Class wedding - just me or is it a bit creepy?

[NotAnotherJaffaCake]

CofE primary, quite churchy. Rural catchment so no choice of schools unless you want to drive. They are organising a Class Wedding for one of the KS1 class - basically role playing a wedding at the local church.

Is it just me or is this creepy? Can't put my finger on it but it feels entirely inappropriate for small children. It's one thing kids messing about playing but another thing to be told by a vicar that God will not permit divorce. And there is no way this school will demonstrate a Jewish or Hindu wedding, let alone a gay one. And how do the kids whose parents have split up or never married in the first place feel?

AIBU?

I think it's weird. Is it going to be a boy-groom/girl-bride kind of thing? That's not really on if so. I have gay friends and this kind of thing just grates.

I don't understand why a church is needed to 'perform' this role play anyway.

Box of dress-up clothes in the classroom and everybody playing every role they want to. That I'd fully understand.

We did this at school - we acted out a wedding (without the giving away/obey parts) and a divorce, for Christian, Muslim and Hindu weddings. We didn't do a gay wedding, but I'm 29, so I'd expect they probably cover that now.

It wasn't creepy. You weren't picked to do it if you didn't want to, but most people liked having a part. It was much better than just reading books and watching weird old '60s videos about marriage - it was interactive and allowed for questions.

I’m involved with the Methodist church and we have had groups from the local state Primary school come for mock weddings and mock baptisms in the church. “Religious ceremonies” are part of the national curriculum. Yes they could just teach it in school, but education is all about expanding experience, and having the ceremony in a place of worship is surely part of that. Schools will go to whichever church or other place of worship is willing to accommodate them, though in the OP’s context it’s not surprising they are going to the church they are linked to. If it’s a small village it may be the only one there.

As for children whose parents are divorced or never married - they will work out sooner or later that some parents are married and some aren’t. You don’t ‘protect’ them by pretending marriage doesn’t exist. Any more than parents who are anti-gay should be able to protect their children from knowing that some people are gay....

a CofE demonstrating a CofE wedding.. well, duh!

If they were doing the same with a Jewish or Hindu wedding, I bet they would get twice as many complaints about taking the piss or cultural appropriation, or whatever concept people want to be outraged about.

You chose your school when you decided where to live with your kids - or not to drive. Whatever concept the school is teaching, you are free to open a discussion with your children at home. I don't agree with everything my own kids teaches them, so we discuss it at home. It's fine.

I am not religious, and wouldn't have put my kids in a religious kids, that's just not what I believe.
HOWEVER, I agree with most of the church views of marriage: they are a serious commitments, not for a day but for life - I am all about divorce, but realistically when you have children, you are linked to their father for life!
If people were thinking a bit more seriously about who they have a kid with, and who they are marrying, how compatible, how to share chores and parenting, how to handle the Inlaws, how many hours of hobby are acceptable...
there would be a lot less of threads from miserable posters.

Anchor, your version wasn't creepy because a) it wasn't in a church, b) it didn't foreground the aspect of giving away a woman, c) you also covered a divorce, Christian, Muslim and Hindu weddings.

The specificity and narrowness of this one, and its dogmatic character, is what troubles me.

There's no reason to suppose they'll include "obey" in the vows...

My DH and I got married recently - DS is at preschool and talked about it a lot there, so they did a few activities around it, including marrying DS to his best (male) friend. I just thought it was cute. I didn't realise I should be offended.! And for the record, we're both atheists, so it's not like we're religious.

The people saying "choose another school" - it sounds to me like our local area, where it's just not that easy. Often small villages have a one form entry local school and that's the only realistic choice. It's not a case of an area like the one we used to live in where you really did know what you were signing up for, and people used to emphasise how godly they were to get into the CoE school.

Anyway I agree this is weird too OP!

I teach in a faith school, we do this as part of the RE curriculum looking at celebrations. Baptisms, weddings, etc. The children are always very enthusiastic and no one is forced to role play if they don't want to. Even though we are a faith school we have many faiths and none amongst the staff and pupils, and it's not an issue that's ever come up.

I can't help wondering whether there'd be so much outrage if the school had decided to enact a Hindu/Muslim/Sikh wedding. I suspect that that would be uncomfortably un-PC for many.

It's the poor old C of E (whose motto according to Eddie Izzard should be Tea and Cakes or Death! - that seems to attract so much vitriol.

All sounds very Stepford Wives to me...

TrentBrudge

That is true for many, but not for OP, who said it wouid involve more driving (not that it was impossible for her)

That is why I think she needs to weigh up flute schooling carefully. She is making a heck of a lot of assumptions about this sort of activity, and they are all ones which show antipathy towards current school. And she said she has an alternative, so the question is whether to commit to driving to the other school

The people saying "choose another school" - it sounds to me like our local area, where it's just not that easy.

it's not, but some of us had to relocate to make sure we were in the right catchment for the right school. It's not easy at all, but it's a choice.

People like me had also to compromise on property size because being near our chosen school was ridiculously more expensive than being further. It's a choice. Others chose to go to private school, it's a choice too.

.... but another thing to be told by a vicar that God will not permit divorce.
There is no reference to divorce in the C of E marriage service. The nearest it comes is this phrase just after the vows:
"Those whom God has joined together let no one put asunder."

Stepford Wives? Seriously? So all of us who got married in church are brainwashed hand maidens now?

DD school choir went to an actual wedding, this might turn out to be the only wedding she ever experiences as a child. So I think something like this could be interesting and educational for children.

I sympathise with all the reasons people have for not liking/agreeing with a traditional church wedding, but DD seeing one once doesn't really bother me, any more than a one-off trip to watch Morris dancing would. It's all so far from what I regard as normal life that I don't take it seriously enough to be bothered by it.

You can read the full text here:

www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/marriage#mm093

All rather tasteful and not much helfire and brimstone in it really!

Stepford Wives? Seriously? So all of us who got married in church are brainwashed hand maidens now?

I was referring more to the whole-community nature of this event rather than the specific religious ceremony involved. Which does seem a tad creepy (hence my comment about scarecrow festivals). It's not something a city lad like me can really get my head around - even though I crocodiled it to our local church at primary school for a carol service every year ....

A school I worked in had a 'wedding' in the nursery class around the time of William and Kate's wedding. A very multicultural school, so it was just a wedding, not a Christian/Hindu/Muslim etc ceremony and RE focus, just part of their KUW curriculum and linked to current events. They had a fabulous time, I think the bride wore a sari actually. To do it in role play in a church is taking a bit too far for me, even speaking as someone who has taught in CofE and RC schools for over a decade and my DD only went to faith schools (CofE from 4-16, RC for sixth form).

You can’t send your child to a faith school for convenience and then complain that they are taught the tenets of that faith.

My DC went to a Catholic school and also had the mock wedding. It didn’t stop them participating in and appreciating their uncle’s same sex wedding a few months later. If anything it taught them how important a commitment marriage is, regardless of the gender or creed of the couple.

You sound quite out of touch with modern day religious practices OP. The future leader of the Church of England is divorced. His DIL (Meghan Markle)wasn’t given away at her wedding to Harry.

Unless of course OP will be clutching her pearls at the mention of sex!

"The gift of marriage brings husband and wife together
in the delight and tenderness of sexual union
and joyful commitment to the end of their lives."

Apart from anything else, it is not just dressing up and playing weddings in someone's living room, it is an actual church. I am horrified.

Horrified, really? We have people reliant on food banks to feed their kids, fathers taking their own lives because they can’t afford to live any longer, refugee children kept in cages, the planet drowning in plastic and it’s a pretend wedding in a church that horrifies you.

It’s a church school, teaching the churches position on marriage in a way that engages the children. Which involves a bride and groom, a church, vows - which many thousands of people do for real every year. It doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do it, or that same sex marriage is wrong - they’re teaching the official position of the church they belong to, if you’re not happy don’t send your kids to a church school but sending your kids to a faith school and expecting the school not to teach according to their faith is ridiculous. As is being “horrified” when the school teaches according to their faith.

You can’t send your child to a faith school for convenience and then complain that they are taught the tenets of that faith.

This. I see so many threads on MN of people criticising the religious practices taught in faith schools that they have chosen to send their children to. If you don't want you children being taught a religion don't send them to a faith school.

We have also done this at my school without a batted eyelid from parents. For some children, it may be the one church wedding they go to until they’re old enough to be invited to them as adult guests. It forms part of their understanding of cultural heritage. No one says they shouldn’t question why the bride is “given away” or anything. In fact, if they do have questions then all the better!!