To email school AGAIN re religious assemblies

[pineapplepenthouse]

I have twins in year 4 both in different classes. I have expressed my feelings about not letting them be involved in religious assemblies or having anything to do with religion. My children are in different classes. Today for the third time my DDs has come home saying he has been included in the religious assembly.
I have strong feelings on this but other mums just say 'it's not a big deal' and 'it didn't do us any harm'.

AIBU?

@TheSandman - don't forget Jurassic Park, land before time and anything else with a sniff of a dinosaur 😁

In my humble experience there's barely any difference between learning about a religion in a class room setting and practising a religion in an assembly setting - perhaps a song and a prayer is about the extent of it, nothing to get too worked up about

@Femaleassassin - hardly being free as a bird being in organised religion is it 🙄

@flumpybear

I feel more free as a praticising Catholic than I ever did before.

Being considered a sheep with the Lord as my shepherd ...... Yup, I'm totally fine with that!

I think part of the confusion is that Op children are at a non denominational school? But she feels they are being made to worship? Not just education on religious beliefs? Is this correct?

Which is why as a “ happy clappy” myself I have said the school should follow her wishes! If she wanted Dc to worship I would suspect she would sent them to a faith school!

I have family members at non denomination schools myself who attend and also are teachers. As far as I know they have religious education about the main faiths but don’t worship.

I think this is perfectly acceptable and I would find it strange if a non denominational school was worshiping.

I send my Dc to a faith school but have no issues with the fact there are children who attend who are not.

So tell me @walkingdeadfangirl

How isn’t this not tollerence of other people (or basically what you are inplying.. fourcing religion onto someone.)

I am more than happy for there to be non denominational schools where no worship is practised for those who don’t want to.

More than happy for children to attend a faith school who also don’t be want to practice.

Why should my children attending a faith school which allows children of a non faith background attend be a hardship for anyone else?

My faith is practiced at church, my home and at school it’s 90% religious education with around 10% being actual acts of worship.

I make no bones about it I sent my children to a faith school to further help support the faith I want to show them.... why is this such a issue for some people?

“I think this is perfectly acceptable and I would find it strange if a non denominational school was worshiping”
They have a statutory obligation under the 1988 Education Act to hold a daily act of collective worship “broadly Christian in nature”.

Femaleassassin, the sessions OP is talking about are assemblies run by a church minister who openly says he is trying to evangelise. That's a bit more than a song and a prayer.

Either way, it's irrelevant. It's OP's right to withdraw her children, and it's one the school has to honour.

Millionsofthings, I think the issue is that you have an extra choice of school that others don't have, and that that is something that is supported and paid for by the state.

Like everything else it can vary a lot from school to school. My dc attended a tiny Scottish non-denominational primary. They said the Lord's Prayer every morning and Grace before lunch. Music classes were practising the hymns for assembly. The assembly was usually Christian - and the minister would go in to hold assemblies at least once per month. A Christian praise group would also go in at least once a term. At their next primary it was not quite to the same scale but there was a Church of Scotland minister led assembly around once per month.

SaturdayNext

Ok so it’s all budget related and I’m no to do with lack of tollerence? Why the used of happy clappy, made up god etc.... why just not say I don’t agree with due to local council budgets? 🧐

BretandRusell

There are 3 non denominational schools on my area and I have friends/ family’s children at them all... none of them do this.

My concern with this thread is not that Op wants to remove from anything... that’s up to the individual.

What concerns me is the use of lauguage that implies people of religion are stupid for holding certain beliefs.

There is. Not sure why you think I'd lie about that? One is a 4/5 but the majority in that one are P4s. I'm not accusing you of lying. But a village school with two P4 classes and one P3/4 composite class is pretty unusual. I feel the implication with use of words like 'village' and 'farms' is one that is easily bought by a lot of MNetters.

• one P4/5 composite class

Well you said 'pull the other one' so what were you implying if not accusing me of lying?

It is a village, surrounded by farms actually. Started off as a tiny community but due to new house builds I'd rather large in size. The school has two extensions and portacabins. There is talk of a new school being built but can't see it happening soon.

Anyway, that's not really the point of my post.....

Numerous primary classes doesn't surprise me. We live in a large rural town and the one school within the catchment has a varying number of classes per year, depending on their intake each year. They increase the number of classes accordingly.

The teacher is right. It won't do your ds any harm. My DD attended Catholic school, only because it is the nearest school to us. Otherwise she would have had to travel miles to the nearest secondary school and me and DH were working so had no time to take and Collect her. No school bus either. We are not Catholic. We are athiest but have no problem with other peoples religious beliefs. DD has now left school and has not been doctrines into Catholicism, or any religion.

Where is your DS to go when there are lessons about any religion/religious ceremonies? Surely it's just another lesson that he doesn't have to take on board. Having knowledge of different religions will help him make his mind up as to which religion suits him - or not?

Sorry OP I didn't mean to be offensive. Thanks for your latest post explaining.

Dexra - I have just googled a primary school near where we used to live . It is classed as a village but the school has 2 P4 classes and one P3/4 composite...and 3 P1 classes.
So definitely possible.

@saturdaynext why are getting so angry? The author wants to withdraw her children specifically from religious assemblies. I asked her why. I would still like to understand why. Calm down.

I'm still waiting for a response to the number of questions above regarding whether Christian parents would be happy if their children were made to take part in an act of worship for a different religion e.g. Hindu or Islamic, on a regular basis, with no Christian acts of worship ever taking place in the school.

For goodness sake, whether religion would hurt op's children or not is irrelevant. She wants them excluded, has put it in writing and one teacher complies and the other does not. She needs to go to see Headteacher to complain about teacher ignoring her written and legal request. I would also write to Governors too.

Fellow Scottish parent with kids in a non dom Scottish school.

We had an issue around assemblies too. The area we live in it’s the Free Church that’s the main church. I attended as a child a Church of Scotland Sunday school and it was a Church of Scotland led assembly, I never realised how different the 2 churches were. A couple of the teachers and support staff at my kids school are also very active Free Kirk members. The minister who led assembly was free Kirk too. So a number of parents were unhappy with the amount of and type Christianity teachings in the school, we went to Parent Council and the assemblies (once a month) have been changed to reflect the breadth of belief in the local area, one is led still by the free church, then the Roman Catholic, humanist, ba’hai and a couple of others depending on availability (e.g. the Confuscious teacher from China spoke about her religion and others celebrated in China)

So long story short could you, through the parent council alter the assemblies at your school?

@Allergictoironing (love your username as I fear I suffer from that affliction too ) I've been waiting for one single person to address my questions but I'm starting to feel sad and ignored. It seems that it is better to avoid the bits they don't like entirely than to think of a good answer to it. (Like cherry picking which bits of the religion to follow I suppose so they're probably well practiced at it by now)

Saturday - what does 'trying to evangelise' actually mean? Im pretty sure hes not going round gripping kids heads and wailing to the heavens to 'save this child from sin', neither is he telling the kids that their 'souls will burn in the fires of hell if they don't believe in our Lord jesus' - no, more likely he's encouraging them to be nice to each other cos that's what Jesus wanted. Least ways that's all I remember from my years of 'indoctrination'.

You are that parent...