To think that parents should have a say in how often religious leaders lead assembly in a community school

[ReallyTired]

I naively thought I had chosen a community school. Yet my daughter is having an assembly once a week with a church of england vicar. I am not an atheist and I really do not want to withdraw her from RE and assemblies, but I feel once a week is excessive for a community school. You might want to ask why I object to a vicar coming every week when I attend church, but his take on theology is different from mine. I want to be in complete control of my daughter's religious upbringing/ indoctrination.

I feel angry by the sly way it has been done. I know that there is a legal requirement for christian worship, but weekly visits is indocrination. Its more often than we go to a different church. My daughter's school is one third muslim and they are essentially having a christian religious service once a week. The new head never told anyone that she was going have the vicar every week. Why does the govenment do nothing about "Christian" trojan horses? My daughter's school is more religious than any of the church schools I attended.

I want schools to be clear in their prospectus how much religion there is. I feel its wrong that a new head can unilaterally make a community school more religious than a church school without telling/ consulting the parents. I feel its an abuse of power to make a community school ultra religious.

well, since it's 1915, it's to be expected right?

oops. got the century wrong.

MrsTerryPrachett - I'm not advocating it at all. It just must be very tempting to get a bit of a breather. I'm completely in favour of secularisation of education. I would like to see RE continue, but only as a cultural study, no indoctrination. I donate to the BHA and specifically to their schools and education campaigns.

I agree that there are many other people in the community who would be better choices for assemblies.

And how do you know that I use Netflix as a babysitter? Are you my mum?

Pico the sarcastic tone was with you, not at you.

I'm am not your Mum but I think ours Mums talk. About the feckless modern mothers using technology to parent. Or something. I'm too busy playing Hay Day to process what she's saying.

Our old head used to get people from the fire service or the local community police officer or local MP. It was great as the kids actually learnt some useful in the time. There was even an Olympian bronze medallist who came to an assembly.

Why waste an assembly slot with the local priest each week? The children time is precious.

I think state schools should be secular. I am fine with "doing religion" in a cultural waya Nativity play, an Eidh event, a Diwali festivalas long as there is no praying or proselytizing.

The CoE has historically been a pretty mild and moderate force, but the problem is that having them play a role means that it is harder to say "no" to the people who really do take their religion seriously--like hardline Wahhabists and those increasing numbers of evangelical Christians that we are seeing. It would be better to draw a clear line in the sand and say "no religion." Unfortunately, we already have faith schools set up, so it is complicated....

Thats a very fixed view, OP. If you attend church once weekly why the issue with a school having a vicar there once weekly...? Your DD is hardly going to be brainwashed by it. Relax.

I chose community school. If I had wanted to I could easily chosen a faith school. I didn't want my child in a Christian bubble.

Christianity is incredibly varied. Some churches are more liberal than others. The particular priest has a very literal interpretation of the bible. I know that he is anti women priests, gay marriage and abortion. I don't think he would dare admit his views in a school, but his church is conservative evangelical.
He is using assembly to build up relationships with children.

I think a child who attends a mainstream church is more likely to be influenced by a priest at school.

The Church of England does have conservative evangelicals in it. The c of e is incredibly varied. There are churches with lots of incense like the catholics and very conservative evangelical churches.

For those who think the c of e is harmless

reform.org.uk/about/what-is-reform

Now can you see why I am rather fussy who preaches to my children.

It's ridiculous. I had a thread some time ago about the same thing, OP.
I asked the school why we weren't getting a variety of community leaders (including varied religious heads) in to talk at assemblies. At a non-church school, if they are having the C of E in then they should be having everyone in. But to talk. Not to worship, which is what happens at our school. Prayer (enforced, until I stamped my feet, now optional), an hour of hymns once a week, bible stories. All from the same man every week. They hand out flyers and give info out about their church.
I challenged the school, said it was archaic and just a shame that they couldn't show the children more variety. I asked how the parents at the school would react if it were an Islamic leader coming in every week, and given it was not a church school, suggested it was inappropriate to have the same person coming in all the time. Fortunately, the person I spoke to agreed with me, and the tiny step I made was to get the prayer and hymn singing made optional.
baby steps. I'm hoping for a government that gets rid of daily acts of worship

I don't think that people realise that a community school is non denominational and not secular. I also think they have never read the education acts and the law on collective worship in all schools.

I find your posts disturbing, OP.

It's all very well to be concerned about who is preaching what to your children - but any parent, no matter what they believe, who talks about their own right to "indoctrinate" their child their way should be ashamed of themselves.

Withdraw your child from whatever you like. But bear in mind that your child has the right not to be indoctrinated by anyone and that includes you.

Exactly caffe - bring them up to question everything- starting with you.
People seem to have such a dim view of their children and assume they can't think for themselves.
I also can't understand the obsession for children having to have the same opinions and beliefs as you. Why should it matter?

If it was indoctrination the churches would be full every Sunday!

If it was successful indoctrination the churches would be full. Just because it isn't doesn't mean it should be ignored.

Religion is such a personal thing it should be left in the home. State education should be secular, the state should stay out of religion and vice versa.

I think you are totally overreacting. But I can sort of see your perspective.

For everyone saying that all state schools should be secular - you DO remember that we don't have a separation of church and state in this country? And that our monarch is the Head of the Church of England...right?

So even if in practise we are actually much more secular than other countries who DO have a separation between the two, but only really in theory (USA anyone?), C of E is still the State religion. Therefore, it makes sense that some schools only have C of E people coming in.

It's not a personal attack on people of other religions. It's logical that as the religion of the State, it is reflected - MINIMALLY - in schools.

Getting in a flap over "indoctrination" from a once weekly visit is ludicrous. If you have genuine concerns that the person visiting might be using the visit inappropriately (eg saying all gays should burn in hell, or that C of E is the one TRUE religion and everyone else is evil), then that's one thing. But if it's just a guy coming in, talking about his community work, or giving a service (that no-one will be paying attention to anyway), then....well you would sound pretty hysterical.

If it helps at all, I went to a faith school for years and years and YEARS. Our Religious Studies were focused entirely on Christianity (but from a practical and historical point of view, like the differences in translations, why some gospels were considered ok and some excluded from the bible, political situation with the romans and judaism at the time...that sort of thing).

We had religious assembly every single day and sang hymns. We had mass multiple times throughout the term. We would have talks from people in the Christian community, and the vast majority of our teachers were involved in work within the community as well.

I would say that about 85% of the people in my year grew up to be agnostic, atheist, or not giving any religion any thought at all. The remaining 15% were people who had very religious parents to begin with.

So try and have a bit less hysteria, and a little more faith that a person's brain isn't so pathetic that it can be indoctrinated so easily

It can't change without an act of parliament- you need to actively campaign if you want change - there are several ones you can join.

Actually, schools in England have been told they don't need to have a "mainly Christian" act of worship daily. Here in Wales the rules haven't been relaxed but schools do have assemblies about the environment etc rather than all hymns and prayers of they want to.

I went to a church secondary school. I CHOSE that for myself (am now atheist). My issue isn't actually with assembly. It would be easy if it was.

My issue is that teachers are free to add additional religious INSTRUCTION into the day. When I asked what DD would be doing if we excluded her from assembly (an absolutely last resort) I was told about the extra morning, lunchtime and afternoon prayers. So it's not a case of excluding her once a day. It's THROUGHOUT the day which is completely unacceptable.

Not going to get involved with another discussion of why I withdrew my child from assemblies (they are free to teach him ABOUT religion, but not make him participate in one), but if anyone wants to use the wording written by a teacher stating the legal situation and which parts you are using to withdraw your child, PM me and I'll send you a copy.

The grass is not always greener, op.

There is a secular school in my area with distinctly themes running through its assembly schedule and policy. I know a lot of the parents don't realise what some of the messages are, and could very well be a bit if they knew.

Indoctrination is not just the province of religion.

Every child in the land is indoctrinated by their parents. A child under thirteen is rarely capable of independent religious thought. Most small children take on the beliefs of their parents implicitly. A small child will only change their religious views if they are influenced by people outside their family. I feel its every parents responsiblity to think about who is trying to influenence young minds. As children get older they can make their own decisions because they are less impressionable and have gained more knowledge of the world.

There is a lot in the press about Muslims being radicalised. I am sure that many parents wish that they had managed to keep their children away from certain preachers. Believe it or not every major religion has its share of radicals including christians. Fundermentalist christians may not be suicide bombers, but its still something I want to guard my daughter against.

I agree with you OP, it's too much. I went to a community school and while I do remember the local vicar coming in every now and then it was probably more like a term and he spoke more about 'moral' issues rather than discussing religion. If it was a different faith coming in each week to teach the children then fine, I would agree that that's appropriate and useful. Not C of E, every single week.

We are lucky that our Head teacher is an atheist (not that the children know this) and whilst she does keep nice links with our local church, she does vary assemblies with different religious and community representatives.

My DS hates all mention of religion but he usually likes the local vicars stories, as they have a nice moral. He just ignores the bit at the end when the vicar adds a religious slant to it.

As an atheist, I would prefer that no religion is taught in schools, but it's part of the curriculum.

My job, as a parent, is to listen to DS when he talks about religion and ask him what he thinks and get him to express his views. When he was younger, he would ask me what I thought and I would respond with 'it's not important what I think, it's about how you feel'. Now he is older and has very set views (anti-religion) I am happy to give him my view.

As a parent, you have a number of choices - go and speak to the school and ask them about their RE teaching and visitors and either A - remove your child from any religious teaching/celebrations or B - let them listen and make their own minds up.

ReallyTired, I totally disagree that a child under thirteen is rarely capable of independent religious thought.

I am a life-long atheist despite my believing parents sending me to church and Sunday school every week. I grew up overseas and when I was 7, my parents were asked to remove me from my school because I refused to pray and told them that there was no god. Apparently I was a bad influence on the other children and a 'nasty little heathen'.

I was reading Bertrand Russell by the time I was 10.

My DH is also a life-long atheist - who got thrown out of assembly at his school at the age of 6 for telling them that Homo Sapiens was the first man not Adam, which was just a made up story - and his mother is a vicar.

We take a lot of care not to express our lack of belief to our daughter but encourage her to ask questions about everything - why people might choose to believe in a god since you can see him etc. She's told us that she believes in god because her teacher told her about him. (I know the teacher is atheist so I'm not wondering if she's being indoctrinated).

I totally disapprove of religion of the worship variety in schools - even if it doesn't make people more likely to become religious and seems like a molehill to a lot of people. Given recent statements from the CofE of the importance of catching the kids when they are young, they obviously believe they can indoctrinate.

Talks from a variety of religious leaders - great, but I expect the school to balance that with presenting alternatives such as Humanism. IIRC, the BHA have names of members who are happy to go into schools.

But for now, humanism or non-religious beliefs are off the table in religious education classes (and with the current Minister, what a surprise that is), and Humanists don't even get a vote on SACRE committees - only big faith groups do and yet an ever larger percentage of the UK population do not have a religious faith.