To feel a bit [hmm] about 'Christianity Day' at school

[nameforaday]

Regular MNer, namechanging because this identifies my son's school.

He is in year 7. Now their end of year exams are over there are a lot of special projects, away days etc...One of the compulsory events is 'Christianity Day' which as far as I can work out is a whole day run by these people...groovy young evangelical Christians who are basically doing missionary outreach work in schools - their aim is to bring more young people to Jesus.

I don't think it is appropriate; it is one thing to teach children about different religions, but another to give over teaching time and premises for an evangelical group to peddle their wares for a whole day. They didn't even send home a letter saying what they day was going to be, and giving people a chance to withdraw.

Any advice on what to do? If if it was primary school I'd go and have a chat with the Head, but secondary school is so much more intimidating! I don't think it will harm my son, I just think its a bit off.

YANBU - I would definately no questions conatct the school

Have you read them the riot act yet, OP? I'd be very interested to see how they justify this.

Willow, the OP classified the fairtrade bit as 'OK'

OK folks, so here is the letter...DS likes it, I am waiting to let DH have a read before I send it, so any last minute comments welcome!

Dear Mr x

I hope you don?t mind, I sat in on the final session of year 7?s ?Christianity Day? in the auditorium yesterday.

I came along because I was concerned that the day was being run by an evangelical organisation whose aims are not to enable children to learn about and think about various kinds of Christianity but to promote their own faith. As their website says it is ?a project to promote Christianity?, ?spreading the gospel through relationships? and ?establishing a consistent witness to Christian truth in secondary schools in mytown?. I do not think it is appropriate to hand over responsibility and control of a whole day?s teaching to an organisation that views this as a missionary opportunity with a captive audience.

My impressions from the session I attended were quite alarming:

1. The quiz between houses got the pupils into a state of high excitement, seeking to get the ?right? answers in order win points for their team. While the questions included some religious general knowledge, they also included asking pupils to ?share? as true the accounts of healing miracles they had been told about during the day. This included the story of an elderly woman who was prayed over at church and whose hip bone ?grew back then and there?, and a young man who was in a traffic accident and ?should have died? but was prayed for and was able to survive and get to the hospital in time. In this quiz show atmosphere there was no opportunity for children to exercise critical thinking skills and question whether these accounts are credible, or why people might believe them.

2. As I am sure you heard, in answering a question on creation the lead presenter said ?Some Christians believe that the world is 6,000 years old, others think it is much older. I am not sure, myself. I don?t think science will ever be able to know for sure?. He also said ?Did dinosaurs live at the same time as humans? There are good arguments on both sides?. As control of the whole day was handed over to the STEP outreach workers, there was no opportunity for a teacher to challenge the falsehood that there is any degree of scientific controversy over these two points.

3. The day finished with a slide show photo-montage of the children overdubbed with a Christian rock track ? essentially ?rebranding? them with the group?s message. Can you imagine if McDonalds had come in to teach a nutrition day and finished with a montage of pupils set to a corporate jingle? Photographs of pupils also feature on STEP?s website (presumably without consent, since as far as I know we were not asked for consent for the organisation to take photographs this time).

Overall my impressions were that the day contained a small amount of learning about the Christian religion in a way that would have thought of as appropriate in an ?RS? curriculum, and a large amount of what could only be described (and has been by a number of children I spoke to) as ?preaching?, more akin to something you might experience at a Christian youth group or sunday school.

While it can be valuable to have representatives from different religions as guest speakers in school to talk about their beliefs and practices (even those who think the world is 6,000 years old), I think it is dangerous to hand over control of teaching sessions to representatives of a missionary organisation, particularly one that has shown itself willing to tell lies to children.

I hope you will rethink the planning of this day in future; perhaps to have a religions day with representatives from different religion contributing to sessions, but with the overall facilitation of learning managed by the school.

Great letter! I can't believe that they would let this group teach such nonsense in a school. If you don't get a satisfactory reply, I'd raise this higher - if this has been held before, he's obviously aware of the content. Surely it's not allowed to use photos of children without explicit permission? (not 100% sure as I'm not a parent though).

Oh yes, and I would remove the 'hope you don't mind' at the start - it will strengthen the tone of the letter. Assertive is good.

Moobee -

Thanks for thr comments. I half remember signing a general permission for the school to take photos, so they will probably say it comes under this, my DS also can't swear a 100% that they didn't send home a letter about this day which could have got lost in the black hole of his bag which might have had a note saying if you don't give consent please reply etc.. So I don't want to come on too strong with the consent thing in case there was a letter and we missed it if you see what I mean ,..I still think it's out of order though!

Also I just snuck into the session without asking permission and I don't think they knew I was there.

Very good letter. And good analysis of the downright manipulation via that quiz. This isn't merely the sort of rather naive overenthusiasm causing them to overstep the mark which I'd thought would be the worst case.

If there was a consent form it would have been better opt in, not opt out.

Great letter!

Any permission for photos that you signed for school are just that - for the school not some external evangelical group. I would complain that an external group, with beliefs you do not share, have taken pictures of your child and that you do not give permission for them to be used in any way. Even with schools you can choose whether the photos are used in school or on promotional or web sites. You can change or withdraw your consent at any time - but that isn't relevant as you never gave the group consent in the first place.

GrimmaTheNome - I know she did, but she expressed a reservation about why this was tied in with Christianity, rather than good things in general. I was just explaining how it is relevant to Christianity.

Emailed it now...will keep you all posted!

Have you spoken to any of the other kids or parents to see what their reactions to the day were?

Any chance that anyone else will (or could be persuaded to) complain?

great letter, hope that it has the desired effect and that they get rid of the visits for the future. Hope too they will be running a session to critically review the day with the kids and point out all the issues with their barefaced evangelising of claptrap so at least they get a bit of something out of it such as how to see when these groups are trying to pull fast ones over them...

Great letter! I am too late to comment but if you get to discuss this with him in person I would be asking whether he checked the FAQs on the website too. How much research did he actually do on this group before inviting them in?

Great letter, good luck...

Personally I would have said "you would never let the BNP in for the day so why these dudes, you got shares?" But then I am evil when riled :)

Great letter! Please keep us posted on the response.

Great great letter!!

Well? Any joy?

I think it is very sad that you are getting so worked up about 'Christian day'. Believe it or not this was once a Christian country and the very rules you live by were carved from that heritage. Now I understand the idea of some really 'cool man' hippie types coming in or some hard line fundamentalist preaching eternal damnation would be upsetting but if they are organising a day dedicated to the basic Christian message of love thy neighbour, do not cast the first stone, the merits of being a good Samaritan and the eternal mercy as preached by its founder Jesus Christ, I can only say what a wonderful idea. I would certainly prefer it to a lesson about the quality of justice being better than mercy which is very much on offer at the moment.

If they'd come in for an hour to expound on the Good Samaritan I don't think many people would have been fussed. Have you read what they actually did? Is coming into a school and saying:' 'some people say the world is 6,000 years old, some people think it is a lot older, it is controversy that science can never solve', 'did dinosaurs and humans live at the same time? There are good arguments on both sides' all fine and dandy?

I would think most Christians in the UK would agree with everyone else that this shouldn't have happened.

Take it to the head.