School becoming increasingly religious alongside loss of staff...

[Atheistmum]

NC for this as the details will be potentially outing.

So both my DC ages 6 and 10 attend a local state C of E primary school.

We have only two schools in the small town in which we live, the large C of E and another small Catholic one. Having been educated through the Catholic school system Myself, I was keen to avoid a ‘faith’ education for my kids however we have no secular option in this town or indeed in any of the local smaller surrounding towns and villages. So we were stuck with opting for the educationally ‘outstanding’ C of E school.

Until recently all has been well, the expected low level religious the,es woven in, however a new head was appointed about a year ago, and since then 6 or 7 members of staff have left including the deputy and assistant head and another Head of year all put down to ‘ people moving on to further their careers’.

In this time there has also been an increasing religious emphahsis underpinning an awful lot of what is done at the school, All assemblies are now religious based, local vicar comes in to school multiple times per week to teach, both of my kids come home singing what sound like evangelical christian songs!!

My eldest told me about a lesson wherby a picture of a sign was put up in class with a list of many faiths all pointing the ‘wrong’ way and only christianity pointing the ‘right’ way, he was actively concerned about this as there are kids of others faiths who have no choice but to attend the school!

Now my AIBU is basically aibu to email concerns about this, who to and how can I word it? I realise that the school is controlled to a certain extent by the church ( i fundamentally disagree with schools being used to indoctrinate young people but given we have no other option I am stuck with this) and l can live with it if its just about learning about and participating in mainstream stuff like easter, harvest festival, nativity etc however more and more of the kids learning is being based on religious content and I am really uncomfortable with this.

The head himself is obviously a deeply religious man and I am concerned that he is using the school to further his agenda.

Strangely enough most people can cope with the idea that a CofE school is educating their Muslim / Jewish / atheist / Catholic / etc. child

Children aren’t born religious. It’s a label we give them. There shouldnt be any religious slant in schools. Religion should be taught only in an historical/comparative type way. School is for schooling.

To only have the option of a religious school of any flavour in an area means something has failed along the way.

I also don’t buy the ‘its Just a few hymns and a harvest festival’ line. It’s not. Religions wouldn’t bother with funding schools unless they knew that they were engaging in indoctrination. There’s zero incentive for them otherwise. Get the claws in early - they have to because once kids are old enough they don’t buy it. They need young impressionable minds.

Religious schools create divisions in society that we can do without. They should all be banned. Our kids deserve better

OP (and anyone else who may be interested), this information from the CofE may be useful in helping you work out whether the school is acting appropriately or not.

www.churchofengland.org/more/education-and-schools/church-schools-and-academies/religious-education-and-collective-worship

www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-10/re_statement_of_entitlement_2016_0.pdf

And how helpful is irrelevant pap about howyourchild's school goes about things?
Is the OP's child at your child's school? Nope.
Umm did i say the OP's chikd was at my school. Oh yeah. No.

Was I replying to another poster discussing how schools go about meeting the requirement about broadly Christian acts if worship in even non faith schools, yes.

Does the fact stand the OP has sent her child to a faith school, yes (even if that's to do with need rather than choice)
Would sending her child to a non faith school remove the religious elements she objects to, no because the legal stance is a broadly Christian act of worship (and as i outlined there are different ways schools meet this requirement).

But obviously, any comment on this thread about the issue of religion and school which isn't 'omg be outraged and complain. How disgusting to have religion in a school' should get snidey pointless responses from the thread police. Give me a break.

This is why there should be more state funding for religious schools. If you want to send your child to one fine but people shouldn't be put in the position that they have to send their child to a religious school because it is the only school in the catchment area.

Its about time we had a change in the law to allow new schools to be secular, for schools to convert to secular status and for schools to be able to prioritise non faith admissions up to say ... 50%

(pressed post to soon) we have accepted non religious marriages and the sky didn't fall in, so its time to do the same for the education system.

No funding obviously, not more.

I have worked in several C of E schools in my teaching career as well as a community primary with no religious title.
Overwhelmingly the community primary school was the most caring and supportive to all members of the school.
In contrast,sadly,the C of E schools had religious zealots in charge- intent on bullying both children and staff into accepting " my way is the only way."
Horrible. I left.
"The nearer to church the further from God."
YANBU.

Most church schools in this country are built on land owned by the church, which also makes a contribution to the running of the school. This is heavily subsidised by the LEA because otherwise the LEA would have to build more schools of its own.

Why should those schools abandon their religious ethos to suit people who have no religion?

The government has offered a real alternative for people who are not happy - free schools. If you start your own free school OP then you too can promote your own agenda

The government has offered a real alternative for people who are not happy - free schools
No it hasn't, Free Schools are not allowed to be secular. And the amount churches contribute to schools is about enough to buy a silver collection plate to pass around the pews.

Those people parroting 'well it's a christian school, what did you expect' are either:

A: Christians
B: Have been taught not to question authority\the status quo\much of anything really

There are two issues here. The first is - is it right that the OP should have effectively no choice but to send her kids to a state-funded school that pushes it's own version of 'reality' on them? Obviously not.

The second - is there anything she can do about it? Probably not, sadly, because as others have pointed out, not only is it not against the law, it has been positively encouraged by current and past governments (both Tory and Labour) mainly thanks to the lobying efforts of A: and the apathy\stupidity\whatever you do don't rock the boat-ness of B:

OP

I'm in total agreement with you that this is unacceptable.

I've banged this drum myself a lot because it really is a crappy situation for you to be in.

I think the point you raised to the other posters on here who think you should just suck it up or home school 🤨 skewers them perfectly.

How would they feel if the only school they could send their children to was run along fundamentalist Islamic lines for example, or Zoroastrianism? I'm willing to bet you won't get an honest answer from them.

State funded schools should be secular in nature.

Important to note that secular and atheist are not the same thing.

Most church schools in this country are built on land owned by the church
When did the church buy this land and where did they get the money to do so? It was essentially taken from the hard working people we now call tax payers. The church didn't 'earn' their money when they set up all these schools.
The government could just rent the schools and the land they sit on from the church for a peppercorn rent, and separate education from religious control.

a picture of a sign was put up in class with a list of many faiths all pointing the ‘wrong’ way and only christianity pointing the ‘right’ way
I’m a staunch (you could say religious, ahem) follower of atheism, possibly, no, probably as a direct result of my strict Catholic education by Nuns with daily mass. My children went to the local C of E primary where their well thought out, atheist ‘beliefs’ were welcomed by ‘Rev’ Su’ as challenging, educational for others and interesting. I’m struggling to believe this statement above tbh, not my experience of, a largely inclusive, Christianity at all. I’m very comfortable in my scientific based beliefs, I’m no Richard Dawkins, but as a regular MNer I see a lot of Christian education bashing threads. Strangely less so of the Muslim or Jewish education bashing threads, it would be interesting to understand why, is it because there are laws against it (quite rightly so)? But the Christian religion seems to be ripe for criticism for some. Good job no one trashes those other religions btw, as an atheist I seem to be far more tolerant of people’s beliefs than some on here. Please stop pretending you don’t have a choice. Kids all over this country travel distances to get to the school of their choice, or that suits their needs better, or specialises, or, of course, get home schooled.

I think it is pretty bad that the only schools OP can realistically access are both of a religious flavour. Teaching RE is massively different to a school where religion is actively practised.

Judas

There are no laws to protect religions from criticism. (Quite rightly so)

There are laws to protect the religious from persecution on the basis of their faith.

This is a distinction that the religious would do well to recognise.

People should be protected from attack or persecution for what they believe.

Religious beliefs should not be protected from justified criticism and query.

Judas

I've never met any atheists who refer to atheism as a 'belief'. Quite the opposite actually.

Yet apparently you are well versed enough in atheist arguments and theory to send your children to school with well thought out, scientific arguments?

I think you may be being slightly disingenuous.

Judas - maybe its because there are far more Christian schools than there are Muslim or Jewish that you see more Christian-education bashing threads? Just a thought.

This is a distinction that the religious would do well to recognise.

Patronising much.

Piglet

Patronising, maybe.

A necessary reminder? Definitely.

Every single thread that involves religion on MN always degenerates into a 'your a bigot, your anti-semitic, islamophobe etc' for criticising basic tenets of those religions.

Every. Single. Time.

Look up the teachers on line - may be they are part of some kind of weird evangelical lot. See what brand of C of E is going on in there - the more usual kind of very laid back; a few hymns it can be very usefly to learn for future life, weddings etc never mind learning harmony and singing (I am a hymn fan) and it does no harm to know the bible - loads of our sayings and history is based on that. Presumably in all the normal lessons like English and Maths it is normal education rather than history books with creationism?
The arrows poniting to the wrong religion would be very unusual for a C of E school religious lesson as most major religions in the UK are fairly tolerant of other faiths so might eg say there are lots of ways to God and we are C of E and we think this is right but others have different views and some do not believe in God.

I would certainly support removing religion from state funded schools.

No it hasn't, Free Schools are not allowed to be secular. And the amount churches contribute to schools is about enough to buy a silver collection plate to pass around the pews.

Well yes, ok julie, she’d have to have her daily act of worship but apart from that five minutes each day, she’d be free to set her own. It’s just a bit of land, after all, a few buildings, a small donation every month. I’m sure she can just hand that over for the good of the community, like OPs here are expecting the church to do.

Please stop pretending you don’t have a choice

There are areas all over the country where people don't have a choice of schools. It is not remotely reasonable to tell people they should home school as the only way to avoid an evangelical education in a tax funded system.

It is the evangelical nature of the education the OP is objecting to, not a few hymns and assemblies.

Every single thread that involves religion on MN always degenerates into a 'your a bigot, your anti-semitic, islamophobe etc' for criticising basic tenets of those religions.

Sometimes there are anti Semitic and islamiphobia remarks however. To deny that it doesn't happen is disingenuous. There are often deletions.

like OPs here are expecting the church to do

I'm expecting schools which receive 90% of their funding from the taxpayer, and which are the only school option for those taxpayers, to cater for all the children in that catchment instead of using taxes to indoctrinate a captive audience.