To refuse even to consider applying for a place in the local faith school for DS

[madamez]

Yes, some of his friends from playgroup and nursery are going to go there. Yes, it's within walking distance of where we live. Yes, apparently it's a nice school with an inclusive admissions policy and a good reputation.
But it's a faith school and I do not approve of faith schools and I don't want DS to be force-fed crap or to feel separate from other children on the grounds of other people's superstitious bullshit. There are plenty of other schools, so why are people saying I should send him to this one?

fatty said ...

Fatty, you are just plain wrong. Go look it up. The celebration started long before christ and the only reason we let you lot celebrate it with us is that we are kind that way.

Well JAC, I started the thread because I was irritated and wanted a rant. Just like just about everyone who starts a thread in AIBU. Got a problem with that?

Rant away.

Oh & YANBU.

We have been through it all before-and no doubt it will crop up again soon!

i really really didn't want my dd to go to the same faith school i went to purely because of the religious element - imagine my shock when she started at the further away non-faith school and started preaching religion to us at every oppertunity due to an overbearing christian reception teacher

my ds is going to the faith school - it's nearer - i'm lazy - so shoot me.

Surely the logical solution is to shoot the overbearing christian reception teacher?

ah - if only i'd thought of that lucky for us dd grew out of the religion - she's 13 now - however the teacher is still pedaling[?] christian values to kids i mind

[quote]No of course you're not being unreasonable. It would be unreasonable (and hypocritical) to send your child to a faith school when you are clearly very strongly anti-organised religion. I don't know why so many people do.[/quote]

Uh, some people don't have a frigging choice! 95 applications were submitted to the local nondenomenational primary school, 15 of the 30 places were allocated to siblings of children in older years, the other 15 places went to children who were closest (and we were about 500 metres farther than the farthest place given). The only other schools left for us were CofE and Catholic, so obviously we went for CofE grudgingly - we don't have any other choice than to do this!

Spare a thought for those of us who aren't religious, don't want to send their child to a school affiliated with a particular religion but physically don't have a choice and cannot travel furter afield to a nondenominational primary due to work constraints! I would desperately love not to be a hypocrite but until this country realises that religion has no place whatsoever in our children's education other than simple fact giving then we are stuck with it!

It is unfair because often you don't really get a choice and then people say "well you sent them there so stop moaning"

Since anyone can start a school now I'm waiting to see the reaction to the first BNP school . It would be perfectly legal and if it was the closest one you'd be stuck with it.

I wonder if we'd still get people saying that it was ok and that you could correct what the school taught when they got home.

From experience as a teacher it is far harder to 'correct' the views of racist children that they have had imposed on them since birth.

Most education takes place in the home after all

Fortunately political parties aren't able to start schools just yet - you do have to be a recognised religious group to start a faith school and be state funded. Businesses are able to fund city academies and foundation schools though, which is worrying. Private schools are a whole different matter of course.

Of course, you don't often have a choice. We are in a rural area where we have no choice at all, and the local school is a faith school. Unfortunately the blame for all this rests squarely on Tony Blair's shoulders. Without his influence there woudl be few faith schools left now.

My daughter is at the local CofE school, in a year with Christians (cofe, RC, and others), Muslims, Hindus and Jews. And atheists and agnostics. The Mum of the Jewish girl is invited in each year to talk to the children about Jewish festivals, such a Passover. One of the Muslim mums is also very regularly invited. I have always felt the representation of faith, or lack of it, very open and although certainly with a bias to the CofE (by nature of the school!) it is not a place concentrating purely on the doctrines of the CofE, or shoving it down everyones throats. I am really pleased my daughter is there, it's a lovely school, with an 'outstanding' Ofsted mark for the pastoral development side, and 'good' for everything else. Just felt I had to stick up for it!

You do have a choice actually. Go private. Or home ed. Or move. These may not be practical options for you personally but it is disengenious to say you have no choice. Its a free country after all.

Pedalling Christian values usually means love, tolerance and compassion. I fail to see a problem with this. If these are not the values being espoused, these so called Christian teachers aren't really Christian.