to not want DS to go to school which doesn't celebrate Christmas?

[Clarathemagnificent]

We are currently researching primary schools for DS who is due to start next September.

There is one which is literally metres from our front door which has a good local reputation and excellent results.

However, there is one thing which doesn't sit right with me and that is that the school doesn't celebrate Christian festivals such as Easter and Christmas. There is no school nativity and so on. They have a 'Celebration lunch' at Christmas but the word Christmas is deliberately not used so as not to offend those of other cultures.

This makes me extremely uncomfortable because although I'm not a Christian myself, I feel it's an important part of our culture and identity as a Christian country. I also disagree with the idea that celebrating Christianity can be offensive to others and think this very notion is divisive in itself. It concerns me a great deal especially considering we are from an ethnic minority.

AIBU to consider not sending DS to this school purely for these reasons even though by all other accounts it's a good school?

You're not a Christian but want to celebrate Christian traditions and think it's wrong that non Christians don't? Is that right?
Christmas is and always will be a Christian celebration. The clue is in the name!

If your school is 90% Muslim I think it's batshit crazy to put on a nativity play and make a big deal about Christmas.

I'm not from the UK and I was cross when my 4 year old was in the nativity. Because I wasn't expecting it. I was expecting a secular education.

If you have a lot of parents not from the UK you could upset the majority of your reception class's parents. Why would you want to do this? That's just setting the school up for a bad relationship with parents.

Are you really cross about this? Or are you actually concerned about the school demographics ?

Christmas is and always will be a Christian celebration. The clue is in the name! It's a co-opted midwinter festival, the clue is in the time of year.

OP buggered off? There's a surprise.

I think you're potentially being unreasonable to not want to send him there, simply because they don't celebrate religious holidays. However, you have every right to send your child to a school that feels right to you. My girls' school (they are only in pre-prep) celebrate all major religious holidays from all religions I believe and I try to do the same with them at home. It's definitely important for children to learn about what is important to people of all faiths and see them with the same importance. Especially as we do not follow a religion ourselves. I suppose celebrating none of the religious holidays is the total opposite, but that won't stop you teaching your children about them at home, will it? Will they not have christmas at home?

What mrsTerry ?

'Would you expect Christians in a majority Muslim country to celebrate Muslim holidays?'

Geeky not entirely the same but my dd is about to start a school with a Muslim majority which celebrates both Muslim and Christian festivals. I expect dd to partake in both celebrations within school. Obviously she won't fast as we aren't Muslim but I expect her to take part in any other activities in a learning manner.

Just as the Muslim children in the school I worked in made Christmas cards and decorations and took part in the nativity.

So what about the minor issue of what teaching and learning is like?

One of things we liked about the school my kids go to, is that they do something for loads of different things.

Christmas is celebrated, but so is eid, Diwali etc. They are all done in a fairly low key way. No huge parties.

You can base your decision on whatever you want, and I suppose this is something that contributes to the "feel" of a school.

A lot of (most) UK schools waste absolutely staggering amounts of teaching time on "doing Christmassy things" and all sorts of long protracted winding down for the end of term and rehersing nativities in which most of the children don't have much of a role - could be one of the reasons most European countries outperform the UK in standardised testing at age 15 despite shorter school days and fewer years of compulsory education... so perhaps schools that don't faff about with that will have a cumulative total of many months of extra teaching time over 8 years of primary school! :o

I'd have no problems with ds's school not celebrating Christmas. Ds prefers routine and gets stressed out by all the changes.

I think I would be considering other schools in your situation. Not everyone is Christian but it is the largest faith in this country and many people who are of other faiths or none celebrate it. I often wonder who the people who are offended are- recognition of the celebrations of other faiths is a much more positive thing to do. A child knowing about Ramadan or Hannukah is a better thing to do than having no Christmas celebrations.

wouldn't concern me at all.

Yes I'd email them and say it's really important to you and can they outline how they celebrate Xmas

I personally think learning about all religions in RE lessons and doing any actual "celebrating" at home/ outside school time is absolutely the right way to go.

But if you have a genuine choice of otherwise equally good schools where you live and it matters to you that a big deal is made of Christmas then it makes as much sense to choose based on that as on whether you like the head or the reception class teacher (given people can leave any time) or whether your DC's best mate is going there etc.

It would put me off if they didn't celebrate or teach the kids about different religions/cultures. My DTs are only in nursery but they have already learnt about/celebrated Eid, Diwali, Chinese New Year and Christmas and Easter. It's a shame that they will be missing out on experiencing other cultures.

It would put me off too.

I'm Christian but my DS doesn't believe in any religion. However he understands that others have beliefs he doesn't - and he's grown up through schools that celebrate Christmas, eid, Diwali etc.

I believe a big part of educating children, especially in the current climate, is mutual respect for other beliefs regardless of your own.

I think schools should mark or celebrate all the major festivals of communities around the world, but leave room for families to do the main celebrating at home and in their communities. The focus should be more educational at school, learning the stories and customs of each faith in a respectful way.
I do think schools can go a bit overboard with Christmas though. IMHO the children should still be learning things not just practicing for the school nativity having parties and watching Christmas movies - though those can all be worth doing too depending a bit on how it's done.
For me this would only be a minor consideration in choosing a school though. Part of me likes the idea of leaving it more to families and communities to celebrate festivals with the child. Education should happen outside of school too, and this should be recognised by schools.
But I do think festivals and celebrations are an important part of life. It does seem slightly joyless which would bother me.

It would put me off. If they make such an uninformed politically correct decision about this (I've never known any one of any religion be offended by Christmas) what other crap do they force on the kids. Steer well clear if I was you

The OP's gone.

There's a surprise .

I'm with MrsTerry. Christmas isn't in the bible. We know Jesus wasn't born in the winter, Christmas is a consumerist (negative) or social (positive) event, Many Christians don't celebrate Christmas.though most do, because of the cake & carols...

I'm a Christian and I love Christmas but I hate the way schools hype up Christmas to a ridiculous degree. Especially in the infant years, they end the term pale faced from constant treats, jumpy and grabby from incessant Santa talk, chocolate advent calendars in the classroom and the like.

It makes it really hard to make a magical family Christmas after all that

I'd be torn. We break up by mid December so all the glitter, tinsel, advent calendar and Santa crap seems more depressing than exciting to me, especially as I find Christmas hard for personal reasons.

However, I'm a performing arts teacher and all the Christmas drama and music is magical to me. I would hate to not do the Carol service, Nativity, Christmas concert and Pantomime that we do.

I don't think many would be offended either. The vast majority of our kids are Christian or Atheist but those of other faiths have usually been happy to take part. I've only ever had one child pulled from it because he wasn't allowed to say or sing the word Jesus. I really felt for him because he'd been enjoying it and it reminded me of my parents withdrawing me from a Diwali celebration at a similar age. I was gutted.

Ideally I think all children should celebrate all major religious festivals that are relevant to the population of their school, even if it's only one or two children.

However, this: my DD's new school has one week off for Christmas and one for Eid would really piss me off. A one week holiday isn't enough to unwind, go away, do Christmas and work. I need 2+ (spoiled teacher alert grin )

Clara are ypu sure about the "so as not to offend" part - is that actually the official line from the school or just the spin from the rumour mill?

It could be that not celebrating religious festivals has been thought through very thoroughly, and a decision made not to spend vast amounts of teaching time celebrating each and every religious festival. In a culturally diverse area there could be children from all of the 6 biggest religions plus atheists and a few from other minority religious backgrounds. It could well be that there are more Jewish, Sikh, Hindu and Muslim families than Christians by a vast margin in the school and that if a proportional amount of time was spend celebrating each festival the school would dedicate months to religious celebration and parties! A decision not to do that and rather to keep religion to RE lessons with a bit of a general end of term celebration instead of one for each religion is a very well thought out and balanced strategy for the school.

I'd say mindless film watching and putting on of endless nativitiy plays and carol services and endless "Chrismas Crafts" just because that is what primary schools have always done, in a school where the majority are not Christian is probably more thoughtless and pointless than an active and well thought out decision to actually break with the herd "Must do random Christmas activities for 6 weeks" sillyness and do something more useful with the time.

Plenty of time for all the Father Christmas visits and mince pies and carol services at weekends and after school and in the Christmas holidays if you want your child to "do Christmas" despite not being Christian, surely...

How do you know they don't mention Christmas not to offend?

And if you're not even calling yourself Christian why do you even care about how they celebrate Christian festivals?

It really sounds hypocritical.

Most Christmas celebrations outside of church have very little to do with Christmas. If you want your children to get the Christian heritage, expose them to Church.