home. That I didn't mind. It was a song so easier for them to just pick up and no pressure for them to HAVE to learn it anyway.

I just find it so surprising. I have no idea what percentage of the population in Wales/UK are christian but I don't come across many christians in my day to day life. Religion plays no part in my life whatsoever. It seems so odd that it HAS to play a part in my child's school life. And I don't get why it has to either.

This sounds like it is definitely going beyond the legally required 'daily act of collective worship' though, if they are being required to learn prayers for use at other times during the school day.

My two DCs went to a CofE school (despite my atheism - it was the local school) and they didn't have to learn prayers. I would definitely have a word with the head to check if this is school policy, and if so, why; and if not, is the teacher responsible acting within school guidelines. And if it all gets too much, for example if there are any sanctions for not learning the prayers, then I would take it further or ask for your children to be excused from any religious activities.

SInging some god songs at an assembly is dandy. The teacher telling the children of the wonderous things created by God is not on.

I think there is a big difference between a "daily collective worship of a broadly christian nature" and being sent home with prayers to learn/being taught that God made the world as a fact. I'd be livid if the latter happened - I live with the former as I have no choice, but happily our school is quite laid back about it and interprets it widely, and also teaches the children about other religions and festivals (e.g Eid this week).

If my children came home with prayers to learn, I'd be sending them straight back in with a polite note saying Nope, not happening....

PigletJohn, your last line sums up exactly what my objection is - thank you!

As far as I understand it:

Children are taught about the 6 main religions in RE.

They experience worship, which has to be broadly Christian in nature, in the daily act of collective worship.

If most children in the school are of a non-Christian religion, the daily act is broadly of that religion instead.

You can withdraw a child from worship, but not RE.

I could be wrong about the non-withdrawing for RE though.

Exexpats advice is good :)

England and Wales are covered by the same education acts. If you think back to your own schools days you will remember assemblies, hymns etc-nothing has changed-it would be a major news item if it did. It won't change until we are a secular country.

An assembly and a little chant of the lord's prayer wouldn't worry me. The teacher saying how god made the world would bother me.

There's the difference.

.....talking about how God made the world and when you pray you are talking to God.

That, IMHO, is instilling belief. It is implying to the child that god exists, at a very vulnerable age, when teachers are held in high esteem. If the children are learning about 'creation', they should be learning lots of different creation stories (NA Indian, Scandinavian, Aborigine, etc.) They should NOT be told that 'God' made the world and that you talk to God when you pray. Prayer should be introduced as a time for reflection.

I had an issue like this at my ds secondary school when happy clappy RE teacher told the 15 year old boys that he thought that homosexuality was an illness and they went on to discuss the existence of personal angels....drove me to drink (and then to write e-mails... )

I'd complain, because this kind of thing REALLY annoys me!!!

haven't read all the threads so sorry if an repeating what has been said, but my dd has gone to a non religious school as we are not a religious family and I would therefore be very concerned if the school started giving her prayers to learn - infact I'd be mortified!!! So I would be in there talking to the headteacher finding out whats going on!

I have just done a search and see that I have commented on 13 similar threads since last October! I think that it would help if Heads explained.

That's not the point, pisces.

It is wrong that teacher tell teh kids these things. That is a poor interpretation of some form of daily worship in 2010.

I have seen evangelic christian teacher s in action and it's not right.