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.

Are you in Cobham OP?

OP, I am an athiest, and my kids go to the CofE school at the end of the road. They have visited mosques, synagogues, gudwarahs and Hindu temples as part of RE lessons.

They say the school prayer each morning in assembly which is basically a few words about caring for each other and working hard, they have a church service once a term which some parents attend. Most of their mates are moving on to the CofE high school - mine will be going to the local Non church high school.

My 11 year old started a long conversation yesterday about science/god etc, and without any prompting from me, he has figured out the principles of athism.

He still does have an understanding of the Christian faith, and lots of others too.

Open your mind OP and relax! Us UK athiests are a lot less anxious than our US counterparts. You really are making a big deal about nothing, and undoubtably pissing off the school big time!

sorry amistillsexy... I meant some of the literally bloody stories... not to be taken in context the way you put it...

I get that you come from an american background and therefore the american way of dealing with education and religion is very important to you as that has been ingrained within you since you were at school.

What would you think if I were to live in the US for a year and send my British kids to an american school for a year, and asked for them to be withdrawn from pledging allegiance to the flag every day and to make sure that they couldn't hear anybody else do it, as they are British rather than American? And furthermore, ask that they get a teacher to give them a G&T session while they are at it? Would you think it was perfectly reasonable or that they should just sit there politely and daydream listen in but not join in, or that they should join in as it's joining in with the school and it's an american thing? Or something else?

Also I'm not clear if you don't want your kids going to RE lessons because they will learn about lots of different religions (and there may well be a session on Humanism and/or atheism too) and you don't want them to learn about any religion or because you think that in an RE class they are actually learning to become christians. Also - when I was at school we spent quite a bit of time learning about stories from the old testament - so as a Jewish humanist would you want them to learn about these stories as part of their education - do you see them as general background cultural education that are things that you would expect them to learn if you were back in the US?

I think that you need to try to get your head around the fact that in the UK religion, as others have said, really isn't the big deal that it is in the US. Whilst nominally we are a Christian CofE country, these days many more people are culturally CofE than practising, devout christians. We enjoy christmas and easter and the nice bits (often involving lots of chocolate) and so on - but it's much more cultural than religious for most people

In the US, people know the religious beliefs of their politicians, it's a big thing. Over here - irrelevant. It's a big thing for you to say that you are a Jewish Humanist/Atheist. Over here - people aren't really bothered about religion to the point that they don't even really bother to think about if they sort of believe something but are just too lazy or busy to go to church or if they believe there is nothing at all and are atheist. I'm not describing this very well, but it really is a big difference and thus colours why things that are a big deal to you and blindingly obvious because of your background, are really no big deal here, whereas when I visited an American school many years ago, they were horrified when I just sat politely whilst they did the pledge to the flag and didn't say anything - for me, I was being polite whilst they were doing their thing, for them it was seen as being rude and snubbing their culture and beliefs and America.

WHich is why people are trying to encourage you to stop, and just think about the culture of the country you are in for a moment, and see how it affects what you are making assumptions about the assemblies and RE lessons - and see if you can see that actually you're much more likely to end up here with kids with a good background knowledge of all religious beliefs, ethics, morals etc but who are atheist, than in the states where there are a lot of staunchly religious people around!

We don't really do religion free schools in the UK. My suggestion would be to find another school that has a higher percentage of children from non Christian backgrounds, so that your child would be one of several who doesn't take part in collective worship. The only problem is that if you find somewhere where quite a few children are withdrawn from Christian worship, the school may have made provision for alternative worship so that there would be Jewish prayers, Muslim prayers etc.

Yeah OP, re your last post - newsflash, you are not IN America now.

Just want to avoid my son being bullied for being a strict atheist and only saying what he believes, believes what he is saying etc.

This right here ^^ is the measure of how totally you are misreading the situation. There is no way in which any assembly or RE lesson would enable this to happen - they are about finding out about and respecting the beliefs of others.

cotton - no I'm not, but it is local to me. Are you in Cobham?

OP
Another atheist here who sent my kids to a CofE school because it was right for them
I ignored the religion stuff.
By year 5 they were both atheists

as NO CHILD IS BORN WITH A RELIGION
they choose their own religion when they are old enough

the more of a fuss you make about it, the more your DS will want to find out and get involved

the UK is the most secular country in the world : because we all get force fed a bit of God at school and many of us realise its all fairy stories
the best way

I'm near there - when you mentioned the American school and the Free School it made me think that might be where you were talking about. You have quite a good choice of private schools in the area so if your current choice can't accommodate you then you should be able to find somewhere which will do, or is at least less Christian oriented.

Pushy isn't going to get you very far here. Politeness is key. People won't have a problem with your views, but they will sure as hell have a problem if you are rude.

Presumably American Atheists are fighting to separate religion from American government.

The equivalent organisation here would probably be the Humanist Society, who do great work.

Luckily, I have never come across anyone in the UK being bullied on an individual basis for being atheist or agnostic - because not believing in god is a mainstream opinion. However, bullying does happen when children find something 'different' about another child. In your DS's case he won't be stand out as different because he is atheist, but he will stand out if he is excluded from joining in with his classmates in some activities.

I think the only way that you will be satisfied that your child will not hear about, see displays about, or learn about religions is if you home educate him. Then you can get someone to tutor him on top of that to nurture his g&t-edness. You can't dictate to a school how they structure your day or drag members of staff out of assembly to do exactly what you want.

Atheists/agnostics are the norm here, and I have never heard of anyone being bullied for being an atheist. My DCs now go to nominally Christian private schools (having been at a CofE primary) and they are absolutely open about their lack of belief. It really is not an issue in the UK.

I understand things are very different in the US, where atheists are seen as untrustworthy, you stand no chance of being elected to public office if you are openly atheist etc. Things are very different here - I don't think any of the leaders of our main political parties go to church.

As for bullying, all you need to do is teach him to respect other people's beliefs. There's nothing wrong with 'I believe x' but if he goes around telling other children they're wrong in their beliefs it won't matter if he's atheist, Jewish, Muslim, Christian or Hindu, you'll be called in. As would the parents of any child who said that to your DS.

I have three DCs - at one point during their school careers I had a devout christian (her best friend was evangelical) a staunch athiest and a Hindu (ditto best friend was Hindu and my dc really really liked the idea of re-incarnation)

they are all now adults and none of them hold the beliefs they held then - they are however all open minded and tolerant of a wide diversity of religious beliefs. They may, or may not, end up believing the things I believe, or the things their father believes - but whatever belief they have will be will informed and freely chosen. I am not a christian and their father follows a more 'new age' path. I have very close connections with the Jewish community so do understand some of issues around disentangling culture and religion that you are talking about - but that holding onto some of the cultural aspects of Judaism while not believing in a deity is pretty much what you are experiencing now WRT the kind of christianity that happens in assembly and nativity plays etc. It's as important to us as not eating Pork to you, it's a part of who we are as a nation.

Many years ago I was an RE teacher - it's a really interesting subject to teach as kids are brilliant at challenging ideas cutting through crap. We DO treat religion as something important to understand about here and because there is no separation of church and state it's important to understand that too. The best RE teacher I ever knew was an athiest of Jewish descent BTW - inspirational!

"Bugger- yes well religion is personal not cultural."

I don't think you have a religion, judging by the website of UK Jewish Humanists. Surely religion implies belief. You have a bunch of rituals you like to follow so that you can feel "Jewish". I do not believe in God (certainly not the traditional judao-christian deity) nor do I follow any rituals, yet I feel "Jewish" due to my genetic and cultural inheritance.

I respect others' faith, however I do find it hard to respect your non-faith. How can you strictly not eat pork when you don't believe in God and recognise that the ban came from dietary reasons. I really struggle with this logically. How can you observe religious festivals which depend on faith to have meaning and yet have no faith? Maybe I am digressing from the thread, and don't mean to cause offence, but I really struggle with where you are coming from.

Back to the thread, have you considered bribery (AKA sponsoring a few bursaries or financing new playing fields)? As long as your son is balanced and says what he believes (as opposed to trotting out parrot fashion what you believe) it is highly unlikely that he will be bullied in any decent school. I would worry about that in the highly unlikely event that it happens.

PS : another Yank here :
I know how dysfunctional the US school system is by excluding the religious so they home educate or go private and never mix with those of other beliefs and so become more and more intolerant

Only in the US could you have parallel college systems like Philadelphia Bible University which teaches nurses from a creationist standpoint

the UK system of muddle along together is a much better bet
especially the state bit
there are even openly Atheist politicians here - cannot imagine THAT in the presidential race

and if you are in private and only now reading the prospectus ....

Zipzap- yes exactly!!!!! Yes yes- ... very important. In the US, if you were to say you were atheist in a school you'd get a huge opposition and likely be bullied. Yes, I am mostly concerned that the 51% christian is mainly teaching how to become christian although the biggest part are the prayers whilst ethics lessons sans the word "god/lord etc" are very very welcome. If the RE teaching were a bit more fairly distributed, then I'd be a lot more ok with it.

No you would not expect to learn any religious stories in school at all if you were back in the USA it is up to the parents to provide this and I don't see religious stories as cultural.

RE: Pledge of Allegience- I TOTALLY agree with you- a person should not have to say the word "god"- it is wrong based upon our constitution and something AA have been battling for years. I actively used to refuse to say the pledge for that reason and just stood out of respect. I also don't think someone should HAVE to say the pledge of allegience if they really don't feel that allegience. Maybe they shouldn't even have to be present for it necessarilly as it is a bit of brainwashing isn't it, but I can't even tell you what a huge unpatriotic act like that would be treated like by peers and parents.....

It's weird that America, which on paper has separation of church and state, has politicians that are God this and God that, need to be seen to attend church to be electable and has public policy (abortion) dictated by Christians.

This story, for example, would be unimaginable in the UK: Atheists as untrustworthy as rapists. I think you are carrying a lot of cultural baggage with you.

I don't see religious stories as cultural.
ROTFLMAOPMPL
welcome to Europe dearie

lol - what you don't get about the whole pledge of allegiance thing is that most (many?) brits would have no problem with the God bit - but WOULD hugely object to their child pledging to a flag and a foreign country - Its just not what we do.....

With all that very helpful cultural context, I find it even more bizarre that you chose a Christian school for your son. Outstanding OFSTED trumps all belief, huh?

Oh. One more thing. You are not in America.

Do you have any British friends?

Where does this 51% Christian in RE come from? Not my dc's experience in their c of e state schools...near you