Stop trying to indoctrinate my child!

[DisappointedOne]

DD is 4 and started in the nursery class of our catchment school in Sept - it's not a church school. It's a full time place. We knew that there would be assemblies but the head assured us that they didn't follow a strict religious script, more world issues etc. We could live with that.

However, DD's teacher appears to be providing religious instruction to the children throughout the day - prayers on the morning, grace at lunchtime, hymns in the afternoon. I'm beyond furious. We want DD to have a rounded education and learn about all manner of belief and non-belief systems so that she can decide her own beliefs herself. Why the fuck is her teacher trying to indoctrinate 3 and 4 year olds to her beliefs?!

We're away this week but planning on taking this up with the head. Has anyone else tackled this sort of thing before?

Fugacity; but the child isn't just being taught Christian values (or 'values' as most of us know them) she is being taught how to be a Christian, which her mother, one of the only two people who get to make the choices about her child's religious instruction, clearly isn't comfortable with that.
That really should be the end of the discussion.

Fuga But those values tend to prevail with moral people of most religions and atheists (eg. Honesty, generosity, money isn't the centre of everything...).
Adding something as specific as Grace is a bit odd and does sound like they're making children worship in a religion they may well not hold. Not on.

The teacher is abusing her position to peddle her own faith. Not acceptable. If she's doing this without the knowledge of the Head, arguably a disciplinary matter.

Tiggy but the accepted norm is a hymn or universal-moral-tagged-onto-Christian-story assembly. Not grace. That's actually quite intimate and devout, even amongst a group of Christians many won't say grace... most faith schools, even independent ones don't do it.

Really fed up with posters who, over any complaint about a school, tell the OP to shut up and withdraw her child if she's not happy. What complete nonsense. An individual teacher should not be at liberty to indoctrinate the children who happen to be in her class. Would certain posters be as happy about it if the teacher were Muslim and had introduced the Muslim prayer schedule?

The problem is tiggy that if the acts of worship are woven seamlessly into the fabric of the day it becomes practically impossible to withdraw your child from them.

And you can't just say "well I won't send my child to that school then" because a) many people don't have a realistic choice of schools b) non-faith schools generally aren't up front about their extent of religious worship or lack of it so it's really difficult to find out their position until your child is there (or even then if you have an uncommunicative four year old) and c) this example apparently isn't about the school as a whole, just one teacher.

Couldn't agree more Vicarscat, the predictability of those responses is depressing, changing schools is a big deal for a child. It's ridiculous advice.

Exactly unikitty- the christian worship was woven into the school day, with frequent metioning of Jesus, how wonderful god is for bringing nice weather, even had a "Table of Creation" in my DDs class.

The school day was peppered with religious doctrine.
It would have been impossible to remove a child a dozen times a day from the classroom.

"a lot of how worship happens is down to what the Head and school decide."

And therein lies the problem- the head has free reign to peddle as much religion as he likes- as our did. And the law protects that.

Parents do have individual power over it though (they can withdraw their child)

Can't we just withdraw religion from schools? (I don't mean RE)

You can still go to Church. You and your child still have the freedom to practice religion and others have the from from religion.

from - mean freedom

So what happens when a family that feels strongly on the subject gets allocated a "non-faith" school with a very full on religious programme tiggy? Does the appeals system take any notice of the difference between a "let's have a little think together about the virtue of kindness" school and a "We thank thee Lord for the Turkey Twizzlers thou hast bestowed upon us this day" school? Especially when it comes to, say, Jewish/JW families who really do care about it. Or does the system just assume that because all schools are playing by the same laws they are all functionally equivalent?

kim147

That sounds like a good idea but there is already a more than suitable alternative - church! People are free to attend church for all the worship they need.

OP I do think making an appointment with the head and trying to understand what is happening on a daily basis in the classroom and during assembly would be a good starting point.

As a family we are not particularly religious however growing up we had what would broadly be described as Christian values, as scientists we believe in evolution not creation and only go to Church for events. Our DC attended state schools and learnt the hymns, grace and the christian stories along with some from other religions, to me it is part and parcel of our culture and I never felt it did them any harm but did make them feel part of the school family as they were not singled out. They are both excellent singers and very good with hymns.

My DC are now older teenagers and have very much made up their own minds that there is no God and that they do not believe. They used what they learnt at school to draw their own conclusions

Can't we just withdraw religion from schools? (I don't mean RE)

Only if there's a change in the law. Schools cannot make that happen though. State schools follow the rules and laws set for state schools.

That was what I was getting at tiggy instead of the responses on this thread to move the child. Schools are for education, not to pedal religion.

It's high time worship was removed from schools. People will still have the freedom to worship. No toes will be stepped on.

The bishop of Oxford isn't keen on compulsory worship in schools.

The Humanist Association did attempt some years ago to get the Welsh Govenrment to change the requirement for worship. Sadly they didnt advertise it effectively. The church issued a counter-petition and marketed IT aggressively, getting more signatures so the Welsh Govt decided that a larger proportion of the population wanted it than didn't.

I have asked why would happen if we opted to withdraw DD and was told "we don't know, it's never happened before". I suspect most parents don't know (or more likely don't really care). I would love the school to be more progressive and look at all matters of spirituality but it's just ingrained in the fibre.

I agree that religious activity shouldn't be part of school life - worship in your own time if you want to. I don't appreciate JWs knocking on my door to force their religion down my throat either (happily they've blacklisted us and don't bother anymore).