Aibu headteacher undermining me

[Autumndayswhenthegrassisjewel]

I think I know how I'm going to respond to this but would like some mn opinions first!
Scenario: child participates in something at school that I'm not happy with. I tell school I'm not happy for them to participate and they say fine (think religion based) . Next thing I hear is that my ds has had a meeting with the head where he's told why it is fine and he will participate.
For context ds is 7. I'm now more annoyed by the heads actions than the thing itself. Am I right in thinking that if the head wanted to discuss it, it should be with me?as it is I feel our family values and parenting decisions have been undermined and I don't know if I trust other issues to be dealt with properly.
Am I over reacting?

No Miscible

OP: Head, nothing against our spaghetti monster religion please.
Head: okay.

Art Lesson, teacher gets out the pasta for some pasta art.
Kid: Miss, can I do this, I'm worried mum thinks fusilli is heretical.
Head: Nah, it's fine, you can do it.

Until we know the situation, we cannot say if it was wrong, we don't know that the OP actually withdrew the child from the activity, indeed from the action of the head it's likely that the OP didn't. If the OP will tell us the details, we can know more.

When I was 7, our Headteacher sent home a letter to tell all the parents there would be a sex ed class. Only one boy had parents who said he mustn't attend. The Headteacher apparently said "he'll hear bits of gossip in the playground, I don't think it's a good idea for him to miss it". They stood firm. We felt sorry for him and all chatted to him about it over lunch, he felt humiliated being pulled from class. The Headteacher had reminded the boy that he could confidentially ask her any question he wanted to. The conclusion of many little 7 year old minds was that he went to her and said "I'd like you to confidentially tell me everything you told the other kids about sex today please." So she did. I don't remember if he or she told his parents and I still think they were being ridiculous.

Unless we get more info I'll say YABU to pull him out at all.

If it was actually performing a religious act (e.g. communion) then the head has behaved appallingly, but that seems unlikely from the description.

I visual the OP saying no religious Ed. The child usually going to the library for the 20 minute activity but on one day the RE class was going outside to pick garbage and the head said fine you can do it.
Agree until the op spills the beans she’s being a ss.

Slightly making your own story up there sirfredfredgeorge The op said that the head took the boy to one side and told him the activity was ok and he would be participating. Not that the child asked to participate but was worried his mum wouldn’t let him. Very different scenarios.

All sounds a bit daft. Maybe OP's son had questions and was feeling funny about being left out. Maybe the headmaster was using this as a learning opportunity. Did he really persuade OP's son to do the activity or did OP's son opt in after a chat? Curiosity is a bugger in the young.

If it's evolution, then sorry but you are being massively UR and need to accept that schools need to teach actual proper science, even if they are a faith school.

OP

I'm sorry people have given you a hard time here.

Yanbu. It doesn't matter what the topic is (it's none of our business!) but you are right, if the HT reached an agreement with you, but then went behind your back to speak to your dc about it afterwards, I'd be wanting to know exactly why he thought that was ok. Because it's not ok.

The OP may not have chosen to send her child to a faith school. My child is at one as we didn't gain a place at the secular schools that we put down on our application.

Gosh this is the most tedious thread

I remember telling my DCs primary school to withdrawn my child from RE lessons. They said fine no problems. A bit later my DC came home telling me about God flooding the world and how a Noah built a boat to save all the animals.

So I asked the teacher about it and the reply was that DC was removed from RE classes but I wasn't allowed to remove them from art class. And the art class was taught by the local priest who for example helped them draw lovely pictures of Noahs Ark...

walking, why would you not want your child to learn about world religions? Whether you have a particular faith of your own or if you have none , education allows you to have an understanding of other people and cultures you will encounter. How can any child learn and understand the world around them if they are shielded from all religions and ignorant of it's existence? How can they learn about History without first learning what religion is? RE is not the same as worship.

Fresta
Withdrawing from RE to me always makes me wonder how fragile parents must think their own views are if being exposed to other ideas is such a threat.

The only people I've known who've been like that have been fundamentalist/ conservative (depending on your slant) religious people or militant atheists.

Most moderate religious people, agnostics and atheists are secure enough in their own beliefs not to be threatened by hearing about other people's beliefs.

Exactly Maisy. I work in a CofE school and we have an intake of about 20% muslim children, a few Hindu's, a Mormon and probably lots of atheists. Nobody withdraws from RE or worship. Most of them have the belief that there really isn't that much difference between the religions and they worship the one and same God. RE helps the children understand each others beliefs and customs.

I reckon it’s about gay marriage.

It comes under PSE or something rather than RE so op can’t withdraw.

Ds is confused and asks the HT why gay marriage is wrong...HT tells him it’s not and he’ll learn about it later.

Based on my gap filling, yabu.

Happy to be corrected if you stop being so obtuse though op.

The head probably thinks you're unreasonable to object to whatever it is.

Have you perhaps misunderstood the nature of the activity and the head has explained this to your child. Is it maybe an innocent celebration that no one could object to?

'Going behind your back' won't be how the head has seen it.

Was it the inter-faith prayer week for World Peace?

The head was unreasonable

On the face of it yanbu. The head should not have told your son he would participate when you had expressly refused.

However; my understanding is that the activity occurred on the day you declined permission. How much notice were you given? Why couldn't you call the school to ask questions if you genuinely wanted to discuss the activity in relation to your particular beliefs and concerns?

I feel somewhat that you might decline participation regularly based on your beliefs, and that desire is fine. But not every lesson in school is optional. You haven't said that this one was optional, required a permission slip or that you actively sought to explain your reasons rather than just outright said no. Which leads me to assume yabu that the head took time to take your son why he needed to participate in the lesson rather than just not removing him from it.

Until the OP fesses up, no one on here can make an informed opinion as ' did the head act unreasonably to my reasonable request' is entirely different to ' did the head act unreasonably to my unreasonable request'.

My monies on it being an unreasonable request and that's why OP is keeping schtum.

anti-slavery awareness week? (Clutching straws here!)

Hate threads like this...

But op "the whole point" is, because we don't know what it is, we don't know if you're being ridiculous about the situation and the HT was right to say what he said. Or whether you are within your rights because what they asked your ds to do was outrageous. And in fact we don't even know what the HT said.

So yeah, this is an annoying thread.

We don’t know whether or not the op was unreasonable to ask for her child to be withdrawn from whatever the activity was. But surely the HT has definitely been unreasonable to say it was ok for him to miss it to the op and then get in the child’s ear so they took part.
If it was an important activity and the HT didn’t think child should miss it he should have just told the op it was compulsory.
The op has said she’s more annoyed at the underhand way the HT went about it than the activity itself and from what she’s said she’s perfectly reasonable to be annoyed about that imo.

Fresta I don't have a problem with my children learning about other religions, however at primary I found RE was mostly about indoctrinating the children into believing one particular god was actually real.

At secondary it was just a complete waste of time, when they did learn anything it was a sanitised version of an idealised fictional history dreamed up by the 'elite' from 2 or 3 religions.

My children's time was far better spent in the library doing some actual learning and I did a much better job at home of exposing them to much more factual information with a better range of the many myths and legends of religious practises and beliefs (both historical & current) around the world.

This really depends on specifics but overall it's the head who is in charge of the running of the school and sets the rules so you can voice your opinion (occasionally head will have to listen due to the nature of the request) but generally head is in charge of what happens in school. It's not ideal re trust but without specifying what you've requested it's impossible to tell if you're being reasonable or a dick.