to think that my DD has a right to a secular education

[Tinnitus]

Two years ago my DD came home to tell EXP and Me about the "true meaning of Christmas". We are both atheists and had purposely sought out a non religious school and so we were perplexed. We took every opportunity to explain that this story was just that, a story, not the literal truth.

Inevitably DD soon started on about the true meaning of Easter and so I made an appointment to see the headmistress of her school. By the time of the appointment I had learned from DD that it was a classroom helper who was feeding her this guff and not a teacher, and I felt a quiet word would suffice.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only was the helper indoctrinating DD, but the local evangelical church held monthly assemblies with the children. Indeed it turns out that every school in the country must be affiliated with a church of some type, but is not obliged to brand themselves thus. The head mistress was courteous and obliging and agreed to my request that the brainwashing of DD stop. I made no demands about her education other than She does not come home spouting twaddle.

Two years on and she is beginning to again to talk about Heaven, Hell, God and the Devil. But she has no idea who Adam and Eve were. When I "tactfully" quizzed her about this I discover a local CofE vicar has been regularly talking to the children about his faith, but without emphasizing that it is only his own opinion. Worse still, He has had my DD praying in class.

I have asked the school to live up to their earlier agreement as calmly as I could.

AIBU

@ piscesmoon

If you look at my post about five up from yours you will see I am not giving either side to DS.

Tinnitus - that still doesn't make them any less Christian. They are Christian festivals, that happen to be held on dates once used for pagan festivals. This doesn't make them pagan festivals.

Just out of interest, which pagan festival did Easter supplant?

SGB - while I agree with you on most points, I must pull you up on why Easter moves around. It's because the crucifixion etc occurred a known number of days after the Jewish Passover (the last supper was a Passover meal), so Easter follows the Jewish calendar (which amuses me no end!). So I don't think that Easter supplanted a Pagan festival.

Christmas definitely did though.

Though most religions tend to have a mid-winter festival of lights, a spring festival etc etc, it seems the one thing all the religions can agree on is when it's a good time to have a party!!

Lucky1979: The Christian myths (birth, death, resurrection) are just variants on older myths anyway, and the missionaaries trick of bolting them onto existing festivals was basically a rebranding exercise. The reason the Abrahamic/monotheistic religions spread so well is that they were a good tool for people who wanted to conquer their neighbours.

@ lucky1979

The Oxford English Dictionary reads, "Easter. The name is derived from Eostre, the name of a goddess whose festival was celebrated at the vernal equinox; her name shows that she was originally the dawn-goddess." Compton?s Encyclopedia reads, "Our name Easter comes from Eostre, an ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess, originally of the dawn. In pagan times an annual spring festival was held in her honor." Academic American Encyclopedia reads, "According to the Venerable Bede, the name Easter derived from the pagan spring festival of the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre." Though the King James Bible has the word "Easter" in Acts 12:4, it was used only as a synonym for the Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was the event under consideration, as Herod waited for the right time to kill Peter and not offend the Jews (Acts 12:1-3). The OED confirms this use of "Easter" as a synonym for the Jewish Passover

Like I said, everyone seems to have their parties at the same time!

Wot SGB/Annie Lobeseder said.

If you lived in the Northern hemisphere, pre packaged/air mile food, there'd come a point when some of your carefully husbanded winter stores were looking rather manky, & everyone was cold & lurgy-ridden & miserable - so you'd have a party to cheer everyone up, & eat that dodgy greenish ham that clearly wasn't going to last until spring.

Then a few months later it'd get warmer & greener. Hurrah! You'd have another party to finish off the last of the wrinkly apples & that rather scrawny elderly hen you'd been saving.

Successive cultures (pagan, Christian, whatever) have bolted symbolism & ritual onto these purely pragmatic knees-ups, but I think the idea of a 'true meaning' is disingenuous in the extreme.

They certainly don't have much to do with the life of Jesus, who was probably born in September, anyway...OK, I'll concede that Easter follows the Jewish calendar & the date does make some sort of sense re: the historical Jesus. It still conveniently supplanted a well-established pre-xtian tradition of Eostre.

Just had my first assembly at my four year olds non demominational (sp?) and was really surprised that they sang a hymn at the end. I really thought non dem schools stayed clear of this but taught all religions equally. My only previous school experience (though raised in Catholic schools myself) was where the kids went to an International school in Asia (they were in the minority as white 'christian') which truly celebrated Christian, Islam, Hindu, Buddihism equally and was wonderful to take part in.

'If you look at my post about five up from yours you will see I am not giving either side to DS.

Well that really leaves them in ignorance! They will most definately get the religious side so it makes sense to tell them that alternatives.
I have posted links earlier scanty-schools really should point out the law on collective worship and not let parents assume things (I'm not sure why they assume that there isn't Christian worship-you must have sung hymns at school and nothing has changed). Read the 1998 Education Act-the school has to provide a daily act of collective worship and it has to be broadly Christian (I think it gives the precise percentage)a school can opt out if they have predominently another faith pupil but it isn't easy-all sorts of hoops have to be jumped through.

This link for advice to muslims for collective worship in schools might make it clear. here

sorry -definitely

Sorry-I see you were raised in a Catholic school so you wouldn't know. All state non denominational schools have always sung hymns-there hasn't been a change.If you have worship you need a medium to do it through-prayer and hymns.

But, even if pagans had a festival at the sameish time (also, defining pagans might be useful as it covers pretty much all religions that aren't Christian) why is celebrating the resurrection of Christ not Christian, regardless of why the date was picked? It is the date that Christians celebrate Christ being reborn. It's a Christian festival.

I thought this was quite an interesting article about what we actually know about Eostre from 1st person sources (it appears to be not much)

cavalorn.livejournal.com/502368.html

My other thought would be Christianity's stronghold as it became a defined religion most definitely wasn't Britain. Britain in the time of the Roman empire was hardly the centre of the world, it was a nasty, difficult to conquer, little backwater with rotten weather. Why would the religion adopt the name Eostra and the date of the festival from the religions here. The supplanting of a Roman festival for Christmas makes sense to me, as that is where the action was so to speak, but why pick Easter based on a British goddess? The defined days following passover makes far more sense to me in that regard.

I'm not actually Christian myself, I love history though, and am genuinely curious as to the origin of these things.

I'm not sure but isn't Easter/Eostre jus tthe English word for it.

Most latinate languages seem to have a word based on Pascal/Paschal, which is a word for sacrifice (Jesus as the Paschal Lamb etc).

1. lots of talk about UK system of education - no such thing - Scotland has a different education system AND by the way C of E isn't THE state religion in the UK. Scotland doesn't have a state religion. (I guess OP isn't in Scotland, but so many of the posters have made such sweeping comments that I felt I had to clarify that point).

2. I too had DS coming home (from a non-denominational school) saying 'let's celebrate that jesus is alive'. To which I said, 'let's celebrate that the flowers are growing, the trees will be green again, there will be lambs in fields'. Left it at that, as the last time I posted a similar thread I too was shot down in flames by christians who felt that I was 'forcing' my belief system on my child (which they of course are not doing)

OP - YANBU. I too wish that we could have a state education system that teaches about religion, and leaves religious indoctrination to homes and churches.

Thank you Finona, as a transplanted Caledonian myself I wanted to make that point myself but was getting enough grief already, and didn't want to catch more for Anglo-bashing.

Thank you Weegiemum. I had a feeling that was the case based on the checking I had done, but you saved me the trouble of looking again.

And thank you lucky1979. it's a valid point about the origins of our culture, but we are a post Christian society despite what the government say, just as we became a post pagan society. I have no romantic ideas of getting DD in touch with the goddess, I'm happy for Easter to mean chocolate and Xmas to mean the sound of music and prezzies. she is seven after all.

If you have lived in Glasgow you see there aremany other reasons why religious faith should be kept out of schools. I'm English and was somewhat naive about the religious divide when I moved up here. It's an eye-opener.

If you have lived in Glasgow you see there aremany other reasons why religious faith should be kept out of schools. I'm English and was somewhat naive about the religious divide when I moved up here. It's an eye-opener.

Sorry- havn't read every post, but would like

to play devils advocate and suggest that you

are the one that is brainwashing your dd.

I did make it clear early on that I was talking about England. The Scottish system is different and I have no knowledge of it.
It is all set out very clearly in the Education Acts.
I would be very worried about my DCs if I thought that people could fill their heads with whatever was on their agenda and that I had to do a reverse job each time! I am happy for them to be open to everything and let them make up their own mind. I expect that the clergy in this country would be overjoyed if it was all so easy and they got a DC at 5yrs and made converts and filled the churches! It really doesn't work like that-even those taken to church often stop going.
I think that if parents don't come across religion in every day life and they get a shock when they start school. The 5 or 6 yr old may well come home full of talk about God if it is new to them but it isn't anything to worry about-it is irritating (if you are not a believer) but nothing more. I found it very irritating when they started school and found all the toilet jokes, but they grow out of it. They are bound to be taken up with the new.
Young children are fascinated by the subject of life and death and why we are here-it is the adults who won't discuss it. I think it much healthier to discuss it, than tell them that they WILL believe what mummy believes.

Sorry onebadbaby. but I would suggest that you read every post.

Whether Easter/Xmas are Christian or not is just a matter of semantics.

Are the Christian festivals of Easter/Xmas Christian. Yes, obviously by definition.

Are the two weeks/long weekend I take off work? No.

If schools were under the influence of one political party at the expense of others, rather than just teaching kids about politics, we'd be outraged.

Religion is just a very old form of politics. It's about power, suppression and control. There is no good reason to have it in schools.

Just to stir the pot further, Paschal comes from the Jewish Pesach, which is Passover, and yes, comes from the lamb which was sacrificed and the blood painted on every door frame so that the angel of death would pass over the houses of the Israelites on that final night of the 10 plagues.

Lucky1979 - I think you're mixing up pagan and heathen. Heathen covers all non-Christian religious. Pagans are a specific religion, which most of the UK used to be pre-Christianity, who worship the earth goddess etc etc.

I think I agree with the OP. As I wouldnt be happy if the school held regular praying session especially, if I'm not Christian. I'm happy with my DC to learn about other religions tho. And as to my knowladge those celebrations were celebrated by Pagans!

And woulndt be lying to my kids that father christmass does exist then eat my words and say "actually, it doesnt exist, I fooled you!".

Unquietdad and BlueGreen All I can say is Halleleujah! Some people who talk sense