Arg! Primary school is a minefield. Another one...

[Rosieeo]

DD came home today and told me that her teacher makes them say grace before they eat. DD has no idea what it's all about; she thinks she's saying thank you to the person who gave her lunch, i.e. me!

The school has no religious affiliation although the prospectus alludes to 'collective daily worship'. I appreciate that schools are somewhat obliged to provide some kind of 'spiritual' stuff. I just expected it to be Harvest Festival or a few hymns in assembly.

Obviously I have no problem with religious education, as long as it is 'education' (some people believe this, others believe that) and not religion presented as fact.

I went to a CofE primary school and even they didn't make us say grace! AIBU to be vaguely annoyed/disturbed and to possibly have a quick word with the teacher?

Any thoughts? Sorry if this has been done to death by the way, DD is my eldest and this is unexplored territory.

Does it matter though? If you don't believe anyway? Can you honestly say that your language includes NO reference to God?

Do you ever say "There but for the grace of God...", or "for God's sake", or "Goodbye" (God be with you)? Or ever use the word Christmas (the clue is the first half of the word!).

And if your child believes in Father Christmas, then you have no leg to stand on - whether or not a child 'finds out' later on - you are still allowing them to believe something you KNOW to be false. So where is the harm in them joining in a statement of thanks for food, when if you are that bothered you can tell them at home that 'although some people believe that, we don't'?

Well put Lily.

it would be interesting to see the stats re the percentage of current parents of children at school are christian. i think the inflated figure from the 2001 census may well be due to the older generations to be honest

barnsely - why shouldn't and can't the nativity be presented as a nice play? a nice story? why not?

slumber "surely each child could give thanks to who ever the f**k they wanted to???"

But don't you really mean give thanks to the person you want them to be thankful to. None of your comments are about your childs beliefs, but about your own.

No reason at all, but the point is it will be presented and taught as this in school, and if you don't want your child saying grace or happy christmas then why is it ok to take part in the nativity ?

haha correction. my children have the right to make up their own mind. which is exactly why i will not be sending them to any school that assumes that responsibility for them. ie. asking them to thank an imaginary being for the food that they are going to eat.

good night!

"why shouldn't and can't the nativity be presented as a nice play? a nice story? why not?"

Well, as I said earlier, it's about a real person, so that is a fairly clear differentiating point.

With regards to the stats, I came across this;

"An Office for National Statistics survey of 450,000 Britons in 2010 confirmed that 71% are Christian, 4% are Muslim and 21% lack a religious affiliation."

So that is an up to date survey, and confirms the census data - no change whatsoever.

Report here

Given the 'no change' in 9 years, that would suggest fairly stable figures, which would also suggest an even spread across the age groups.

sorry lily how many of those are over 50 though? therefore not at all relevant to the debate about school/religion?

sorry i am sure jesus was real. yes. but the whole being the son of god and virgin birth shit is just a story isn't it? i mean, it is not actually bilogically possible is it? but then biology lessons vs christianity is a whole other thread isn't it?

and no i don ot instill my beliefs onto my children. i will not speak about this stuff until they are old enough to understand.

The point about the stats is that they haven't changed since 2001, which suggests that they are constant across the age groups (as inevitably some people will have died since the 2001 census, but the proportion has not dropped, therefore at the younger end they are replenishing at the same rate).

The point about Jesus being real, whether or not you believe in the virgin birth/son of God etc is that it makes it different from Little Red Riding Hood.

And you did ask for some 'up to date' stats.

no lily if the birth and death rates have changed, then the demographics of those included in the stats would have changed, therefore relevance to the current discussion changes inevitably.

i wouldn't object to my kid being part of a play about martin luther king. wouldn't expect them to pray to him before a meal though.

Well, however you try and wriggle, the stats are there. I did look for some age specific stats but there aren't any. 71% is a pretty large majority - in the census that equated to about 42 million Christians I think.

"There are lots of non white christians kewcumber ,every heard of gospel music ?" just a tad patronising? I have a non-white son, I'm perfecly aware of the varieties of religion in the non-white population but I suspect you'll find that less than 75% consider themselves Christian, thereby skewing the overall population figure who consider themselves chritian lower than 75%. In fact bringing it down to the 71& mentioned earlier.

Where exactly is Father Christmas in the bible.

As far as I am aware the Christmas festival in the CHristian calendar just hijacked an existing festival which almost every culture has (mid winter) - quite reasonably because if you want the local population to take up your religion, best to give them the easiest route. In fact Christmas is on 25th Dec because it was the date of the Roman winter solstice and for those Christians amongst you who have yule-logs, shame on you as Yule (or Jul) was a pagan festival.

Celebrating Christmas or Yule or the Winter Solstice if it makes you feel better is perfectly reasonable as it has been a cultural festival in Britain for probably 1000's of years.

Why does the child of an atheist family have to swallow a prayer to a god they don't beleive in? You would expect a christian child to give thanks to Shiva?

The problem is that many people of religious faiths don;t take the beleifs of the atheist very seriously - it is something that we are not expected to feel strongly about or are being silly if we don't want to keep our heads down for a quiet life.

If truth be told in RL I would advise DS to give thanks to M&S rather than stand out as being a trouble maker at 4. But on MN I don't have to I can say.

But being so incredulous that I feel strongly about my beliefs enough to take a virtual stand is disrespectful and NOT very tolerant.

You also didn't answer about whether you used any 'God' terms in your language, in particular 'God be with You', aka Goodbye. If you do, it should be obvious to you that using words with a God association doesn't somehow convert you to Christianity, and nor will it convert your child. Children understand more than some people give them credit for, and easily take an explanation that 'some people believe this...' - they will learn that in RE anyway, when they learn about Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Judaism etc.

If you are bothered about the 'teacher telling them to do it', then simply say 'because this country is traditionally a Christian country, the rules say the school does some Christian things. We are not Christians, so you can choose whether to join in or not". Simple.

"71% is a pretty large majority" - I'd argue that 29% is a pretty large minority to be expected to pratice a religion that isn't theirs. FOr a country so tolerant and all...

Most schools have the imagination to see this and respond by making collective worship more inclusive and do not ask children to say a grace that has overtly Christian overtones.

The point about Father Christmas is that people seem to get terribly worried in case their children inadvertently might believe in God/Jesus, but positively encourage them to believe in Father Christmas (and get very angry with children who don't and 'tell' them the truth). I can't see that if you don't believe in God that the 2 things are very different - you can use them both as legends/stories at Christmas time. And lots of schools get kids to 'write letters to Santa' or have Santa 'visiting the Christmas play' but I have yet to see a thread on here complaining about that!

The percentage who described themselves as 'no religion' is 17%. The grace is not overtly Christian, 'Lord' could refer to any religion's God.

"'God be with You', aka Goodbye" - thats a bonkers argument! The English language is so fluid that it is full of words from other languages and other faiths.

I doubt 1% of the population would recognise "goodbye" as a Christian phrase unlike "may the Lord make us truly thankful"!

I could probably find some celtic words in English - it doesn;t make you a practising Druid.

Anyway, it's bedtime, tolerance is always good. But it works both ways. I'm sure if a parent was concerned they could have a word with the teacher, and the teacher could either invite the children to say it 'if they wanted to' or to think of who they wanted to say thank you to. But if you don't say anything to the teacher, how will they know that you mind?

THAT IS THE POINT.

The point I was making was that if you are concerned about the child somehow being 'corrupted' by saying a grace, then remember that our whole language is imbued with 'God-related language' and it doesn't somehow render everyone Christians.

"'Lord' could refer to any religion's God" - but not mine nor in fact 17% of the populations.

It also rules out all the pantheistic religions which admittedly are not so numerous in the UK (at least in percentage terms).

My point is why otehr schools seems able to grasp this and deal with it wihtout problem...

and my point was that goodbye is really not considered to be a religious term praying to "The Lord" unless you were staggeringly slow on the uptake is, even to a four year old.

"But it works both ways", absolutely. I have no problem with any people of any faith praying to whomever they like as long as they don't make me or my child do it.

"You would expect a christian child to give thanks to Shiva?"

Well, yes, if my children went to school in a Hindu country where that's what they do, or if there was the equivalent in a Muslim country, I would. Why not? That's just part of the culture. I would just talk about it at home and would probably manage to do it without saying shit or fuck. In a respectful way, but that wouldn't mean anything to slumber.

I am on the fence a bit with religion, having bee brought up as a christian but now not practicing anything. It really wouldn't worry me if my child said grace - probably influenced by my background.

However, OP, your comment about expecting it to be "just a few hymns in assembly" perhaps needs thinking through. Hymns are sung prayers, IIRC most hymns would contain far more references to god/the lord/our father than a one line grace. If grace makes you this uncomfortable (and I am not sure whether or not I think yabu or not) then I think a harvest festival (one v long grace, in effect) and hymns are going to make you feel a whole lot worse.