to think God has no place in my 5 year old's school

[MeSoFunny]

She told me at bedtime last night that 'bad people die but Jesus came to suffer for us so we don't have to'. We're not religious, in fact we're Humanists, and fail to see why a non-religious school would be inviting a local youth 'education' group in to give regular assemblies to children this young (if at all).

Why aren't other people questioning it? Why aren't our children being encouraged to develop critical faculties? I'm feeling frustrated and cross.

"Why shouldnt Christians present their religion as 'true' - they believe it is! You are horrified by them telling your children about Jesus, they are probably equally horrified when they hear people saying they dont believe in it."

It does not matter what a teacher believes- he or she has no right to present Christianity as truth as he or she has to say that socialism is the only political way forward.

And for the 9000th time, nobody is saying they don't want their child told about Jesus. They are saying that they don't want their child told by the same person who tells them that 6 times 6 is 36 that Jesus was the son of god, and rose from the dead and how to pray to him.

A HT cannot 'change a school from CoE to RC'! [mumarchy 10:25:53]
The teacher may be RC but if it is a CE school then it is usually affiliated to the parish church.An RC school is completely different.
Honestly if the only thing you can object to in your children's education is that they are being told Bible Stories which have been the centre of our culture for over 2000 years then you are lucky.

wellthen

All state schools in England conduct Christian worship. Why? Because they have to.

This is a dreadful argument. Laws can be changed (sodomy used to be illegal in this country).

thegreylady no one objects to bible stories being taught to children. It's their presentation as fact they object to. I think this may have been mentioned at least 100 times on the thread

I used to work in a year 5 class supporting a boy with global delay. The class teacher was a RC (it was a CofE school) and she was teaching the children about the parable of the loaves and the fishes in an RE lesson. The child I was with asked if it really happened and the teacher said that yes, it really did happen and it was a miracle. How confusing for a child who had only just managed to master his number bonds to 10!

"Honestly if the only thing you can object to in your children's education is that they are being told Bible Stories which have been the centre of our culture for over 2000 years then you are lucky." Agggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Which bit of "nobody minds kids being told bible stories" is so hard to understand? Which bit of "nobody objects to children being told about Cjristinaity" is so very difficult to grasp?

No your school is not being unreasonable, they are following THE LAW.

And I think that is the whole point, which has been occasionally missed on this thread. If you don't agree that schools should have a broadly Christian act of worship every day, don't try and change your school, try and change the law.

Grey lady.. She hasnt changed the school, just where the christmas service is held.
The school was never COE or RC to start with. Just the christmas service was traditionally always held in the local COE church which many of us had grown fond of.

wilsonfrickett I think the first step to getting rid of this law has already started. DofE has basically told schools they can ignore the law.

schools can ignore the law

One extract from the article

A spokesperson for the Department for Education told the NSS: "The guidance has not been withdrawn, but we are now leaving it up to schools to interpret the law how they see fit."

So yes it is technically the law to have an act of worship everyday as schools are permitted to interpret this as loosely as they want its kind of irrelevant.

Wellthen - lots of people believe astrology is true. That's no argument for teaching it in schools.

"All state schools in England conduct Christian worship. Why? Because they have to."

That's not actually true. All schools are required to provide an act of Christian worship, but how they actually interpret that varies so widely that it's fair to see some as religious, others as non-religious.

For our two local infant schools for example, one makes the children say grace at lunch, they sing hymns and pray in assembly and talk about god and Jesus as fact.

The other has no hymns, prayer, saying grace or presentation of the bible as fact. They interpret the "act of worship" requirement by asking the children to sit quietly in assembly for a few minutes and think about "wonder and awe" (concepts they've talked to then about previously).

The two schools are 10 minutes apart, both state schools, totally different approach. (We've gone for the non religious one, we much prefer it's ethos in general, including their stance on religion.)

And anyway, as has been mentioned, schools have effectively been given the green light to ignore the requirement these days anyway.

If people want to do something about it, perhaps an awareness raising campaign so the schools know they can ignore it now?

Its not it's. Bloody iPhone!

There is a petition on the government petitions website about making prayer non-compulsory in schools. If the compulsory element was removed then you would at least have stronger grounds to petition any particularly crazy and indoctrination-prone headteachers to change.

The one I was looking for isn't there, but this is a different petition which is asking for pretty much the same thing: epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/46505

Thanks, I signed that Teddy, even though personally I do belong to a faith community as a Quaker, but I agree with petition that faith & prayer should be within families and faith communities and not necessarily in maintained schools (also individual schools would still have the choice to engage in activities that could be described as worship if they chose to, but this would remove the compulsory element) - I thought it was very well written.
I was only the fourth signatory though. I'd encourage people to have a look at it and see what you think ?

Thanks Teddy I signed it too.

Only 5 signatures, have a feeling it will take more than that.

I've signed and tweeted the link

I'm off into school this afternoon for parents' evening. I'll have a chat with them about it then. Thanks for the epetition link. Signed and shared.

There was a similar petition a few years back,but asking the opposite, it had a huge amount of support

God has no place? i blame the parents. they should have known to get His name down early...

It is, of course, possible that God's abode is outside all known catchment areas....

And for the 9000th time I am not talking about RE lessons where a TEACHER would tell children about christianity and shouldnt be presenting it as fact, I'm talking about WORSHIP. Where it may well be by Christian visitors.

I agree, if the law is the problem then by all means try to change it. But these threads constantly bash schools and Heads and make out that Heads are all indoctrinating their children in secret. This is what I find annoying and offensive. If the law is up the school to interpret then you may find your school interprets it as 'classic C of E style Christian worship'