Would you send your child to a CofE primary school if you didn't believe in god?

[mooki]

We are both atheists. I am more of a 'well any one can believe what they like as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else', my husband takes more of a Dawkins-style stance that people who believe in god/religion are just plain wrong.

We are looking to move to a quieter village but the only area we can afford has a C of E primary school. It gets a good Ofsted and lots of people tell me that the 'christian ethos' leads to better behaviour.

I understand that there is a weekly act of worship. The actual RE curriculum is set out to include a variety of beliefs and faiths and I'm sure the curriculum is the curriculum and you can't go adding in religious content willy nilly but I think my husband is worried there will be creationism in science lessons and that religion /the bible will be presented as fact rather than faith.

DD will obviously make her own mind up eventually. I rather think if we are totally dismissive of religion/s she is likely to rebel and become a 7th day adventist but is attending a CofE school actually likely to influence her particulalry?

We are planning to visit the school and meet the head but in the mean time -

would you send your child to a CofE school if you don't believe in god?

if your child is at a CofE school, is there much overt religiousness or is it more 'be nice to people'?

No I wouldn't. Both DS go to local CofE school and have gone to church for years.

Why do you think your child can benefit from the education there but not bother with the christian ethos (which is of course the whole point of a Church of England school)?

Our DD goes to the village CofE school, and we're Jewish atheists (yes, there are such things - belief in god is not essential in Judaism!)

I'm not hugely pleased about the religious aspects but it seems benign enough, and is about worshipping god rather then Jesus specifically, and so doesn't offend my Jewish sensibilities too much.

The next nearest school, in the next village, is also CofE, so it's not like we have a huge amount of choice in the matter.

But DD likes to tell me that we're lucky we're Jewish, not Christian, and go to synagogue rather than church. Can't wait until she tells her teachers this!

Um, busybutterfly, the simple answer to your question is so that we don't have to drive miles and miles out of our way every day to get our child educated. In many areas there isn't much choice apart from a CofE school. You have to take the bad (the religion) with the good (the education and the local village setting).

Because as taxpayers they're funding the place?

Education should be the main point of a school.

To OP, yes, if it was the nearest/most convenient school & otherwise OK. Most of this stuff comes as standard with non-church state schools, anyway.

Ds & I have some fairly interesting discussions atm. He is currently parroting Bible stories from school, whilst trying to get his head around the fact that his atheist mum, Buddhist dad & adored Muslim CM all tell him that they don't actually agree with erm, everything Mrs Teacher comes out with...

I'm starting to relax about it a bit...if nothing else it's good prep for English Literature GCSE in 10 years time, & encouraging an inquiring mind.

In response to the original post - DS goes to the village school which just so happens to be a CofE school. I didn't realise this to start with, I just wanted DS to go to the school that DP went to and for him to form the same kind of lifelong friends that DP has formed. It only dawned on me that it was a CofE school when DS came home one day talking about God, which kinda threw me, and as an agnostic I wasn't sure how to discuss something like God and Christianity when I wasn't sure about it myself. I ended up asking DS what he thought and when DS said one day, quite matter of factly, that his teacher had said that 'Christians think that the world was created by God but scientist think that the world was created by a Big Bang' I asked DS 'what if the Big Bang was created by God?' That got him thinking and he's not come back to me on that one, but as someone who started out thinking there is absolutely, completely no God or afterlife, DS's innocence and questions are making me think and question.

It is possible to send your children to a CofE school when you're an atheist or agnostic, wiccan or whatever. Fundamentally, Christian beliefs are those of right, wrong and respect, and they aren't bad foundations for any education, whatever your religion.

Busybutterfly - if there was another school in the area that wasn't CofE I'd send them there! But there isn't. It is forced upon us, rather.

busybutterfly - nearly a third of primary schools are Church schools. only about 5-10 percent of people are church goers. so you might find your "no I wouldn't" is unrealistic.

It depends enormously on the school. Some are much more connected to the local church than others.
However I think it's important to note that ALL schools are still required by law to have a DAILY act of worship. In many non-church schools it takes a virtually indistinguishable form from the worship in a C of E school.
www.humanism.org.uk/education/parents/worship-your-rights

DD goes at a C of E middle school as it is the local one that nearly all the children go to from her first school. 5 first schools feed into it, two are Church schools and three aren't. DD's first school wasn't and the first school DS now goes to isn't. There is pretty much no difference from what I can see between the religious aspect of DS's non church school and DD's church school. I think that of the families we know from DD's school, a significantly higher number are atheists.

I guess if there was a choice maybe most families who don't believe in God would send their children elsewhere but there isn't so this is the way it works.

busybutterfly it is my catchment school
yes it is good but yes it is government funded

My DS goes to one and it is a fantastic school.

He has a strong sense of his own beliefs and will say he is a humanist if asked and takes all the christian stuff he encounters at school as interesting stories and myths.

The ethos is good. It doesn't feel all churchy.

and it's our local catchment school so no choice in the matter

To OP, Nope, absolutely not, for a school that selects a certain number based on church attendance. Couldn't/wouldn't lie about it! Though Overmydeadbody, I do understand your situation - and that is how we are raising dd (humanist, tolerant of interesting stories/myths)

I will send them (next year - eek) to the nearest, smallest, non-religious state school.

Yes, dh was dead against church schools but agreed to look at the village one and he was bowled over by it, so dd goes to it.

There doesn't seem to be much religion at all - just lots of teaching about good solid core values.

We have a choice of 4 schools locally - 1 Catholic, 2 C of E and 1 non denominational so for us there are choices of non church schools. I do appreciate you would send your child to a C of E school if you had no other choice in the area.

I did supply teaching in North Yorkshire after I took early retirement from full time teaching.Without exception the best primary schools were small church schools[CofE or RC].Best of those were the village schools.The closer the involvement with the church the calmer the atmosphere and the happier and more confident the children.I went to so many schools over 5 years and this was so marked.It was not the same at secondary level where I was at one wonderful RC Girls'school[an ex-grammar] but the others were much of a muchness between faith and secular schoolls.At primary I would always go for the small church school.