Dcs school aren't allowing them to celebrate Christmas in anyway

[Keremy]

I suspect I am BU but over to you.

Dcs school is multi faith sensitive and we love that. Both dc have a huge amount of friends of all religions and backgrounds which I think is fantastic.

Last year the school celebrated Christmas in an acknowledgement of the event like you would in RE, not in all lessons but on the last week before Christmas they made Christmas wreaths and ginger bread houses and such because they are in until the day before Christmas Eve so miss a lot of the build up other kids who aren't in school have. They also have time off for Eid and celebrate Eid and I would add I have NO issue with this at all.

However this year the head has put a stop on anything Christmas. The staff have been trying to do Christmas things with them and the head has flat out refused to allow them to do anything and in fact stepped in to stop it if a teacher has.

Last year they had a huge festive dinner where the whole school sat down together but that has been stopped too.

I am really quite cross with this, I am not super religious but I think given they are in a multi faith school they are wrong to completely write it out unless they do away with acknowledgement of any religious celebration.

The kids have been told that every day is a work day and they wouldn't be allowed to celebrate Christmas in the work place so they should get on with it but a) many work places have Christmas parties or events and finish early and b) they are kids and have plenty of time in the work place to come.

Would it bother you?

Just to add this is in no way a 'people of other religions want to ban Christmas' thread. I have plenty of friends who are other religions and know that this is bollocks.

Do you live in Whoville? Is the head's surname "Grinch", first name "The"? With green skin/fur?

I'd be tempted to buy the biggest, tackiest, glitteriest, most tinselled card I could find, pop a copy of "The Grinch Who Stole Xmas" inside and leave it anonymously for the Head.

Because yes it is miserable, and culturally inappropriate to ignore such a major festival. It is not preparing the children adequately socially and culturally.

Ooh I do get mightily pissed off when I hear about schools that refuse point blank to celebrate Christmas in any way,but will happily pull all the stops out for Eid, Diwali etc.

"oh I do get mightily pissed off when I hear about schools that refuse point blank to celebrate Christmas in any way,but will happily pull all the stops out for Eid, Diwali etc."

Is is something you hear about a lot?

In fairness Janey they don't seem to have pulled out the stops for those events either this year apart from two days off for Eid in September which I have no issue with as we are off for Christmas. I hadn't realised Diwali had happened this year yet as I wasn't sure when it was but the dc and they don't remember doing anything about that this year either.

Either the head has decided to exclude all religion or they are spitting their dummy out about something...

and like I said above the only other school I have any memory of doing this is the Catholic primary with a Catholic head and mostly Catholic children my Dad worked in.

Ooh I do get mightily pissed off when I hear about schools that refuse point blank to celebrate Christmas in any way,but will happily pull all the stops out for Eid, Diwali etc.

But I has stated this academic year no celebrating at all (eid was September and Diwali Nov).....so that isn't what's happened here.

I wonder if parents complained? More parent power in private school ime.

The collective worship rule applies to all schools - state and private. It can be interpreted pretty loosely, so for example a class assembly with stories with worthy themes like compassion would tick the box.

The approach your Head takes would be more common in the States, where the separation of church and state means state (public over there) schools are not allowed to have nativity plays etc. Here though, it is a very odd decision that shows poor judgement in my opinion. Aside from being potentially illegal and disrespectful, it is also educationally unsound. Giving children the opportunity to learn about religions and understand them in a safe place reduces the likelihood of them becoming vulnerable to distorted versions of those religions that they might come across later in life. It means they can say 'Muhammad said that if you treat your daughters well you will have a place in heaven' or 'Jesus gave the Samaritan woman he met at the well a really important role in spreading the word of God, so women should be allowed to be priests' or 'the reason why Christians don't have kashrut or halal food laws restricting certain food types like pork is because in the New Testament St Peter (I think!) has a vision in which God presents him with non-kosher animals and tells him they are good to eat because they are cleansed by God. Christians and Hindus can bond over turning the other cheek and the teaching of ahimsa (like Gandhi did in South Africa). These are just random child-friendly examples. The point is that if the school professes to celebrate its multi-faith identity it is failing and should be called to account for a lost educational opportunity.

OP has stated (blooming autocorrect)

I too thought these kind of stories were made up, but no, my husband's company this year has re-branded Christmas as 'end of year celebration'. Christmas was not be mentioned. He works in the City

"I really don't think this is a religion against religion thing, it seems to be more based on you will work till the very last minute like you would in the workplace thing. "

yes I work very hard right up til 5pm on Christmas eve.... I'm definitely not doing christmas shopping, or wandering round eating mince pies with people. oh no. not me....

you will work till the very last minute like you would in the workplace thing

Well for my company the real works starts at Christmas (Railway industry) but everybody I know (my company and several others) has a Christmas do and/or nights out drinking and/or Christmas sweater day etc.
It doesn't have to be a full-blown Christmas Nativity, carol service, Christmas dinner and crafts afternoon etc. to acknowledge and briefly teach/celebrate Christmas. Same with every other festival.

Blimey, sounds grim.

My children went to a C of E primary school and they jumped at the chance to celebrate anything. Any excuse for a party! It was lovely.

Somebody I know (cough, cough) teaches in a school that for the first time this year:

1. did not have a carol service
2. did not have a christmas dinner
3. banned christmas jumpers and
4. did not finish early on the last day

Miseries!

This is weird. My DCs' schools are ethnically and religiously mixed and they've both done all the usual Christmas stuff.

Cats do you know why?

Have you sent your kids to a 19th century workhouse?
What a miserable place. Teaching kids to be good little work-units.

Want to swap? If I have to hear 'Mary listen to me' or '3 kings were riding down the bumpy road' one more time....

The school is so religiously mixed that they have a fantastic opportunity to really help the kids develop an understanding of each others religions and beliefs

OP, i'd get in touch/involved in the Parents Assoc or its equivalent at the school.
As many of the level headed parents and kids need to present a united front (ohhh the irony), and let the school Head and governors that you want to learn about and celebrate each others religions and cultural practices.

They are doing a disservice to the children in their care by imposing a complete ban.

I lived in an asian ghetto and my primary school was 99.9% asian muslim apart from the teachers and staff who were engish/christian.....yet we did the learning about & cultural things like making cards, decorations etc for all of them.
Sadly, for a lot of my peers that's the only time they 'integrated' happily with anything outside their own faith.

I have good memories of Christmas time at school. Mine was a follow through from nursery to juniors, so i practically lived there til i had to move on to secondary

At christmas we'd have a special assembly where we sang exclusively xmas songs and father christmas arrived with a big sack filled with presents. We'd get a colouring book and crayons, a fancy pencil eraser on top with ruler and sharpener, and one of those little paper bags with pick n mix sweets. I have absolutely no doubt the sweets had gelatin in them - but we figured what our parents didn't know wouldn't hurt them

I wonder how the guy who played 'father christmas' each year felt about it? He was awesome - i think the teachers may have pre-warned him about our xmas joke...

He used to walk in looking like a proper father christmas, all padded up good and proper - and never let the role slip. Even when we sang for him -

"Jingle bells, jingle bells

it's that time again,
Santa died, they all lied
But here we are again!"

@littleducks

No, no idea. It's really odd. It's not as though the school is really mixed or anything. We're in a rural area with a strong Christian tradition. The school doesn't do anything for Eid or Ramadan or anything like that.

Just odd. Tthere was no announcement that celebrating would be punished or anything, just no official festivities organised by the school. They did initially organise the usual Christmas dinner and then cancelled it a week before.

Sounds like the school I worked in thisthingcalledlife the school had a pupil population of something like 75% Muslim but we still did Christmas, the younger end did learn the meaning of Christmas (and other festivals) but for the older kids it was just an excuse to spend the week baking/chucking glitter on stuff/having a party on the last day.
The kids loved it!
At Christmas the parents used to bring home cooked Bangladeshi treats in as a gift or send me home with dishes left over from the Christmas fair stall. I was a very happy staff member!

Interestingly another Mum friend from a local school has today told me their sons school has done the same this year and they should spend even the last minutes learning to improve scores. So miserable heads seem to be around this year.