To think why moan about sending your child to a faith school?

[farmerswifey33]

We are lucky in that where we live schools are undersubscribed and you have a very good choice of 3 primary schools 2 of which are faith (CofE) and the other isn’t.
We have so many parents at the school who moan about the fact it’s too goddy 🙄 or that there is a nativity play as they don’t believe. Worst thing I think is how they tell their children this who then tell my children they are stupid for believing in god and Jesus!
I just wonder why they would send their children here because they DO have a choice! I don’t get it?

I would respect your beliefs and would absolutely not send my kids to your Bananity school to be taught bananism because I don't agree with it.

What if three quarters of the schools in your area were Bananity schools and the ones that weren't had terrible reputations. What would you do then?

It's not as if non-denominational schools are secular. DD2's school celebrates most of the Christian festivals, they have Harvest Festival and Carol Concert at the local church, the vicar is a school governor and they have assemblies with Bible stories in them.

What's the difference between this and a C of E school?

Where are all these "atheist" schools, please?

I'd suggest the nearest is probably in France.

Coddi- the point is that all children should be able to attend good schools without the concern that, above them learning the normal curriculum of the land, they’ll become a flock of innocent lambs told a load of fairytales as truth - now that IS stupid!
If you believe then go to church on a Sunday - schools shouldn’t be allowed to preach to young children

Commuter - just because they own the land it shouldn’t be allowed that they can preach to school children about a god without any empirical evidence.

Actually Einstein they can do exactly that! The schools are voluntary aided which means substantial funding by the church to the school, the church owns the buildings and land and as such has influence over what is taught i.e. religion. What of that don't you understand? If people don't understand or like that then go to a different school. Church schools make it very clear on their admissions criteria what kind of school you will be applying for.

I hope you realise that hundreds of years ago churches set up charity schools, teaching poor children to read, write, and other necessary parts of education. They were maintained by religious organisations, which provided clothing and education to students freely or at little charge

You’re the ignorant one.

Yes, Christians set up the schools, the hospitals, the poor relief funds, the missionary endeavours. If you seriously believe that this was done out of the kindness of their hearts, go and re-read your history books. It was all about indoctrination anf forcing their standards on others in exchange for their (often very selective) charity.

It is an embarrassment to our nation that in 2017, state eduction is used to divide children up based on their parents stone age beliefs. And I think it’s a wonderful thing if another child tells them that God is a silly fairytale. Someone has to.

I moan all the time.....I vehemently object to religion being taught in schools, I hate it.

All my dc have had to attend church weekly through school and they have the Vicar preach to them in school time every week in a regular slot. Even the Bishop visits every term and when the school converted to an Academy the church refused to allow the school to join a MAT that wasn't run by them and then they sent in a 'Religion Guidance Officer' to help sort the education timetable to ensure religion wasn't forgotten about and was celebrated fully at the correct time of year .

In addition to all this my dc go to the Cathedral nearby every term and every single religious festival (CofE only though) going is made a huge deal about with yet more church attendance sometimes multiple times a week.

Unfortunately for me I have the 'choice' of 9 schools in my town. 2 are Catholic 1 Methodist and the remaining 6 are C of E. Short of homeschooling I have 0 choice on a non-religious school for my children.

So do I just sit back and let my dc receive 3+ hours every week of religious education yet only 1.5hrs of PE? No, I go in and question why are they going to the Cathedral AGAIN when they've already been to church this week. Why are they celebrating a CofE festival but not the beautiful Hindu one celebrated at the same time of year. Why are they having yet another CofE Vicar visit from Australia and not an Imam or Buddhist Priest from the local religious communities.

So yes YABU. When your choices are limited you are told to just put up and shut up. More people need to complain about excessive religion taught and celebrated in schools. They're quick enough to jump on Muslim and Jewish schools but are conveniently forgetting that Christian schools can also be overzealous with their 'teachings'.

@Branleuse
im going to be sending my children to catholic secondary school even though we are not religious. Purely doing it because they have the best SEN provsion out of all the mainstreams in the area. Feel a bit crap that the other schools SEN provision is so shit that my children cant just go to the local comp with their mates, but am willing to put up with the religious aspect, and have told my children that they do not have to believe everything, but they DO have to respect other peoples beliefs.

Same here, Bran - I would really prefer to be able to choose a non-religious school with the same positive aspects that I am looking for for our ds - but they don't seem to exist! Still at the considering stage for Y5 ds but the CofE secondary school is looking by far the most promising, even taking the religious side into account. There is very good ASD provision, small classes and a staff to pupil ratio simply not available in other secular secondaries.

As it is, ds's primary is secular but has the usual vicar rolling in to tell the children the rainbow is God's way of telling you you're forgiven, so at least we've had practice in respecting others' POV and keeping our inner voices unvoiced.

If there is a choice of schools then yanbu but where I live there is one cofe school in our village and all surrounding villages are faith schools so we really don’t have much choice. I think education and religion should be separate

My dc go to a C of E school. I'm atheist. I don't have any problem at all with nativity, church visits for harvest festival, Easter, any number of any other things during the year. It's part of our cultural heritage as a country. The reason they go to this school is that it's my local state school and it's good, so why shouldn't they? Its 400 metres from my house, is the only school we can walk to and the only other school they would have got into needs improvement and is massively undersubscribed because no-one wants their children there. But no issues at all from with teaching Christian values etc, same as I would have no issue with them learning about any other religions in RE for example. And i hope my dc know that is ok for everyone to believe in different things, so hopefully they won't be telling anyone else's children they're stupid for believing.

Its spectacularly shit that it is often the case in rural areas where the only local school is a faith school. I really dont think this should be allowed

Personally I don't think religion has any place in schools.

Also what's wrong with other kids challenging the "beliefs" of your children? It's bad enough you bring them up on this utter nonsense but then you complain when their peers talk sense to them? In an increasingly secular world they will have to get used to it. And so will you.

I agree with this too.

Yes, Christians set up the schools, the hospitals, the poor relief funds, the missionary endeavours. If you seriously believe that this was done out of the kindness of their hearts, go and re-read your history books. It was all about indoctrination anf forcing their standards on others in exchange for their (often very selective) charity.

Did I say that Churches set up schools out of the goodness of their hearts? I was answering the PP who seemed to think that church schools are a modern phenomenon sent to upset the Liberals and brainwash our children. The fact is that CHURCHES OWN THE BUILDINGS AND LAND FFS! They retain the right to teach with a basis in religion.

My two go to a local church owned school. It’s very Jesusy. We don’t believe but They understand that they must be respectful that others do and it’s the nature of the school we’ve chosen - though often there is no choice in school admissions.

I don’t think they’re doing a Christmas play though which is surprising.

It’s very very extremely multifaith, but that doesn’t seem to stop everyone participating.

Yes YABU. I am totally opposed to religion being taught in any schools.

My children go to a C of E school because its our catchment school, and to move them would require (at least) a 5 mile drive. Why the hell (pun intended) should I have to?

It is a state school, and as such I strongly believe it should be totally secular. My children are left in no doubt as to what I think of christianity (while making it quite clear that they should make up their own minds obv)

One persons 'beliefs' should NOT be taught to children as facts. Full stop. 2 x 2 = 4 fine. "You should worship the ghost of a jewish bloke who died 2000 years ago"... just NOPE.

People are welcome to believe whatever they want, but teach it to my children as fact? No. It's wrong.

I went to a school which was founded in the 17th century and named after a famous London church. At the time I went there it was a girls' grammar school with no faith criterion for entry, but had strong links with our mother church. It subsequently became comprehensive and is now an academy. At some time it officially became a church school, with faith one of the main entry criteria.
In the history of the school it says it was founded to educate the poor of the parish, with no reference to faith. I'm strongly of the opinion that C of E schools should follow that principle and not have a faith criterion.

Fyi no one worships Jesus' ghost. Try to not be so ignorant. Atheists always demand respect they seem very unwilling to give. I wouldn't teach my children that yours were silly for not believing in God. The word silly in itself is very disrespectful.

Commuter - you fool! Clearly you’ve been indoctrinated to believe they have the RIGHT to spew nonsense as fact because they invest money / land / buildings - the worst kind of charity - I’ll let you have x but only if I can do y .... bollocks and if you think that’s right you’ve been sucked in to their shitty bullying behaviour

I'm in the same position as MissMisery - if you live in villages near me, all the village primaries are CofE. My children went to our village CofE primary because it was really the only choice - we'd have had to travel to the nearest large town to find a non-CofE primary, and probably wouldn't have got a place due to not being in catchment.

It was a bit Jesusy and got more so halfway through their time there as the new headteacher was very godly.

I don't think it has affected the children, they didn't catch religion.

Don't all schools, religious or not have a nativity play!? Ours do.

You are right, they shouldn't moan. But are they there through choice? There's only one non faith school from what you say so maybe they had to go to the faith school. I'd be pretty peeved if a faith school was my only choice.

Commuter - you fool! Clearly you’ve been indoctrinated to believe they have the RIGHT to spew nonsense as fact because they invest money / land / buildings - the worst kind of charity - I’ll let you have x but only if I can do y .... bollocks and if you think that’s right you’ve been sucked in to their shitty bullying behaviou

But of course they have the right! Just as you and millions of others have the right not to send your child(ren) to a church school. As I keep explaining; it is perfectly clear on the admissions criteria if the school is a voluntary aided church school and if parents are so anti religion then don't apply (even if a church school is the only school in the catchment - if one is so against them you are not compelled to apply!).

I wouldn't send my children to a Jewish Orthodox school or a Muslim faith school as that is not my religion of choice. Why is this so difficult to understand or are people only interested in bashing Christianity?

Goldfish :

"How fucking privileged and unaware do you have to be to think anyone can just 'move'? "

People move house. All the time. For some it's harder than others. But it is possible. Lots of people manage it.

If you were that bothered, if you really didn't like the school your child was at and you had to move you could in fact put your house on the market and move to somewhere else.

it is a choice. you have /!most people have. not everyone but most people.

' privileged and unaware'?
I don't think so.lots and lots, hundreds of thousands of people move every year. some people sell their house, other people do it - asked for the council to be moved / a council exchange, all sorts of reasons.

you make it sound like it's an impossible task. I disagree. if I really didn't like my Ds's school and I had to move, I would do everything in my power to make that happen.

I cannot understand why a non-religious person would choose a faith school if there are other options available

Really? You... Can't understand?

Many, many reasons.

I went to a private Catholic school because it had the best league tables in the county at the time. I also went to school with people of all different faiths. Hindus and Muslims made up a large proportion of the children. The parents had all chosen the school for the exam results.

The Hindu and Muslim children were forced to take part in Catholic mass and daily catholic worship in school, had to have rosary beads, had to say 10 Hail Marys a day in May and October etc.

It was utterly bizarre.

I wonder how people would feel if their childrens school got a new headteacher who believed there were fairies at the bottom of the garden?
And started teaching that to their children as fact?

There is just as much evidence to support the fairy theory as there is to support the existence of God/Jesus... It's just a weird ingrained superstition. And before anyone starts, I would defend to the end peoples rights to believe whatever they want, and always teach my children to respect others beliefs. But teaching it as fact? No.

Really they have a choice? Bullshit. You don’t get a choice of what school you send your child to through the mainstream system. You put down your choices and you get what you are given.

There was ONE non faith school I’m our area and it was out of catchment. Of course my DD didn’t get a place due to it being out of catchment. Our nearest school (less that quarter of a mile away) was a CofE school. My DD didn’t get in because she is not from a CofE family. She was given a place at a CofE school further away from home (10 minuets drive) where none of her friends were attending and where she was not part of the local community all because we aren’t religious and refused to attend church to pretend that we were.

Non-religious families are strongly discriminated against in the allocating of school places. There is no schools for them to apply for and they expected to take whatever they are given at the expense of religious families. There is NO place for religion in this process when education is meant to be for ALL. The amount of families that have awful problems getting their children into any school because they are of no religion is absolutely astonishing.

Anyway, back to the point, DDs school turns out to be quite religious in school and I don’t care, it’s a lovely school and despite its strong CofE roots, has some a really great ethos. We deal with the religious side at home and we strongly believe it’s DDs right to choose to be religious or not. Pretty ironic really when you consider she’s already been excluded from somewhere for not being indoctrinated before the age of 4.....

So, YABU to suggest those parents have a choice, YABU to expect that those parents should just go along with it but there are ways that those parents can deal it. They should probably find ways round it rather than moan.