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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to expect religion to be taught & practised at religious schools?

223 replies

KristinaM · 26/09/2007 19:06

I am getting rather fed up with the threads that go........

" Although we are not Jewish we have chosen to send our son to the local Jewish school, its got a good ethos and great results. Now he has started we are very angry and upset to discover that they celebrate all the Jewish festivals and have acts of worship with a rabbi present.They even take them to the synagogue.

I don't want to have my child brainwashed with fairy stories.I only want him exposed to my particular beliefs. I am worried he will grow up and have a mind of his own and not believe the same as me. How can I get the school to change to suit me??"

OP posts:
EmsMum · 27/09/2007 13:41

My choice would be to send DD to a non-religious school within walking distance which I don't have to pay extra for in addition to my taxes.

The only school within walking distance is a Church school. I am not allowed to choose it!

The schools in the adjacent villages are church schools. So I can't choose them either.

Not without choosing to be a hypocrite.

UnquietDad · 27/09/2007 13:41

caroline - the "choice" thing misses the point.

Analogy:
You have a bowl of red apples and green apples in front of you. You are told that people who believe in a certain creation myth are allowed to have first dibs on red or green. People who don't subscribe to this myth may have only green. How is this helpful?

Caroline1852 · 27/09/2007 14:07

UQD - That is a poor analogy.
A bowl of green apples and red apples in front of you. You are told that some children's parents (not the children note) don't like red apples, in fact they hate them and they don't want their children to have them. So the children are only offered green apples.

Caroline1852 · 27/09/2007 14:16

"first dibs on red OR green" - what is that all about?

EmsMum · 27/09/2007 14:38

the ones that can choose red don't actually get first dibs on green. That blows the whole argument out of the water .

Forget the analogy. Just take our word for it, some of us get no choice based purely on religious discrimination. sour green apple

UnquietDad · 27/09/2007 14:41

Let me explain it again.

Religious people have THE CHOICE. Their children can go to EITHER a non-faith school or a faith school.

Non-religious people have NO choice or LESS choice. Their children can go to the non-faith school, but not the faith school. (Or can only go to the faith school if there are places left in the 10% or whatever which they allocate to heathens.)

If the religious are paying extra for the privilege, fine. I think they're daft, but it's their money.

But when both the non-faith school and the faith school are funded through general taxation - paid for both by bible-bashers and godless heathens - this seems outrageously unfair.

UnquietDad · 27/09/2007 14:42

emsmum - if you're first to choose, you get more choice - surely?

EmsMum · 27/09/2007 14:48

UQD ??? sorry, dont understand what you meant by that. I think you've bitten off more than you can chew with those apples!

Apples are the root of all our problems

Your non-analogy post is much clearer. Exactly so.

UnquietDad · 27/09/2007 14:50

I think perhaps my use of "first dibs" was misleading. What I mean is, there is a situation where some people have a choice between two types of thing and others only have the choice of one.

sugarmatches · 27/09/2007 14:57

Do you know that I sit in church once a month for my dd to go to her C of E school???
Sometimes I feel like I am the ultimate hypocrite. I was raised as a Catholic, but don't really belive anymore. I must say though that I find church very peaceful (and nice even).

There are children from many faiths in the school and they don't all go to church, but I like to be involved and that is the only way to assure I can be. Most schools these days are very fair about letting children of different faiths attend. There is a system in place though: C of E get first refusal, then other Christian groups, then by siblings at the school and then by where you live.

It does not make you a hypocrite to go to a faith school, especially if it is a good school.

sugarmatches · 27/09/2007 15:00

This is a crazy thread title though.
Religion should be taught in every school, but in a way where all faiths gets equal recognition.

IMO.

UnquietDad · 27/09/2007 15:01

You shouldn't have had to do that though, sugarmatches. Not in the state system (I assume). No parent should be faced with having to put in hours at church just to get a child into school.

mimi03 · 27/09/2007 15:04

can i just say how nice it is to be having a rational,grown up debate on this subject! some of these threads go down hill very quickly!!

Caroline1852 · 27/09/2007 15:05

I don't get this taxation argument at all. As far as I am aware a faith school costs no more to run than a non faith school and the local education authority will spend the same educating Johnny Christian as they will educating Johnny Atheist. You don't want the faith school (fine) but you don't want others to have it either. You don't want the non-denominational school because it's not good enough. Oh and you don't want to pay. There is no pleasing some people.

sugarmatches · 27/09/2007 15:08

Well there is an unofficial protocol in place if you want to be involved with things outside of the school, like helping on school trips.

Also, I am hoping to get ds into nursery and the places are very limited. The school has a lot more choice with the nursery and many children are turned away. If I get a recommendation from the vicar, it is much easier to get in.

I don't think it should be that way, but it is.

UnquietDad · 27/09/2007 15:09

[slaps forehead because caroline just doesn't get it]

We don't want the faith school or the non-faith school because it is divisive and unfair to segregate children according to the religious beliefs (real or putative) of their parents.

Just imagine for a minute that it was not faiths, but football teams. Or any other arbitrary criterion. Then you see how daft it is to separate people off.

Caroline1852 · 27/09/2007 15:13

uqd - why do you think faith schools are much better in general than non faith schools?

sugarmatches · 27/09/2007 15:18

Some faith schools are better because they (like ours) have an independent body of Governors who support the school. Our school also relies on a annual parental contribution.

I really have no definitive proof that these things make our school "better", but it has a lovely grounds and more money for books and supplies.

UnquietDad · 27/09/2007 15:19

Well, leaving aside the question of whether I said they actually were... and what you mean by "better"...

People perceive them as better. They are popular, and so create an impression of popularity. Therefore parents who have an active interest in making sure their children go to a "good" school will try to get their children into them.

The same is entirely true of the non-faith schools at the top end of the league tables. Like attracts like.

If a faith school lost its faith element and faith requirement for entry, but kept everything else - the uniform, the management, the staff, the building, the resources, the ethos, the catchment - would it go downhill overnight? Doubt it.

sugarmatches · 27/09/2007 15:31

I agree 100% UQD.
The only reason we applied to our school in the first place is that it is so close to our home.

I knew nothing about the English school system when I chose it, i was just being lazy

UnquietDad · 27/09/2007 15:33

Yes, it's difficult to say - without a control case for comparison - whether it's the level of active parental involvement which makes a school "better".

My feeling is that it is - given that this is the one element common to "good" faith schools and "good" non-faith schools.

Caroline1852 · 27/09/2007 15:34

[slaps forehead because caroline just doesn't get it] - charming.

I do get it. Some people have managed to get faith schooling that they feel will suit their children (their reasons are none of our business). Rabid atheists resent this, not because they want it but couldn't have it and not because they haven't got what they want but because they want people who attend faith schools not to have the chance to do so (even though the people whose children attend faith schools are probably quite happy). The atheists don't like it! I can't think of a better decription of intolerance. It reminds me of banning fox-hunting.

sugarmatches · 27/09/2007 15:39

at fox hunting.

sugarmatches · 27/09/2007 15:40

That shizzle (my new word of the week, courtesy of my niece) is just mean.

UnquietDad · 27/09/2007 15:40

Leaving aside the huge generalisation about "rabid atheists" there...

It is absolutely not about wanting people to stop having what they have got. It is about wanting all children to have equal access to the same state education which all of their parents - atheists, Christians, Wiccans, Muslims, Seventh Day Adventists and believers in the Great Green Arklesizure, the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the Giant Spaghetti Monster - contribute to financially.

People who believe in a god - or convincingly claim to - have a choice which rationalist people don't. This is unjust.

Why is this simple idea being portrayed as so complex and hard to understand???

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