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?

if you want your children to get the Christian heritage, expose them to Church

I also think a Church celebrates Christmas.

I also think a Church celebrates Christmas.

Yes.

Unlike schools, which, IMO, should be non-religious.

If they wanted to celebrate religious diversity, they'd have to include May the 4th (The Jedi) and International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19 (Pastafarians).

International Talk Like a Pirate Day should obviously be the exception to keeping religion confined to RE lessons at school :o

Only 7% of the UK population apparently identify as practicing Christians, though anywhere from 42-59% identify as Christian (depending on which survey you look at)

Christmas is everywhere though in general society from the middle of September onwards! Kids are hardly going to "miss out" on the "Cultural Capital" of experiencing consumer frenzy glittery tat horrendous squeeky singing all things culturally associated with Christmas unless they are whisked from their unChristmassy school to an unChristmassy home where no TV is allowed wearing a blindfold and noise cancelling head phones and never allowed out of the house otherwise for 3 months of the year.

If you turn on the TV or walk down a high street in the UK in November or December 9 times out of 10 Christmas will hit you in the face :o

Not letting it dominate half a term at school won't produce children who don't know its Christmas time at all...

Jews Hindus Sikhs and Buddhists never claim to be offended by Christmas or anything else which doesn't relate to THEIR religion let's be honest here

OP has posted before, but hasn't come back to this.
It's bullshit anyway. RE is a curriculum subject so it's unlikely nothing is done with regard to any religious holidays, and I do mean any, not just Christian ones. As for causing offence, I have never met (and I'm 57) anyone of another religion who is offended by Christmas. Nobody. Ever. Funnily enough, I bet no-one else has either.

facebook I really doubt it has anything to do with people being offended - Clara can you please come back and clarify where you got the " so as not to offend those of other cultures" logic from? Is that your assumption or what somebody gossiping has told you or the actual school policy wording?

It seems eminently sensible not to dedicate November and December to Christmas faffing the way some schools do, and doubly so if most of your pupils are not even from families who celebrate Christmas - its a massive loss of teaching time. Religion belongs in RE lessons and where the school population represents mainly those of other religion or none it is even odder to dedicate 1/6th of the school year (half a term) to basing everything loosely around a religio-commercial festival which dominates TV, radio, shops and all sorts of areas of life outside school in November and December anyway. The kids are getting their end of term party - it would be "Politically Correctness gone mad" to call it a Christmas/ Hanukkah/ Bodhi Day/ Winter Solstice/ Eid-Ul-Adha / Yule party :o seeing as all those festivals (and probably others) fall or can fall at roughly the same time. But much more sensible to keep religion out of it and call it an end of term party!

We are in a multidenominational school. We have a Winter Fair rather than Christmas Fair.

But we celebrate everything in the school - Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Eid, ...I can't even remember all the things DD has come home saying they celebrated or learned about.

They do attempt to make Christmas a more secular celebration than Christian celebration. So if you send in the fronts of old cards for recycling in crafts, they only use the snowmen, santa and nature scenes, but not cribs and angels pictures.

There aren't generally any prayers of any denomination in assemblies - just a recognition and marking of the relevant celebrations and the religion they belong to.

However, they DO facilitate catholic instruction on school premises after school (run by a committee of parents) and DCs heading up to the church for practices for FHC and confirmation etc, and allow the CI committee to organize tea/buns celebration back in school hall for those events too (on the relevant Saturdays) for the school community (the actual celebrants and their families, and also anyone from their classes who is not participating but wants to meet up on the day after the church part).

I think it is important to be inclusive rather than exclusive. So perhaps they are getting it slightly wrong in not celebrating at all - but I don't think I would not go just because they don't celebrate it as a Christian festival. If it is otherwise a good school, and compares well with others in the area, I would certainly consider it strongly. Especially if it is very handy for home and otherwise ticks my relevant boxes.

All local authority schools (Academies excepted: that can choose their own curriculum) HAVE to abide by the national curriculum guidelines on RE. All major world religions are studied, usually one every half term, and Christian festivals are included in that.

Just Google your local lea and they will have the guidelines up. Most primary schools also.publish them on their websites, to avoid the sort of Daily Mail hysteria about the subject which is usually utterly baseless.

It's not being ignored. It's not being left out. It's not a terrible conspiracy. All schools teach it by law.

I should know, I have to teach it. Personally I would rather schools be utterly secular, but the British Values aspect of the new curriculum makes religion a larger part rather than smaller.

For the past 10 or more years, my local school haven't put on a nativity. They put on a performance. the outline is written as part of creative writing by the year 6's. Something they all look forward to doing.
Our school, again no nativity. We have a disco. We also celebrate every religion and cultural day.

My kids go to a multi-denominational school, (in Ireland). They give equal time to all of the main world religions.
This is one of the things that attracted me to the school as we are members of a minority Christian religion and most of the schools in Ireland have a Catholic ethos.
I love the school but it does make me a bit sad that I have never seen my kids singing 'Away in a manger' which dressed up in tea towels doing the nativity play. At the Christmas concert, (which they do call the Christmas concert actually) there would be jingle bells and rudolph.
For me though it's a small price to pay as we're really happy with other aspects of the school.
Personally I feel that my children's religious education is up to me and the they should only learn about religion in a factual and not doctrinal way in school. i.e Some people believe this, not this is what we believe.

We have lots of muslims at work (practising ones who pray 5x per day etc) and they will happily come for Christmas dinner with everyone. They also bring special food in at Eid for everyone to try. The British people in our office are not offended by being offered food funnily enough.

A muslim I work with was very concerned when he found out I was an atheist and spent a couple of hours (whilst we were doing some other work) trying to persuade me to become a Christian.

Multiculturalism just involves being interested in other people's lives. Nobody needs to get offended. Being forced to do certain things is very different of course. Some of the muslims weren't impressed at being made to attend a meeting held in a catholic church for example. So I can see that making children do a nativity or prayers would be a bad idea. Probably best to avoid that sort of thing in a mixed school. No point pretending Xmas doesn't exist though

Where I went to school in liberal North London in the 90's my school had a 'Winter party' and 'winter play' to avoid using the word Christmas for exactly the same reason so I don't think it is that unusual - been going on for ages.

I don't think it is a reason not to send a child to the local school personally.

Christmas is and always will be a Christian celebration

Dec 25th was originally the Roman Pagan holiday of Saturnalia, it wasn't until the 4th century CE that Christianity imported the festival, hoping to take the pagan masses in with it.

Most of the most popular Christmas customs: Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, Santa Claus etc, are modern incarnations of the pagan rituals .

There is no Christian church with a tradition that Jesus was actually born on December 25th.

In the 21st century around 2% of the population go to church and celebrate christmas as a C of E religious festival so its not surprising that a lot of schools have now stopped wasting so much time on 'nativities' etc.

For the majority of families christmas is a holiday to eat and drink to much, give children to many presents, watch TV specials, visiting family and spend lots of money shopping online. So in actuality, christmas has already reverted to its original Saturnalia festival and its a bit silly to say its a christian holiday anymore.

Would put me off and I am not religious . More erosion of our culture and heritage

Standing, nothing is being eroded. The op is bullcrap. Christianity and its festivals HAS to be studied as part of the national curriculum. There is not one single LEA school that does not do this.

Being offended by Christmas and not wanting our kids to celebrate it in school are two entirely different things.

I'd love to ask the OP what her concerns are.

Schools have to study Christmas and other Christian festivals. So they will learn about Christmas at school.

Schools don't have to do a nativity. Many do but it's not compulsory. It is great fun watching your child do this play and sing the traditional songs. It's also an incredible effort at school to get this ready.

I assume it's the nativity you're concerned about. If the school suits your needs in other ways, is this a red line for you?

Looking forward to hearing your reply on this when you return to this thread.

What I find the most striking is that the OP can't be arsed about Christianity, but is concerned that school teaches her children, but only the Christmas festival.

OP, BTW, Easter is the most important Christian festival. Not really bothered, are you?
You really just want the photos of your little child in the Nativity play.
Your position can be considered offensive to Christians.

Our way of life is being eroded. School nativity plays, making Christmas cards and Christmas ( not winter) fayers are all going out the window in the name of political correctness . Sitting just learning about it is not the same.

Our way of life is being eroded. School nativity plays, making Christmas cards and Christmas ( not winter) fayers are all going out the window in the name of political correctness . Sitting just learning about it is not the same.

Jesus wept. Literally.

He'd be comparing these statements to the farisees.

Our way of life is being eroded

I bet if you or a DM journalist asked on MN what their school did at Christmas, the overwhelming majority would do cards, make decorations and have nativity plays.

Even schools which aren't faith schools. Christmas is also a traditional family time in the UK regardless of faith.

But I bet even then, you sound like the kind of person not to believe that as it doesn't suit your narrative.

You really just want the photos of your little child in the Nativity play
Your position can be considered offensive to Christians

Singing Little Donkey

Yes,well we are sleep walking into this. You wait,in 20 years time,if we carry on the way we are,the U.K. Will no longer be a Christian country.

I'd love that!

RE has to be taught on the curriculum and it's been great for DS to learn about such stuff (no religion at home) and talk about it with us, but I don't think there is any need to celebrate anything like that at school. They may do a 'winter' assembly or something at the end of term? DS's school used to focus on changes in nature for summer, winter, etc. but now there is a christian element brought in by recent changes and I hate it. I wouldn't mind if it was a mix of religious stuff in assemblies but for a non faith school to choose one (christianity) is a bit much for me.

Religion and it's celebrations are for the family and at home/place of worship or in school if it's a faith school.

Roll on secularism!

Standing, aside from Daily Mail land, i think you'd find it high on impossible to find a primary school that doesn't celebrate Christmas. Even in a school in Kings Cross that was predominantly Muslim and Hindu populated, we always sing some songs, make cards and decorations.

People who say schools don't do these things are generally getting their "facts" from Facebook, the mail, or their mate who heard about it.

Personally, the reason we don't do a traditional nativity is because it's very boring for the littlies. We do a concert instead. They learn the traditional story in class by acting it out of doing other fun stuff.

I really wish people would check facts before trotting this garbage out. This Christmas in schools bollocks and the usual cry of "They don't even learn about kings and queens in history!" (They do).