To stay in the school catchment of a Church school when we are athiests

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Sorry if this is a long one but don't want to drip-feed, if you manage to get through it then

I am agnostic and DH athiest, neither of us can stand the idea of organised religion and cringe at the idea of DD being forced to worship in morning, say grace at lunch and pray before home-time which is what the SIAMS report says the school does. I know all schools do collective worship and have an element of prayar, but this seems to be more? Only problem is I love this area, we have been living here for years, I feel why should I be kicked out of an area I love because of the church. It actually really really pisses me off that people can be discriminated against based on this. The actual school in question has community places too, its 70/30, so we would have no problem getting in but I don't want DD to be taught in an overly religious environment.

The only other option is a community school that is in special measures and is really really rough. I walked past with DD in a pushchair and looked into the playground to see how the kids were playing and a parent collecting their child hollered 'paedo!!! paedo!!' at me. FFS, a mother with a pushchair harmlessly walking along, seriously warped. He also looked like he was on drugs as his eyes were rolling all over the place. And i have heard of police being called to the school to restrain parents who have tried to beat up teachers, in one case the parent was angry at a teacher for 'giving her child knits' and throttled her against a wall - this was related to hallucinations on drugs apparently. This is the norm at this school.

Going back to the church school, on the SIAMS report it said a boy came home and told his mum 'I worked hard today to make God happy', and another said 'I did X so that Jesus would love me'. My DH said he would feel sick if DC came home saying this, no disrespect to people who have faith but if you aren't religious then it's really hard to swallow

AIBU to think I can cringe and bare it? Will it get better with time? Should we move? I LOVE this town, love the friends I have made here. Don't want to leave!

Anyone been in this situation and can tell me how it worked out? Any good stories or equally if it really didn't work out it would be good to know, we can still move at the moment as DD is only 6 months...

As a disclaimer, I don't mean to cause offense to anyone who does have faith, so please don't take it that way. I know it is a highly personal matter and I have plenty of friends who do have faith who are lovely people, it's just not what we want for our child. If she chose to be religious in the future than fine but we don't want it forced on her at such a young age...

Thanks for clarifying, BoomBoom. You aren't the only poster to have made similar comments. I really wonder if the atheist families upthread with children rolling their eyes at religious content think that they are teaching their kids tolerance.

You can be critical of faith schools whilst simultaneously respecting the faith which underlies them.

I somewhat disagree Yippie. Most religions at their heart, despite the modern interfaith movements, are essentially intolerant. While a lot of mainstream churches make gestures towards inclusion and acceptance, we see again and again how they lag behind in terms of really accepting people. Time and time again they are caught out by a culture that is more tolerant and have to be drawn kicking and screaming into accepting other, for instance, faiths, or women, or gay people or people of colour as being equally entitled to the fruits of our society.

A lot of religious faith is as antiethical to tolerance as racism. Accepting it, and the teaching of it as normal and fine is not going to produce a tolerant society.

The idea that you should have to 'respect' faith is a strange one to me. Do people of faith respect all other faiths? Never say anything negative about them at any time? Seems a bit unlikely really. Tolerate perhaps, or avoid denigration, but respect is a pretty high bar.

OP I think you should probably think about moving. The church school sounds like it is very full on, and the community school has obviously struggled for a very long time. Neither are choices I'd be happy with.

However I second some other posters about the variability of religious influence on community schools. We sent our children to a community school (in an area with church schools) and discovered that the head was very religious and frequently had the local vicar in to give assemblies. dd came home with opinions we were very uncomfortable with, and no our robust/challenging (ie we don't believe that why do you think xyz etc) response did very little to shake her views. ds on the other hand clearly didn't listen to a word of it, so children are very variable too.

I totally agree BoomBoom, organised religion is just a way of creating divides and a 'we are in this group', 'you are in that group' mentality. Im not talking about people who have faith, I'm talking specially about organised religion, I don't understand how it wouldn't cause divides. The definition of secularism is the state of being separate from religion, or of not being exclusively allied with or against any particular religion. So it is inclusive by its nature, religions and religious schools aren't

The idea that you should have to 'respect' faith is a strange one to me.

And it's literally never occurred to me not to respect others' faiths or beliefs, including atheism. It doesn't mean that I support acts carried out in their name, or necessarily the belief systems of the religion, but I do respect the beliefs that individuals hold. Faith and religion are not synonymous.

Hi OP, I don't know if this helps you make your decision and I understand your concerns but thought I would try to add my understanding. I am a governor at a CofE school. Its a lovely school, my daughters went there. None of the teachers (including the head) are CofE. The requirement is that the majority of the governors are appointed by the church founders. Others are parent governors or teachers or simply outside interested people with special skills that help us. (As an aside, religion has never been discussed or come up in relation to governor meetings in all my time there.)
Lots of our children are non-Christians (think 90% in reality). Next years reception intake is likely to have an uptake of only 2 places out of 60 using the priority for church worshippers. Opting out of organised religious events (monthly church service + special services for harvest, xmas, mothering sunday, Easter, palm sunday etc - which often take the place of the monthly service as well as being in addition) is obviously allowed and quite a number do (often more muslim and hindu children as atheists seem to be less bothered from what I have seen although some do as well). You certainly wouldn't be in a small minority opting out (more so in an inner-city school I would have thought). Although we do have a cross up in the hall, we don't pray in the weekly assemblies ( I think, although am not sure, this is to stop these being religious ceremonies that certain children have to be removed from).
We also have religious values monthly such as tolerance, honesty, kindness - not sure anyone could object to these especially as they are not taught in a religious manner, just simply what they mean with no specifically Christian examples.
As part of our general legal/ofsted requirements we are required to promote equality/ general understanding of the community. We take great care to ensure that the non-Christian members of the school neither feel excluded nor do they feel that the only belief is Christianity - religious studies and trips are often about understanding/learning about other religions/beliefs although I am not sure how much thought is giving to teaching children about atheism as such which I think might be helpful.
The SIAMs report should be taken with a pinch of salt I think (much like the ofsted report). I suspect it is unpopular to admit to it but schools work to receive good inspection marks. So they will look to see what scores highly with ofsted or the CofE inspectors and will work towards demonstrating these features for the inspection. There are training courses for governors that focus just on how to prepare for ofsted. Personally I am not sure if this is a sensible way to manage a school (spending lots of man-hours to fulfil lots of tick-boxes) but I can verify that this is the way most schools work. I imagine similar can be said for SIAMs, certainly we pulled out all the stops to get a good report.
I think the best advice for you personally would be to go to an open day. Speak to the head (who will very likely not be a Christian) and explain your concerns, ask what options there are to remove your child from worship, how many daily prayers etc there might be, how much other beliefs are respected etc.
With my own children, I have always worked on the basis of the open day and the behaviour of the head. His/her sensitivity to my particular concerns (for example I had twins and the head that said they required the twins to be separated in yr 3 regardless of what the parents thought did not get my children despite them being an ofsted outstanding school, (and despite the fact that they wanted to be separated anyway at that age)), I wanted a head that would be prepared to listen to me as I know my children best.
I want a school that is sensitive to my concerns. You do as well - if you find the head dismisses your worries about indoctrination, its not the right school for you. I would also add that imho it is not fulfilling its legal requirement for equality/non-discrimination etc or its Christian ethos which should also include tolerance (which imo doesn't just include allowing people to have different beliefs it also includes respecting those beliefs and not indoctrinating their children against their will).
I think there is also a difference with catholic school ethos and Cof E which has come out a lot in the recent academy negotiations. (I forget the actual reasoning so may not be totally correct with the following). Its impossible for a catholic school to join a MAT with a community school as it would not be able to accept that the community school could have its own autonomy on religion but the Cof E school could join a MAT with a community school as their purpose is not to promote their religion to non-Christians just to run their own school according to Christian values. Sorry this is all a little vague, its just something I have picked up during academy discussions. I hope that helps and that you find the right school for you.

I agree Yippie that faith and religion are not really synonymous. Though if we are going to make the distinction we really need to stop talking about "faith" schools. They aren't. They are religious schools.

Yippie does that include beliefs like all homosexuals are sinners, or women should be subservient to men? Some people believe things that are quite toxic. Some people use their faith to deny realities like evolution, or hold their holy books as literally true. It wouldn't cross my mind to respect those beliefs.

I can respect that people have beliefs, but that is different to thinking that their beliefs should be admired, which is what respecting something really means.