Secular schools

[Dragonrider]

I don't want this to sound like an anti-Christian post. I can understand that religious people might want a religious school and I think it's great that religious parents have this option. But, I think it is hugely unfair that atheist parents are not respected in the same way. I resent that my decision to bring up my child/ren without a religion will be undermined. I have some years before we actually have to make any kind of decision, but if we don't move then we have a choice of a CofE voluntary aided school and a Catholic prep school. I am not likely to be in a position to home educate, but if there isn't a suitable English school we would get a place at the (secular) German school (dp is German), but that's in Richmond.

I hope this isn't too controversial. I'm not anti-religion, I just resent having it forced on me. It makes me a bit embarressed of the English school system that we would have to move and send our child to a private foreign school to get a secular education. This has got me quite worked up (I need to find something better to do with mat leave! ), AIBU? (I'm hormonal, so please be nice to me if I am!)

Do you think there is any chance of secular schools being set up, or are foreign schools the only option? Would you consider a secular school if there was one available? I don't even reall understand why it's forbidden. I know it's a Christian country, but there are non-Christian schools. Does anyone know what would I need to do to petition for schools to be allowed to become secular?

Cod, again, in response to your last post, not to have any kind of religion as part of our educational system. I should not be forced to 'withdraw' my ds from any communal activity within school. It should not be there in the first place.

Cant you just send you kids to sunday school and be done with it? And stop supporting the imposition of your religious beliefs on other people in an educational setting?

"I do not accept that we have established that the majority of people in this country have some kind of faith. where on earth do you get that idea from?"
The census data showed this. Or are you ignoring it because it does not fit in with your view of the world?

"I should not be forced to 'withdraw' my ds from any communal activity within school. It should not be there in the first place."
Says who? Why should your (minority) view prevail?

P.S. I don't have religious beliefs. If you did me the courtesy of reading my posts properly you would realise that I am agnostic.

Why should my minority view prevail? because schools are there to educate our children, not indoctrinate them in a religious norm or whatever percentage. Is that so hard to understand? we are victims of our cultural and societal legacy. Time to change. Again, I urge you to logical thought processes in this.

To be honest, I do not know why an agnostic would support the introduction of the notion of God into a school arena, where children are led to believe their teachers and school are right about all aspects of their life. I'd like to support them wholeheartedly in their academic instruction of my child, not have to introduce doubt as to their trustworthiness as regards religious belief. Kind of defeats the object of the exercise, which the last time I looked at it was education.

Regarding the census, CofE is just a catch all, whatever kind of choice. I think the majority of people in this country do not have any kind of religious belief at all. Saying you are CofE is about as meaningful as saying you like a drink from time to time. its okay for getting married, and societal rituals, but I would be astonished if that translated into actual faith. Its just the default option.

Only just seen this thread and need distraction from law revision so thought I'd throw my opinion in...

Firstly, it is possible for your child to have a wholly secular state education. My DD attends a school in Camden, where the school has 'opted out' of the compulsory 'daily act of worship' requirement, simply because the diversity of religions at the school mean that it would be impractical to try and do any kind of religious worship there. The school have assemblies but no mention of God at all. There is an after-school Christian club one day per week I think, for any child that wants to go (I think parental consent is required).

So, secular state education does exist (well, in Camden at least).

Nonetheless, I feel sad that DD doesn't have the religious element in school that I had as a child. We attend church on Sundays and thus she's learning about Christian heritage and belief outside of school (where obviously she learns about all religions).
I feel that Christianity in schools isn't solely about religious belief. It's about culture, tradition and an understanding of history. Whilst the concept of praying to God seems controversial, I think it's sad that children can grow up knowing virtually nothing about England's Christian heritage. I think that saying the Lord's Prayer, understanding the Nativity and knowing how to behave in a church and participating in a C of E service are as much about culture and tradition as they are about religion itself.

There are many adults I know from DD's school who feel afraid to go to church because they 'don't know what to do in the service' (i.e. when to stand up, when to do the peace etc). It's all very well saying that your children can 'chose' what religion to follow when they grow up (or chose to be atheist), but unless they have experience of actual religious participation then how can it be a legitimate choice?

A lot of the problem is that when you 'chose' (assuming you have any choice) your school they are rarely up front about what role religion will play unless they are a religious school (and even then there is a lot of variation). So for example I had no idea that our school which was a 'community primary school' (as Suebee kindly recommended) had this strong tie with the vicar (and when the headmaster left, so did the vicar). I had no way of knowing whether assemblies just gave the nod to God as it were, or were full on religious (which they turned out to be).

As someone brought up as a Catholic attending a CoE service is not part of my culture or tradition, and in any case traditions change (thank goodness!). My mother as a RE secondary school teacher took her pupils to visit a Hindu temple, Moslem mosque, Orthodox church and Jewish synagogue. Very few of them had visited any of these settings before and they all behaved just fine and came back to school full of thought and wrote about sacred places. That's what religious education should be about IMO, not getting little kids to parrot stuff they have absolutely no understanding of.

It is up to churches (and other places of worship) to make themselves welcoming and relevant. If they are places people are afraid to enter then they will fade away and die out (which is fine by me) clearly more evangelism is required on their part. Saying that everyone is religious but modern life is just too busy and that's why they don't go to church is a pile of poo IMO. If your faith is important to you you will make the time (and how much effort is an hour or two every week in any case?). People often call themselves Christian out of laziness, despite having no faith to speak of, or which to participate in a religious community. I don't suppose they care about the assemblies no. But many of us really do - probably more that the 10% of regular churchgoers.

School's purpose is not there to make children into members of any church, but to learn and question and expand their horizons. Those of us who object to the CoE message being promulgated at school have all said we want our children to learn about religion - in all sorts of forms. I also think it is important to learn about our culture and history, however I don't see any evidence that they aren't learning that at present.

Oh, and I have moved (not because of religion in schools though) I now live in Canada where they don't appear to even teach about religion (reading, writing, math and running around seem to be the general extent of the curricula at primary here). Which is why I post at such weird times of the day and miss the actual debates!

Worldsworstmummy

I see no benefit to my son whatsoever in removing a broadly christian assembly from the school day. You seem to expect the whole of our country's education system to revolve around your view of what education should be about. It is not as if the children are forced to recite the creed in assembly is it?
I think you fear that if your children go to assembly at school they will end up believing in God whereas you would rather control your children so that they share your view of life.

I do regard a school assembly with a broadly christian ethos as a positive part of my childrens education.

"we are victims of our cultural and societal legacy"

What you you mean by this?

'A lot of the problem is that when you 'chose' (assuming you have any choice) your school they are rarely up front about what role religion will play unless they are a religious school (and even then there is a lot of variation). '

I think this is a huge problem-perhaps schools should make it very clear.codinbatter used teacher's net to explain what each school has to do to adhere to the law. You have the right to withdraw your DC or as in Rockandsockbunnies case the whole school can opt out. It isn't easy for a school to opt out, proceedures have to be gone through and there has to be very good reasons as in having lots of different faiths among the DCs.
If you went to a state school in England yourself, religion must have played a part-either people have forgotten or they expect it to have changed in the years in between.
I think schools don't make it clear because they think parents are aware. Obviously they aren't because they come on here with the misunderstanding that their DCs are at a secular school because it isn't a faith school.
There isn't really much difference between a
non denominational school and a faith school. I church school will go to church for services, have a link with the vicar, often have prayers for grace and before they go home (in addition to assembly)and have symbols etc on show. Non denominational schools may have links with a vicar and some may go to a church service.

I don't think it is true that most people don't believe in God-I think it is true that most people don't take part in organised religion-two different things.

Sorry 'a church school' not I church school.

susan, I think nooka said it very eloquently.

Can the atheists tell me something? Do you tell your kids about the tooth fairy. Do they make a wish when they blow out their birthday candles. Do they send letters to Santa and receive stockings. Do they read Harry Potter. Do they watch Disney films with talking & singing animals. Do you read stories containing trolls, genies, unicorns, fairy godmothers, giant beanstalks, ogres, etc, etc.

Cod. Myth, stgorytellig and ritual are fundamental parts of the human psyche. Its part of what makes us amazing. we use all these things to make sense of our world, to explain it, illuminate it, perhaps even to try and change it. I include religion within that framework. Living within a n ethnically diverse community can be real richness to our experience of life, understanding of others and our differences and indeed our similarities.

I have never said would should not include celebrations of diverse religious faiths within a school environment, it can only broaden our children's experience.

The only thing I object to is when any one of these practices or faiths are presented as the truth, over and above all other faiths, including atheism.

For all practical purposes, schools cannot accommodate your desire for christianity to be the basis of official spiritual worship and my desire for no religion to be posited as the truth.

So in all fairness, neither of us should get our way, and the religious element of assembly and school worship should be abandoned. And schools can do what they are supposed to do, to educate our children in many areas, including world religions.

And cod, the point about aetheists and toothfairies, just doesn't make any valid point. I am sure there are many Christians and Muslims and people of faith who enjoy these rituals, and allow their children to read Harry Potter. It doesn't make them hypocrites.

I presume that you (cod etc) expect your children to grow out of believing in Santa, tooth fairies, dragons etc, but not your god?

So there is in fact no comparison between the two things: one is a set of mythic stories that we tell children fully knowing that they are not 'true'; the other is a set of mythic stories that we tell our children, which some people believe to be true, and expect children to carry on believing into adulthood.

If I were a Christian, I think I might be a bit upset at the notion that my God is on the same level as the tooth fairy!

But as an atheist I am a bit upset by the notion that a religious person's beliefs of choice should be taught to my child as true, when, in my equally valid opinion they are delusional.

Now you will all jump up and down and tell me I am disrespecting religion. Religion disrespects me. What goes around comes around.

Yeah, I know seeker and apologies for causing hurt feelings to those who truly believe, but I was trying to make a point. To my mind, there is not a lot of difference between the various stories. I don't find wishywashy Christianity any more threatening than Harry Potter, the Brothers Grimm or any other supernatural morality tale, which is why I can't get as agitated as the atheists about school assemblies.
I was exposed to Christianity through school but became an agnostic. I don't understand why the atheists have so little trust in the abilities of their own kids to make up their own minds.

On the way to school this morning, my 5yo DTS were singing "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine" and "Sing Hosanna".

I was wondering that if they were in a non-demoninational school, if the religion/God phobic parents would be rankled by 5yo expressing delight in singing a song with religious overtures because their off-spring may actually hear the words and therefore somehow become indoctrinated?

Everywhere I go, I see churches and other religious symbols. Do non-believers cover the eyes of their children when they are out so that they are not contaminated by seeing such things?

IMOH, some of the objections being raised about collective worship are bordering on paranoia and say more about the need for the parent to control the thought process of their off-spring rather than be willing to discuss these things objectively with them.

I respect others points of view and my view is that those who do not want their off-spring to attend assemblies in school should just withdraw them because you can. There are parents at the church school that my DTS attend who do just that. Considering there are 6 non-dominational primary schools available to them, one wonders why they send their off-spring to a church school in the first place but I know why. It is because of the school ethos, the exemplary behaviour record as well the high educational standard (the latter being also available in the other schools).

The school ethos which leads to the exemplary behaviour is a consequence of the Christian based values which are inculcated throughout the school. This is obviously more important to the non-believing parents than their atheism or agnogstism.

Two points. If children believe in the Tooth Fairy, and so on, it is part of their natural development to grow out of such beliefs. I presume Christians would not want children to grow out of a belief in God!

And secondly, it is my decision as a parent whether I encourage belief in Father Christmas or fairies. I would NOT want my child's school to have a special assembly telling them that fairies are real, or telling them that if they stand in a fairy ring on May Morning they'll see their their future partner's name in a glass of water.

I woul be very happy for them to do both of these things in a context of "This is what some people believe"

Codinbatter, I can see your point regarding the tooth fairy etc and growing out of god as you become more aware of reality.

The problem for me personally, and why it began to bother me, is that the 'benign' C of E assemblies can extend far beyond that and pervade the whole school if the people running that school so desire. This is what happened at our school when the headmaster changed.

I previously felt that religion should have no part in education other than as a culture/history type feature, but accepted that it was relatively harmless in such small quantities, and besides, I had no choice.

Since the new head has been in charge, despite removing my children from assemblies, they are still exposed to a great deal of belief in god being fact. It is wrong to teach children that something is fact when it is not. I do not tell them as a fact that god does not exist, why should I have to accept that a man with his own agenda and a great deal of authority over them, who they see 5 days a week, can tell them regularly that he does?

I went to a C of E school, and solely because of that, it took me a long time into my adulthood to say I didn't believe in god. I never really had, but to say it out loud and to others was scary because I had been indoctrinated with the fear of that being bad. It felt like I was betraying something and being naughty, and I needed to be much older and more sure of myself before I could accept my real beliefs.

I don't want my children to go through that. If they embrace religion at a point in their lives when they can truly believe in something because they have an unbiased understanding of it, that is a completely different matter. At the moment their minds are too open and vulnerable to be taught by people they trust that something as subjective as religion is truth.

Spokette again, why oh why do you insist on saying that good behaviour is down to believing in some fantastical being that lives in the sky? I am perfectly capable of behaving in a so called christian manner without thinking the bible is anything but a collection of stories and fables. My children do not need the fear of going to hell hanging over them in order to be upstanding, kind, polite and follow school rules.

I can't remember who I was arguing with earlier on in this thread regarding the amount of christians in this country(I tried to stay away, but the 70% christian in the uk statistic is based on a 2001 survey.
According to this, a religious website, the actual church going population is 15% monthly, 10% weekly. This is based on a 2007 Tearfund report(link to that report on the page).
In addition, according to the Tearfund report, 39% of the UK population are agnostic or atheist, and two thirds(32.2 million, including 29.2 million who are 'unreceptive or closed to attending church')have no connection with church.
Tearfund's figure for christians in the UK incidently, is 53%.

There are many other interesting things in that report, including the fact that many people would be sad to see the closing of churches, and quite a high number, 67%, still believe in god.

I don't think anyone here is saying it has to go completely, just that when about a third of the population does not consider itself affiliated to a religion, why should we have no choice other than opting out of collective worship(and in some circumstances as I have discovered, this may not be enough)to avoid it's influence on our children's minds.

It seems to me also, that there is fear among christians that belief is not as prevalent as it was, that congregations are getting older, and that something needs to be done to attract more young people to believe in god. I will probably be shot down for making a paranoid comment, but for people like our head, the school is a perfect recruitment centre. I don't see any weight in the argument that children need to be exposed to it to make a decision on whether to welcome it into their lives. It is not the being aware of religions(of all sorts) that I object to, but the practicing of it, and the acceptance of it at schools as the absolute truth.

It should be that practicing religion in school is an opt in, as in the lucky(imo) person from Camden's school, not the norm.

"Spokette again, why oh why do you insist on saying that good behaviour is down to believing in some fantastical being that lives in the sky?"

Poppity I said nothing of the sort and your paranoia is getting the better of your objectivity I'm afraid.

As for your claim that it is fear of going to hell that is used to keep children in line, you really don't know what you are talking about. I don't know anybody who does that.

'It seems to me also, that there is fear among christians that belief is not as prevalent as it was, that congregations are getting older, and that something needs to be done to attract more young people to believe in god. I will probably be shot down for making a paranoid comment, but for people like our head, the school is a perfect recruitment centre. '

I think vicars and priests would be overjoyed if they thought that school assemblies were going to produce future, churchgoing Christians and fill the churches! It really doesn't work like that that. I think that it actually does atheists a favour, because it probably puts them off, whereas making sure that they are never exposed to it makes it much more interesting.
As they get older they make up their own minds-either they are the sort of person who is looking for a spiritual side or they aren't. What their parents think, or the Headteacher or the vicar doesn't really count for a lot. They may 'catch God'for a while when they start school and it is a new concept-but it is a phase. I think people are placing way to much importance on it.

Spokette, this is what I meant

'The school ethos which leads to the exemplary behaviour is a consequence of the Christian based values which are inculcated throughout the school'. I feel the need to return the

That is saying the behaviour is better because of the christian element.

With the going to hell comment I made, it was specifically related to the school my children are at, where they have been told exactly that.

Pisces, I see what you are saying, but don't you think the choice ought to be there? Again, I don't mean in no exposure to it, just in treating it as fact.