Aibu in being shocked at this school newsletter?

[whensitmyturn]

Aibu in being pretty appalled at this school news letter or am i being naive?

Children attend a catholic primary school- dh is Catholic I am not. Never had an issue with the school, children are in the last couple of years there.

Had a newsletter home tonight saying that a new ‘children and social work act of 2017’ has been passed and that parents will no longer be able to remove their children for PSHE lessons but that the government are still deciding what content the lessons should have. There is a public questionnaire on gov.uk to write your ideas.

The newsletter then goes on to say that we need to ensure that things that are age suited to children get suggested and I quote ‘to avoid respect for alternative lifestyles being allowed to undermine Christian principles of marriage and family life’.

It then goes on to link ‘coalition for marriage’ for help with us filling in this questionnaire.

Coalition 4 marriage is a group that promotes a traditional family set up and states that children should be taught that ‘marriage between a man and a woman as the gold standard of adult relationships’ Also that ‘they believe there is no age-appropriate way to teach primary school children about same sex marriages or transgenderism’. In blinding hypocrisy it then goes on to say ‘we should be teaching children broad values of tolerance and respect’.

!? I thought that in this day and age in the uk even if you attend a faith school inclusivity was seen as important/ the norm.
Would you be angry at this or just see it as an unavoidable downside of attending a catholic school?

I attended catholic schools.I understand how RC schools are,the ideology
And that’s why my own kids don’t attend RC schools.i don’t concur with the ideology

OP, sounds as if someone high up in your school is from the dark ages!

I'm sure you're not the only parent with raised eyebrows at the newsletter, probably most of the staff were disgusted too and have started looking for other jobs already.
I would say something to them, but in a casual, questioning way, rather than the marching in, guns blazing way.

I wouldn't worry. Just educate your children about the role religions have played in history, how many deaths they've caused, and that although there are many positive aspects of having a religion it is also a lot to do with power and money and has its dark side as well as its light.
I went to catholic schools and can see right through things like that newsletter. Your kids won't be affected in the long run.

I wouldn't send them there and then say they weren't allowed to think that way anymore because I said so.

You wouldn’t have a problem with public money being spent to promote racist ideas? Gosh.

It's you going into their space and way of life.

The thing is, once they started accepting the vast majority of their funding from the state, and said they accepted the rules that come with that funding, it stopped being exclusively their space.

Any parent should be able to challenge what is being taught at a state-funded school if it is out of step with what the state requires of the schools it funds. They aren’t asking people to alter their beliefs, they are asking that their child is taught the National curriculum in an environment that is tolerant and supports diversity of idea and background. They may not be successful, but neither should they feel obliged to not challenge things in a state-funded faith school that they would challenge in a community school, simply because the teaching is based on religion.

In the OP’s case, it seems the school is trying to get around the spirit if not the letter of one of the conditions that comes state funding. Fair to challenge that.

It is pretty shocking that they would be able to get away with this sort of thing. My DC don't go to a faith school, but if I had similar concerns I'd be raising it with the governors. I would also have a chat with a few parents to get their views and teach my DC my beliefs and to question every point they raise.

Education is education. No one should be sheltered away from religions as they are and always will be a topic in society and are a big part of our history.

However, religion can be taught without having to be believed.

And maybe I'd leak the letter to some local press 😉

Would you not be outraged that the govt allowed it to be taught in schools? Campaign for there to be rules against it?

I'm in the UK. There's a lot of C of E type schools, they always have been and still are tied to religion.
We sang hymns in primary school assembly. Learnt the Lords Prayer. (Still can recite by heart even though never used it after 30 years later lol)
The UK, even though multi cultural, is still by and large a religious country. We have the Church of England, Easter, Christmas, and schools tied to it.
Nobody's saying you have to believe. Just if you send your child to one, you should accept their views or send your child and stress that that's only what they believe and not representative of everybody.

Faith schools, individually, can be good, bad or indifferent (in terms of both the education they offer and the amount of crap they actually push at the DC.) But it's a combination of the HT/Governors attitudes and the school's location as to how imaginary-friend-heavy any one school might be. If you're running a faith school in a culturally mixed area so your intake contains Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and kids being raised free from religion, you can't push one imaginary friend too hard, because the parents will complain.

And it's a bit of a myth that every faith school has parents queuing up to get their kids in there, to the point of faking devotion to whatever brand of nonsense the school belongs to - there are plenty of faith schools with falling class numbers and terrible results, that families are actively trying to avoid...

Puzzledandpissedoff, great post &links

You cannot raise an issue over children being taught Catholic beliefs in a Catholic school by (usually) predominantly Catholic staff to (usually) predominantly catholic governers.
I will happily pay for my children's education providing I no longer have to make a contribution to the education of non religious children. Currently the Church pays for around 10% of the costs of faith schools (as well as generally owning the school land and building) thus subsidising the education of children in other schools.

whatever brand of nonsense the school belongs to

That is exactly my original point. People come on this thread outraged that people are forcing their view on others. Are racist/homophobic etc.
Then comes comments like yours.
Just because you don't believe in something doesn't give you the right to insult others.

Would you not be outraged that the govt allowed it to be taught in schools? Campaign for there to be rules against it?

I'm in the UK. There's a lot of C of E type schools, they always have been and still are tied to religion.
We sang hymns in primary school assembly. Learnt the Lords Prayer. (Still can recite by heart even though never used it after 30 years later lol)
The UK, even though multi cultural, is still by and large a religious country. We have the Church of England, Easter, Christmas, and schools tied to it.
Nobody's saying you have to believe. Just if you send your child to one, you should accept their views or send your child and stress that that's only what they believe and not representative of everybody.

I didn't think that anyone was saying you have to believe what they believe. I'm saying no school should be allowed to promote and teach bigotry in any form to children. In dangerous and divisive.

Some kids will have parents who counter the bigotry, but others won't. I don't want the next generation being indoctrinated with bigoted views.

there are plenty of faith schools with falling class numbers and terrible results, that families are actively trying to avoid.

The only reason we got into the CofE school near us instead of being shunted to a failing CofE school a large distance away was that it got a not-great Ofsted, and all the parents who had been dutifully attending church and said a faith education was important to them suddenly decided it wasn’t that important after all, and chose a community school closer to home.

I was talking to the vicar, who said church attendance dropped significantly in those years. And apparently there were vociferous complaints when the new ‘good’ Ofsted was published shortly after the admissions deadline.

Luckily for us it’s a fairly sane school, but their CofE hasn’t stopped me gently challenging Samaritan’s Purse and the shoebox appeal, for example. I’m as much a member of the School community as the most ardent churchgoer.

And I sometimes wonder if the school is itself trying to be a bit subversive. Why else would you choose to promote Christianity to dinosaur and space mad five and six year olds by teaching the Genesis creation story as fact?

You don't understand the Catholic teachings. So many on this thread seemingly have no idea what is being taught in Catholic schools but ate very quick to out them all as bigoted.

That is exactly my original point. People come on this thread outraged that people are forcing their view on others. Are racist/homophobic etc.
Then comes comments like yours.

Exactly, extremely hypocritical.

No Catholic school would teach Genesis as fact. This is what I'm trying to say, you have no idea what you're talking about.

That is exactly my original point. People come on this thread outraged that people are forcing their view on others. Are racist/homophobic etc.

Why wouldn't you be outraged about teachers forcing their bigoted views on children though?

All religions are part of history.

Would you not teach about ww2 ?
About slavery?
Women's movement?

Teach not force , knowledge not instructions on how to life their lives.

Religion is a personal choice.

No amount of teaching will make someone believe.
No amount of hatred towards a religion will make someone not believe.

Marriage should be between a man and a woman = dogma
The Catholic church doesn't support gay marriage = historically accurate fact.
This post is about the former
HTH

Why wouldn't you be outraged about teachers forcing their bigoted views on children though?

Yes, I would be unhappy with any teacher "forcing" any personal view on anyone.

I'm not saying that all faith schools are teaching bigoted views. Of course not. What I'm saying is that they should not be allowed to and it seems as though OPs one and ones other people have mentioned do. That is plain wrong to me and I can't understand why anyone would be ok with it.

I brought up racism as a comparison when people were saying we should accept homophobic teachings as it's part of their beliefs. Most people (I hope!) would not accept it if schools could teach children racist beliefs and that is how I feel about homophobic beliefs. I don't care why someone hasn't homophobic views. There's no place for them in schools.

Faith schools are only "good" when they are oversubscribed. That is nothing to do with the "faith" element-it is to do with the selective element. Any school which has hoops to jump through is going to do better than a school with no hoops because it selects out families without the organisational skills and educational awareness to know when where and how to jump through the hoops.

I'm not saying RE shouldn't be taught! It should be taught in a "this is what some people believe..." form not this is right and this is wrong and not supporting other views which is what the letter from OPs school suggests.

My local faith school is excellent and generally has an intake of around 20 a year.