Is this hypocritical?

[shattereddreams]

If I seem vague at any point, its because I don't want to out myself
I also don't post here too often, but this is bugging me so over to you lot...

Local vicar chose not to send his/her children to the religous school in town, just chose a bog standard school (my DC attend).

Vicar has complained to head about the way the school covered the topic of Diwali because the teaching was based too much around the celebration of Diwali. Apparently pupils should only be taught about the festival and not that it is a celebration.

Yet, there has been no complaint about the nativity, Easter puppet show and endless other religious themed things (which obviously match his/her beliefs).

I found this years Christmas and Easter stuff way too religious for me (agnostic) but I am not complaining about it to the head.

I don't do religion full stop, but it seems very hypocritcal to complain only about the religious learning that is not in line with your own beliefs WHEN YOU'RE A VICAR.....

AIBU about the hypocrisy?

I don't understand how you know about another parent's complaints, tbh.

It's a Christian country.

How do you know about this. have been reliably informed or are going off schoolgate gossip?

I don't see how that's hypocrisy.

YANBU, in my opinion. If the school is not a faith school it will follow the approved syllabus for RE, which varies from county to county. This will tell the school what it should teach about each faith (and humanism in some ounties). For the record, I teach in a C of E school, but we talk about the celebrations of many faiths-especially if they are celebrated by children I teach, Diwali was a fabulous time!

It definitely happended but it is not school gate gossip, far from it hence I am trying to put my feelings into context here. And not that I think I would take any action.
I just keep going over and over it.

I can't say how I know about the complaint because I am probably saying too much already

But it's not just that you say you know about A Complaint. You say there have been No Complaints about other stuff.

Are you a school governor?

What is a Diwali celebration?

crafymoo - is that syllabus published or would I need to ask LEA?

no linerunner, nothing like that.
I am just a parent that thinks the vicar is a hyprocrit.

I happen to know for a fact that the vicar made the complaint.

Well, it's a mystery.

I mean that if the complaint was justified, surely celebrating all religions should be a part of the complaint, not just Diwali

I would agree that if you're going to complain about the teaching of the religious nature of a celebration, then it shouldn't matter which religion is the subject of your complaint. I.e. complain about the involvement of religion full stop, regardless of which religion it may be.

I don't think I've said that very well. I suppose I'm trying to say that it does seem hypocritical that you would only complain about the teaching of one religious ceremony and not about ceremonies from other religions.

FWIW my mum teaches in a C of E school. They have Christian prayers in assemblies etc, and the whole school goes to church at special occasions. They don't go to the temple or synagogue, obviously. But they do teach about the ceremonies of other religions at the relevant points in the calendar. It would be hard to avoid, seeing as 40% of the school's intake are Muslim

x post. You're right. Complain about all religious celebrations, or none at all.

shattereddreams, I checked using a few of our local counties. If you Google "name of county" agreed syllabus for RE, it should come up. HTH. Oh, just check that it is the one for community/ county school, not the faith ones; they are different. I mainly teach Christianity, but a bit of the other faiths, DS (in a community school, half a mile away) visited a synagogue for his main trip last term!