My daughter attends a community primary school, chosen specifically for being non-denominational as we don't think children should be segregated according to their families religious backgrounds. We are happy for DD to learn about religions as part of her understanding of cultures and anthropology, including visits to mosques, churches and hindu temples which are all arranged by her school.
However I'm unhappy that she and her friends had a class assembly today (which parents weren't told in advance about) about Easter, specifically the content and delivery of the assembly. I don't yet know the detail but she told me this evening she was upset because 'Jesus died' and she couldn't understand why Good Friday was good, when someone had died. She was then told Easter was a celebration, because 'he will come alive again and come back to earth'.
I think children this age are too young to make the distinction between a story and the truth, especially when told it by a teacher (who are usually held up by children at this age as the fount of all knowledge!) and without any context (for eg she doesn't know what sin is so can't even have it explained why Jesus was supposed to have died - not that I'd want them to go into 'saving us from eternal damnation' anyway). AIBU to be unhappy about this and has anyone got any constructive suggestions /guidelines about how to mark this particularly gruesome festival in a more sensitive way - or do some schools avoid it altogether? My DP says they should do something about its cultural context and it being an old pagan festival - hence the eggs - which is all 5 and 6 year olds are really interested in!