Religion in schools

[scorpiogirly]

Just wanted to get some thoughts on this.

My daughter's school has been heavily celebrating Eid and Ramadan. They're having an Eid party tomorrow.

She has been coming home the last few weeks talking a about it and saying that sometimes the Muslim children pray and get to go ahead of the other kids.

Last night she came home saying how she believed in Allah etc.

She's 6.

I have no trouble with her learning about different cultures and religions, but I feel this is going to far now to the point that this is being pushed on them.

I'm thinking of contacting the school to ask what they have been teaching them.

If you really could ' catch the Christian ' or any other faith at school, churches would be full. Most of what is taught is not really what Christians believe so I guess it's similar for Islam. Easter is all about bunnies and eggs, rather than it being the central celebration of the Christian faith. I doubt any kids would be able to tell you much of the Easter message by the end of primary.

Did the school do anything for Christmas and Easter? Chinese new year? Diwali?

The latest Ofsted subject report encourages a depth of knowledge, looking at the variation within religions and how people know about religions rather and breath of knowledge of lots of different religions.

Nothing about diwali or Chinese new year

I don’t know if it’s different in England but in Scotland there’s a lot of Christianity in the state schools. They learn all sorts and have a prayer group at school who speaks at assemblies sometimes. We are the only Jewish family in the school so have done some Jewish presentations throughout the year but never about beliefs, just traditions and food and such.

they write letters to Santa and learn about Easter and sang a song called ‘Christmas comes for everyone thanks to Jesus‘ at my daughter’s first nativity. We are all still Jewish so it didn’t really affect anything. Am sure your daughter is just enjoying the celebrations and will forget about it soon.

I thought all schools were nominally Christian. It depends on the head how far that goes in practice but it's my understanding that Christianity is the default (with the amount of observation determined by the head in some schools)

Schools should do a daily act of collective worship which unless they have applied other wise (eg for a religious school of a different religion) should be mostly of a Christian nature

Collective worship is seperate to RE. RE doesn’t have a national curriculum but instead each area will follow their locally agreed syllabus which reflective of the local area.

And “collective worship” and “broadly Christian in nature” covers a lot of bases: hearing Bible stories and exploring what values you think they’re about and whether you practice those values in your life counts; thinking about what “faith” means to you and what sort of things different people have faith in counts; singing jolly songs which are subtly suggesting the existence of a divine being but are also essentially about how amazing the world and all its creatures and things are counts.

I can still remember, over three decades on, all the words to the likes of Morning Has Broken and Give Me Joy in My Heart, and have never gotten closer to believing in God than showing up occasionally when he hands out free mince pies and mulled wine at Midnight Mass.

My 6 year old said when they learned about Diwali that she wanted to be Hindu and was annoyed that we don’t celebrate it at home and asked if we could next year.

This isn’t because the school is pushing Hinduism on them but because they learned about an exciting and lovely tradition which some of her classmates take part in at home and she felt a bit disgruntled that we don’t do it. Also her best friend is Hindu and so she wants to believe what she believes and get to go to the same temple as her.

More recently their class also learned about Easter and also had an Eid party. In my older daughter’s class some of the kids were fasting for Ramadan and so had special arrangements made for them at lunchtime and generally get special prayer arrangements. This isn’t the school favouring Islam, it’s just making accommodations for those children to follow their faith during the school day.

I’m sure in December some of the Muslim kids come home annoyed about not celebrating Christmas and their parents have to explain that to them too.

It’s appropriate for schools to teach about what different faiths believe in a neutral way. It is up to parents to discuss with their children how their own beliefs compare to those of other families.

Allah is just the Arabic word for God. Arabic-speaking Christians use the word too.

Realistically, she's 6 and her Muslim classmates have just celebrated 2 big celebrations (Ramadan - a whole month of sweets and presents - and then Eid ul-Fitr - a celebration with a similar level of importance as Christmas and similar levels of present-giving and sugar). She probably just wants in on the celebrating, sweets and presents. Easter's pretty soon, so she'll be interested in that too. Then probably the next festival and the one after that.

I wouldn't worry too much or give too big a reaction. Maybe try "That's nice dear" and then put out reminders about the Easter Bunny if you'd prefer her to be enthusiastic about that.

Allah is God.
It the same guy !
Do you follow any faith at home?
Have you ever told her what you believe?

Look at the school’s website as a first point of call. They will have a curriculum section and an RE section. This will have a curriculum intent that outlines their overall intent, then overview for each year group. Most schools have one member of staff subject leading RE, and they will have a subject action plan for the year.

use these documents as a guide for what your child is taught as that is what the teachers will be following. Alongside this, schools use assembly time to acknowledge different global RE festivals and may have visitors come in to make these experiences more relevant and engaging. Sometimes these visitors are more heavily from one religion if that is the community a school sits within, as it is important all schools reflect this alongside their duty to provide teaching on British Values etc.

dont just complain without researching it first, all the docs are available.

They possibly won’t have studied lots of different religions in depth yet because she she still young , but I guarantee if you look at the long term plan for RE they will be covered in the primary school. Many focus on Christianity plus one other each year. Did they celebrate Christmas? Nativity? Carols? It should also be taught that some Muslims believe… some Christian believe … but young children are literal. We are not religious at all but sometimes if you listen to my daughter you would think we attended church every Sunday. I just have age appropriate conversations about what different people and I personally believe and let her make her own mind up.

F.y.i. I am a primary teacher and have been an RE subject lead in the past, each year I have had it I have checked and rewritten overviews to ensure equal coverage of all global faiths and non-religious worldviews too. I think RE is really valuable for children to have in schools, it gives space for respectful discussions and, as the children get older, space for them to think about their own views. As a teacher, I always say “Christians believe X” not “I think X” as that is overstepping.

RE today is a good website for a lot of up to date resources that teachers can use, plus a good overview of how and why schools need to teach RE. Tolerance, respect, kindness, awareness of your own roots and identity, awareness of other people’s around you… children really need to know that their classmates are celebrating Eid at the moment. I don’t think this is a bad thing, personally.

If its a community school they will have children of different faiths surely its a good thing children learn about all religions as long as its presented as some people beleive
My oen son went to catholic schools and the catholic faith was predominant although they were taught about different religious beleifs hes an atheist so he certainly wasent indoctrinated

Are there muslim staff at the school?

I ask, not because I think they are pushing their religion, but because they may find it easier to teach about than other religions.

My DD's school is in a mostly white, British area and the staff struggled to teach about faiths other than Christianity, in some cases they didn't really seem to understand having no faith either. We're a mixed background family and I found it quite frustrating.

I think it’s useful for religion to be taught in schools as it’s social / cultural awareness . Children should also be encouraged to feel free to make their own minds up.
But I am not sure I believe in single faith schools as it’s then less about education and more about indoctrination and separation. On another note I also don’t believe in private / independent schools and none of them should have charity status.

All goverment funded schools should be doing daily collective worship in mainly christian nature. Follow complaints process and report to department of education its uk law. Im the same as you my sons school are celebrating and even have a prayer room. Its disgusts me that our culture is being forced out. I recommend all to complain. And report to DFE

Im almost with you. I’m an atheist and I think it’s important to learn about different religions, culture and philosophy - but very bad to be told what to believe.

It is about as private as geography or history. A teacher isn't teaching children to be the religion, but about the religion. RE is a humanity and a legal requirement in schools