withdrawal from RE/Collective worship AND Gifted/Talented

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Hello.

I have searched this forum but have been unable to find a specific discussion on the experience parent have had when withdrawing their children from RE and Collective Worship.

We are Jewish Humanist (Atheist) and I object to my son being involved with prayers or any kind or being in a christmas play- nativity involvement is specifically out of the question.

We are also American so my husband and I never had to deal with feelings of exclusion regarding the above issues because religion is not allowed in public schools YEY! We don't really understand the RE system and my first child is just turning 4.

His school has assembly every morning. From what I understand, it is usually of an ethical theme which is terrific, yet it follows by a prayer at the end and then once a week there are hymns and once a week there are relgious plays of a nature which has not yet been made specifically clear or to me.

The school headmistress has not offered any solutions or plans except to say we'll deal with it. This last school year, my son was taken out from practicing for school christmas songs but I know he felt sad about being separated from friends as he was only brought into another room to play with playdough and overheard everyone but him practicing. I'm not sure that overhearing practcing is consistenet with honoring re withdrawal rights. Also as the school is a christian private school run by cognate, I'm not sure if they have the ability to do what they want vs a state school.

My initial thought is to just bring my son to school 15 minutes "late" each morning so he won't even know what he is missing - of course if there is an awards day or something I don't know how this would be handled. The headmistress really gave me the indiciation that in circumstances like this, she wouldn't know what to do either- yet I think the school has a duty to come up with some accomodations doesn't it? In regards to being "late" it was communicated to me that my son might in future be marked "late" which would interfere with the attendance policy.. don't know what to do about this.

Finally, on top of it all, my son is listed as gifted for reading and math. This past school year I was just thrilled because the wonderful year 2 teacher met with him once a week and encouraged him. I thought that just maybe,. if the school is going to give support here, that they do so when my son would otherwise be in RE or collective worship as he might not feel excluded specifically. I get the feeling that while that one teacher was thrilled to offer up her time, the headmistress really doesn't want to ask her staff to sit with my son and would rather pressure us to confirm or leave. We are not the type to just bow under pressure-

SO! With all of the above in mind- any tips? What has your experience dealing with withdrawal been like? How to deal with a headmistress or ensure your rights are enforced?

Thanks so much.

'at no time is there any quoting the bible as fact or even any mention of Christianity, except in the context of telling the story of the nativity or Easter. '

and possibly Harvest as well and then of course there's Lent and the rehearsals for nativity and Carol services and so on.

So not 'at no time' at all actually.

These explicitly Christian festivals are often particularly problematic for people who have other faiths and atheists. And it's not as simply as saying well withdraw your kid then because as n the case of the Jehovah's witness kids the posteer mentioned earlier in thee thread that might mean taking them out of school for a week at the end of the Christmas term or more.

' didn't mean to imply I'd be happy with a school teaching fascism! I intended to use it as an example a creed as generally hated as much as you obviously hate religion.'

But Badger it is not the place of a school to indoctrinate children into a particular religion or ideology. Of course children must be taught ABOUT religion and ABOUT fascism. In my view schools should have no more right to tell children they should believe in Christ's resurrection as they should to tell them to vote for Labour. It is completely inappropriate.

'your experience is unusual'

I am not absolutely sure what you mean by this.

It's a bit like the poster above who says her school never mentions the Bible except for the nativity and Easter....

If a school expects kids to pray (which many do and probably most faith schools on a daily basis), to sing hymns, to have a Harvest festival, celebrate Easter, Lent, Christmas then it is promoting Christianity.

And you do realize that faith schools are not an obscure little minority in GB. According to this website 32+% of schools in GB are Christian and that is not including academies and free schools where the figure is higher.

Now, again, don't say well you can avoid those particular schools because often you can't and especially not if you want your children to go to a good school.

OK, there are MANY schools that do NOT have traditional assemblies with an explicitly Christian message, send your children to one of them instead.

' it's just something that is a non-issue this side of the pond'

conorsrocks, you really don't speak for the entire country.

It IS a big issue for me and I am British and it is for many other parents including some on this thread.

Why are some of you so incredibly unsupportive.

Many of you recognize that explicitly religious teaching should have no place in schools even though it is enshrined in law and yet instead of arguing that the law should be changed (an entirely logical position given you acknowledge so many schools break the law in this respect) you say it should be up to parents to go searching for a school that breaks the law in order that their child should not be taught religious beliefs that they do not share.

Can you see how this comes across??

It is also disingenuous.

If, as is the position for one poster here, there is NO non faith school in your LEA what are you supposed to do?

And what if the best schools are faith schools or non faith schools which DO actively promote Christianity and theefore alienate nonChristians.

I am guessing that those of you who are so hardline about this would not take the same approach to a child with SN or from a particular racial background.

Why then do you think it's acceptable for schools to exclude children who are not Christians?

Surely the onus should be on schools to accommodate the diverse beliefs and backgrounds of their pupils and not for parents to have to seek out the one school that breaks the law and does not promote Christian worship?

Sorry, didn't provide the link to numbers of faith schools: www.gov.uk/government/publications/maintained-faith-schools

It's now about 1 in 3 and rising.

'at no time is there any quoting the bible as fact or even any mention of Christianity, except in the context of telling the story of the nativity or Easter. '

and possibly Harvest as well and then of course there's Lent and the rehearsals for nativity and Carol services and so on.

So not 'at no time' at all actually.

These explicitly Christian festivals are often particularly problematic for people who have other faiths and atheists. And it's not as simply as saying well withdraw your kid then because as n the case of the Jehovah's witness kids the posteer mentioned earlier in thee thread that might mean taking them out of school for a week at the end of the Christmas term or more.

Sorry I didn't know you we're familiar with the school I work in! We do have Harvest Festival but it is not a religious assembly, rather a time to think of others less fortunate. Nor do we have assemblies about Lent, the Easter story is taught as RE i.e. this is what Christians believe.

The JW children in our school never stay out of assemblies and go to another year group on the rare occasion they cannot take part in something.

You complain that others don't believe you and then start casting doubt on anyone who has different experiences to you. I believe it is as you say in your child's school, but I know it is different in many others and therefore you could send your children to one of those.

As a practising religious Jew I object to this expression:

" bloody torah stories".

How dare you use such an expression. Be more respectful in future.

I do disagree with state funded faith schools and the admissions criteria to get into them. But that isn't what this thread is about. This thread is about the OP's experience of a private Christian school and most posters are telling her that the experience would ( in all probability) be very different if she had chosen a state community school. Not necessarily a state CoE or. Catholic school, although some have suggested their assemblies are "acceptable" for a non-believer. And I repeat my point, how is it better for you to force your 6year old into agreeing with your non-beliefs than my approach which allows my DC to decide for herself?

Eh? How an earth could you force someone into nonbeliefs and where has anyone suggested such a thing??

How utterly bizarre.

My suggestion is simply religion neutral assemblies just like religion neutral maths lessons.

The buskers what to do if there are no non faith schools in the LEA or if the best schools are the ones that do promote Christianity. How realistically can you tell what sort of worship goes on. Many head teachers would not be open that their school is breaking the law and clearly people's ideas differ about what is and isn't explicitly Christian teaching.

But I repeat why is the onus on the parent to hunt down the school that doesn't follow the law rather than on schools to accommodate the diverse beliefs of its pupils?

Also I was making a more general point about the way certain Christian rituals are so entrenched like the nativity play and hymns that many people or even the iconography of the crucifix that some people wouldn't even notice them rather than commenting on what specifically goes on in your school.

OP are you also going to refuse your DS access to the school library?

I only ask because my DS has been raised non-religious, goes to a not particularly religious school but is also G&T at reading. I was utterly gobsmacked when my 4yo held up the bit that holds the puppet strings for our emu puppet and said 'look, a cross... like the cross that Jesus died on'. It turned out he'd used free choice library time to read a book about Easter and was extremely well informed about how Jesus had died to redeem us all.

The school pretty much just do bonnet and egg stuff for Easter (so as not to offend anyone, or traumatise reception age children with lots of torture and death), but they do have books about the subject in the library. I'd imagine a specifically Christian private school will have a fairly large Christian section in the library and, I believe, most schools let children choose their own books at library time.

I'd have much preferred DS to learn a version of 'some people believe this about Easter...' in an RE lesson, than pick up a book which laid the whole thing down as fact.

Post from singysongy Sat 20-Jul-13 19:06:

And actually, I don't see why we should teach our children that it's ok to accept that a wishy washy participation in something that you (possibly) believe strongly against, is an acceptable position in life.

My point, whendidyoulast, was that my DD does not currently hold such strong beliefs against religion and the only way she would is if I put efforts into convincing her. Likewise, I am comfortable that her state community school does not put effort into making her believe...

And since 1 in 3 schools are faith schools and rising that's quite a lot of avoiding you have to do to avoid explicit Christian teaching and they tend to be. Higher up the league tables prob because of their covert selection

I'm glad that you are happy with your school's positio alien. Not all parents are.

From what I understand of Christianity, the message is that human beings are special, unique, loved and believe in a purpose greater than their individual self. These same human beings are encouraged to treat others with respect 'do unto others as you would have done to yourself', not to lie, not to cheat, not to be greedy etc.. Clearly inherent 'goodness' is not our natural inclination or we would be living in Utopia without the need for laws.

Unlike every other major religion in the world it teaches that God actually doesn't require the human being to 'earn' their way out of our less than desirable state but to make a personal decision of faith - do they believe in the God of the Bible or not? Do they believe that Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament is who it says he was/is? Given that there is no scientific, historical or definitive 'proof' of this either way, it boils down to faith. To believe or not to believe is a matter of faith.

To believe in something else entirely is also a matter of faith. Both schools and parents educate children...if the school is teaching something different to parental beliefs/moral code etc... then surely families discuss this? My children have come home with all sorts of weird and wonderful information they believe from school - if I think I know better we debate it.

Despite the prolific posting, I am still not sure why whendidyoulast is so vehemently opposed to schools celebrating Christian festivals (especially given that these are not the only ones included in most schools experience...it seems every other week there is another festival/celebration of various religious and cultural origins which is enjoyed at ours and it is a reasonably homogenous MC one in an affluent area). I don't believe that celebrating Eid 'excludes' children who are not Islamic, nor celebrating Diwali 'excludes' those who are not Hindu, nor recognising Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur 'excludes' the non-Jewish.

I do think that the UK's cultural heritage is obviously the main reason for the 'Christian' requirements of the current education code so perhaps it is time for review...then again, perhaps not enough people find a message which is primarily about 'love' (or that many seem to consider is a fairytale or myth!) all that damaging?

Although MN is an entirely inadequate forum to discuss such important issues with any depth of mutual understanding, I eagerly await responses to this early morning missive. Goodnight for now.

My own kids have very scientific approaches to things so they ask where's the proof type questions all the time. Most of the time their school encourages such enquiry. my mids are perfectly capable of seeing how this is at odds with assemblies which are often sermon like and involve hymns and usually prayers. They think its frustrating tedious irrational nonsense but don't want to be withdrawn as I didn't at school for all the reasons already stated. Not faith school I repeat and mine was a bog standard comp

Schmedz that was an interesting post. But I do think arguing that Christianity isn't really so harmful is beside the point. I don't agree that children should be told that one religion is right.

I would feel this regardless of the religion.

And as a matter of interest I wonder how those people who think its ok would feel if their school suddenly became Islamic or Buddhist and started teaching on that basis.

I also think some of you have a slightly rose tinted view of Christian teaching. If it was all love thy neighbour it probably wouldn't be so bad, it,s the hellfire and damnation, nails on the cross, eve as temptress, resurrection and concepts of sin that I find particularly offensive as taught to my kids.

And any religion that refuses to allow women equality is going to be problematic when promoted in school.

I'm guessing that apart from the woman who relished a debate about fascism most of you would be unhappy about a school promoting a political ideology. I would even if it's one I agreed with. To me promoting one religion and teaching it as fact is as inappropriate. I

OP You chose the school - whether you didn't research it or not, or maybe just hope it would 'all come out in the wash' and you could anyway exercise your 'rights' (although this doesn't sit right with your pushy mum comment), so I think really you have to just suck it up, or move somewhere else.

FWIW, our dd went to a Catholic School, we are not, but it was outstanding and the nearest to us. I am not particularly religious (typically British really), so wasn't too worried about what was going to go on in assemblies, she would after all make up her own mind in due course. DD would say prayers, and make the sign of the cross, attend church and all the other stuff that goes on within the Catholic faith, when she was 6 she queried some of the beliefs, mainly how the world was made because we had talked about evolution and school said it was God! - it was an interesting and worthwhile discussion.

DD is 8 now and at a private school, they have assemblies, based on values rather than a religion and the school is much more ethnically diverse. She hasn't suffered from her earlier experience whatsoever and accepts that we are all different and we need to be tolerant and understand others views, much healthier in my opinion.

I have no doubt we will have further discussions about religion in due course and I accept that what she wants to believe in may be different from me - but that is, my role as a good parent, to bring up a child who can make their own choices and be confident in that.

Your son is not yet 4, you have plenty of time to 'worry' about lots of other things in the course of his school life and honestly religion really isn't such a big thing in the UK.

whendidyoulast - of course I don't speak for the entire country, I am speaking from my experience. Three children, three different schools. Lots of family and friends in the US.
There are always going to be exceptions, and from my experience your views are an exception, as opposed to a rule in this country. Many people may agree with you, but won't act on it as they don't feel that strongly enough about it - as opposed to somewhere like the US or Ireland.
If I'm being honest I wasn't over the moon when my kids schools started celebrating Diwali and Yom Kippur etc... at school, but, before I started to do anything rash, I looked at it from my DS's view and realised that there was much bigger issues I could put my energy into that will affect the rest of their life, this issue, quite frankly - won't. But that's just my experience. I'm not saying its what everyone should do!

I think the OP's problem arises from her lack of understanding of the UK school system. She learns that ALL schools have a broadly Christian assembly and, not unreasonably, thinks they are all pretty much the same. Perhaps reading (at least some of) this thread she will decide to look for a school that does the minimum in that direction. It won't be a private school that advertises itself as Christian, and it may be one that gets fewer 'outstanding' result.

As so many have said - Britain is not like the US in religious matters. If I lived in the US I wonder if I could bear to identify myself as 'christian' - it seems to carry so much really objectionable social baggage

I think it is easy to assume the US & the UK are similar as English is the predominant language in both. However the cultural differences are enormous & unexpected due to the common language. I think this has confused the OP. The UK is so much less religious & religion plays a far smaller role here.