To wonder why non-believers send their doc to faith schools

[Latetothematch]

Not a thread about a thread but thought whilst reading a thread when reading 'dc goes to a faith school and comes home with questions but we don't believe'.

Why send your child to a school where you do not believe what it is teaching?

Applauds MinesAPint and BackOnlyBriefly and signs petition immdiately. MinesAPint I think I cross-posted with you - I type slowly!

I went to a C of E primary school (and Sunday school-my mum was a Christian) and remember patently not believing the teacher when she was recounting the story of the resurrection. "Maybe he wasn't really dead when they put him in the cave?"

She was horrified and told my parents about it at parents evening!

Agreement here with others about attandance at faith schools non necessarily creating believers. (Just children who are sick of colouring in beardy guys on donkeys)

The English school system is crazy! I salute you all for having to deal with it.
Would the Scottish admissions model not work there? The only faith schools we have (as far as I know anyway) are Catholic and are not the only school in the area.
You are guaranteed a place in whichever state schools catchment you are in, although you can apply to others out with the catchment.
I think many schools have some sort of SEN provision and most towns have a dedicated enhanced provision school.
In DS school (and indeed the attached pre school), they celebrate all festivals and learn about all faiths - I believe they have a weekly whole school assembly to celebrate individual and class achievements. This incorporates collective worship with leaders from different faiths.

Maybe because non believers are finding the faith school and feel that they have every right to send their school to such a school if it is the best fit for their child?

The nearest school to us is a C of E/Methodist school, this is where DD goes. The next nearest school is another C of E school and the one after that is another Methodist.

Go figure!

Tbh, there's a lot more to the school than the faith bit. It's a good school and DD is thriving. Worship is such a small part.

The last school that she went to was also a C of E school. Again, it was our closest one when we lived at our old house. There was another non faith county primary school nearby but we didn't stand a cat in hells chance of getting in. The third closest school was a Catholic school.

I think I'm starting to repeat myself/everyone else!

Suburban Rhonda, I'm not sure about the opting out situation. I thought that re lessons are compulsory in primary and secondary and you can't opt out. I think it is collective worship that can be opted out of in both primary and secondary. Re lessons teach about all religions, moral issues, tolerance and understanding so there shouldn't be a need for any religion to opt out.

No choice! If all local schools are chocablock, you're lucky to get into a local school at all, let alone be picky about whether it's C of E or not. It's an outrageous situation, but it's the reality in many cities across the UK.

I'd love to know exactly what is taught in RE these days in state schools. I'd be willing to bet it will be something like:

"Hands up who knows why Jesus died for us"

"And what did Moses do when his people started believing in false gods"

I don't really get why it's such an issue to some. Judging by declining religious adherence, presumably large numbers of people have had a religious education but still ended up atheists. Given that, it seems as though a mildly religious education is actually quite effective at producing atheist adults.

Who's to say that an atheist education wouldn't have the opposite effect? After all, the US has separation of church and state built into the Constitution, and the US religious lobby is a huge force there, far greater than in the UK with its nominally established church.

Manatee, maybe we should be making clearer the difference between atheism and secularism. I would prefer a secular education system because it meets the needs of those of all religions and none.

And I don't really think the fact that many religiously educated people turn out as non-believers makes the dominance of Christianity in our schools any more acceptable.

Tell you what, Manatee, let's go further and introduce more teaching along the same lines.

I think most English schools should teach children as fact that Chelsea is the world's greatest football team. We can give over an hour or so a week of their limited taxpayer-funded school hours to that, mixed in with a bit of discussion of other football teams. Occasionally we may allude to the idea that other sports are available.

If parents aren't Chelsea fans themselves they can always move, or start their own school. Or they could withdraw their child from Chelsea lessons entirely, but then they'll probably have to miss out on games lessons too as football might come up in those. And everyone on Mumsnet will tut at them and say "well, why did you send your child to a Chelsea school if you weren't prepared to support the whole Oscar/Hazard/Torres thing?".

Mind you, moving won't do them much good as daily whole-school fan singalongs of "Ten Men Went to Mow", "Blue Flag" and "Over Land And Sea" will be compulsory in all schools in England and Wales unless they get special dispensation.

I don't really get why that would be an issue to some. After all, it's not as though most of the kids would end up as Chelsea supporters as adults.

Here, because they're the best schools. Nothing to do with lack of non denomination schools.

www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/typesofschools/academies/open/a00225252/religious-education-academies
Ask to exercise your right of withdrawal
I did for DD in year 10 so that RE does not get in the way of her GCSEs
I'll do the same with DS

Manatee if making kids worship a particular god didn't work at all then ask yourself why is it that religious groups are fighting so hard to gain control of it.

And as others have said this isn't about religious education which is fine, but worship & indoctrination which is not.

97% of primary schools here are faith schools so there is no choice but even if their were I still like the values of faith schools even if I think most of the doctrine is nonsense.

Our options were excellent faith school where they pray four times a day, a vocational school where they are training to appear on the Jeremy Kyle show, private or home educate.

We chose an independent school and if circumstances change in the future we will home educate.

At DCs CofE school I was the atheist governor. I helped write the worship policy as I was deemed impartial

I wouldn't on principle send my children to a faith school if I was of a different faith or an unbeliever. I think it's better state education and religion are kept separate.

No other choice without leaving the area. It's a CofE school which is massively undersubscribed on faith grounds. Which is handy as massively oversubscribed by everyone who lives around it.

I've told DD I can take her out of worship but she doesn't want to be the odd one out. Which at 6 is understandable.

We're in Ireland, in a small village. The state-financed village school, and all the schools in the surrounding villages, are catholic. They have enrollment policies which state that baptised children, whether from within the parish or not, have prioroty over unbaptised children. So even though we live almost next door to the school, our children are guaranteed not to get into it unless we baptise them.

Possibly because it's the closest school and they don't want them to trek across town.

Some people choose a faith school because the school has a good reputation and they aren't too bothered about it being a faith school.

Ds attends a COE school. I'm Catholic and ds and dh are both non believers. If we wanted him to attend a non faith school we would have had to either move house or go private and we can't afford and don't want to do either.

Ds really likes the school and doesn't seem too bothered about the religious aspects. Church service in addition to the religious worship that takes place in school is optional. Sometimes ds goes but most of the time he doesn't.

My sons go to CofE primary. I am an atheist.

Here's why - we live in a village. There is one primary school in the village - the CofE primary.

Oh, but they could go to the one in the next village - also CofE. And the next nearest 10 primaries are all also CofE.

Because there is no other option here, the primaries do not require you to be religious (or pretend to be) for a place, it's done on catchment area. I stated that I was an atheist on the application.

I could have sent them to a community primary in the nearest town, but - 1) not in catchment so no guarantee of a place. 2) would have had to drive them, they can walk to their primary which I think is important 3) all their friends are at the local primary 4) you still get the God stuff even at "normal" primary schools.

They will not go to the CofE high school, as there I have a choice.

My son's school wasn't ever so religious when they started, but they have a new head, who is influencing the character of the place.

This was why they did no Halloween stuff this year, son told me "we are a Christian school so we do not celebrate Halloween, that's what Mr Headmaster told us in assembly".

They've also done Operation Christmas Child for the first time this year, in fact their "homework" one week was to fill a shoebox. Mine didn't (see many other threads for why not).

Son's teacher told him in a science lesson "the reason those seeds have hooks is because God created them".

Hmmm.

When our local catchment school happened to be C of E, and was also a lovely school that I felt would serve my DS really well.

I didn't tihnk it mattered that it was C of E, and DSis now in Year 6 and the religious stuff has not affected him negatively, he doesn't believe in it but he has respect for other people's beliefs and a good understanding of Christian beliefs too, which can't be a bad thing.

No one rams it down his throat at school, and nothing ever happens that easily identifies the believers from the non-believers, so it doesn't really effect us that it is C of E.