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Original poster

FAITH SCHOOLS! If you don't agree with them, step this way, my dears.

482 replies

onebatmother · 04/04/2008 00:12

What can be done?

It seems to me that many of us don't agree with them, and some of us (not I) are quite knowledgeable about the ins and outs.

Could we not start a movement?

It's all so wrong, really, isn't it?

OP posts:
robinpud · 04/04/2008 00:16

Do we need a movement.. just use the state system and ignore the faith system imo

Califrau · 04/04/2008 00:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

madamez · 04/04/2008 00:22

Robinpud, trouble is that faith schools are often the only option - if the only local school is a faith school and you aren't in a position to home ed, what can you do?

Original poster
onebatmother · 04/04/2008 00:25

Don't argue - PLEASE!

What I want to discuss - not right now because I'm going to bed and so are you - is how we could actually CHANGE the situation.

So this is NOT A THREAD TO DEBATE FAITH SCHOOLS! (if I have anything to do with it)

It's a thread to ponder potential strategies.

OP posts:
madamez · 04/04/2008 00:26

OBM, I don't know what to do about it but would like SOmething to be Doable. I keep finding myself in discussions about where DS is going to go to school ( he will be in the Sept 2009 intake) and getting told that we are 'lucky' because he is in the catchment area for the local faith school. I always end the conversation (OK, tend to bring it to a startled halt) by saying that I don't want him to go there because I don't approve of faith schools. I have heard that it is a nice school that neither insists on pupils or their families professing faith nor peddles faith too hard, but I still don't want DS to go there...
I know f all about the school system really, but if I apply to the other local schools and they turn out to be full, will I have* to send him there?

Original poster
onebatmother · 04/04/2008 00:27

But :

faith schools are resourced in same way as state schools - by me and you.

I want them abolished. I don't believe in splitting children up at 5 according to what religion their parents have.

If you agree, put your name here.

OP posts:
Original poster
onebatmother · 04/04/2008 00:31

yes madamez, I believe you will have to send him there, though I am crap with detail.

If that is the case, though, you could then make a huge fuss about any religious indoctrination, couldn't you?

But WHAT CAN BE DONE ON A GRANDER SCHEME? Actual government-influencing stuff, I mean. If you believe that the very last thing that this country needs is that our children should be separated according to their parent's faith??

OP posts:
Original poster
onebatmother · 04/04/2008 00:44

I am off to bed but will bump this shamelessly tomorrow.

Because It's Worth It.

OP posts:
sherby · 04/04/2008 04:32
ScienceTeacher · 04/04/2008 04:44

Parents are jumping over eachother to get their kids into VA schools. Why on earth would you want to abolish them - how would this be a winner?

GooseyLoosey · 04/04/2008 05:47

OBM, absolutely agree with your idea, but no idea where to start. Our village school is CofE but state funded. No other schools which are not CofE for many miles. I am vehemently opposed to the religious indoctrination of my children by the state but do not know what to do.

There is no political will to change anything. The politician who stood up in parliament and said "lets do away with state funded religious schools" would be pilloried and as we saw with Nick Clegg, it is still for some reason not acceptable for an MP to "come out" as having atheist leanings.

The board of govenors at such schools have a heavy church presence so there will be no internal pressure for change.

IME, the majority of parents subscribe to the "it does no harm" school of thinking so there is little parental pressure for change.

I did contact the secular society to see if they had any suggestions for change. They have not got back to me.

It is like banging your head against a comfortable, well established brick wall. I have no ideas what to do about it, but I support you.

peanutbear · 04/04/2008 05:49

campaign to make education faithless in all regards??

whomovedmychocolate · 04/04/2008 07:29

Okay, I'll play. I'm a secularist. I do not believe children should be forced to partake in religion until they are of an age when they can decide they want to do so.

I have no problem with my children being exposed to a variety of faiths and traditions - but don't see why one particular faith should be indoctrinated, especially when it's not supported by the family.

Where we live (small rural village) all the local schools are CofE.

I have contacted the DFES and asked what our options are if we don't want to attend a faith school and have been told there are no other options

With the recent reports that faith schools are failing to be open to acceptance without donations/discrimination to keep their grades up, I'm even more reluctant to involve my children in this sort of system.

So what we are doing is talking to the school about options for removing them from any religious experience - yet I also remember from school those poor kids whose parents didn't let them do sex-ed - who were sent to the library to read during those periods, and wonder if we are condemning them to the same thing - every morning during assembly.

I am a member of the Secular Society and they do have things to say about it but unfortunately because of the massive investment which would be required to change the system, there is little chance of much happening.

FWIW I went to a 90% muslim girls school, I was raised CofE. Almost ALL religious study was based around either christianity or humanism - which was fiercely inappropriate for the audience. So it's not a new problem is it?

Personally I'm going to get very involved with the school and instigate change from within if I can't find another solution before hand.

Stargazer · 04/04/2008 07:36

Okay! I'm in. While our local school is not a religious school - it does do a lot of reasonably heavy religious stuff. The problem is, of course, that the government has actually championed the idea of separate faith schools. Will watch this thread closely.

Cappuccino · 04/04/2008 07:43

I've got an idea

you can find a country (Britain, say) where many, many children have no schools at all to go to

and you can establish schools both in rural and urban areas to allow children who have no access to education to have the chance to learn to read and write

then they will be your schools

that's what the church did, after all.

OrmIrian · 04/04/2008 07:50

I'm in. But no ideas at all. Perhaps get all out atheist children into faith schools by blatant lying (as so many parents do) carrying secret staches of humanist leaflets and Richard Dawkins books and generally spread the message . Eventually there would be so many non-faith pupils the faith school would become secular by force of numbers. Might work?

Original poster
onebatmother · 04/04/2008 08:10

Cappie, I believe that was some time ago? I am talking here and now. The here and now where our taxes support a divisive system.

OP posts:
Original poster
onebatmother · 04/04/2008 08:15

Oooh Look! There's a Campaign For Secular Education

It's first five Aims and Objectives are:
Statement of Aims and Objectives:-

Our aim is to have every child educated to the highest standards of intellectual honesty appropriate to their age and stage of development - in local schools where they can mix freely with and socialise freely with children of other races, classes, and creeds.
2.

Instruction in religion should be the province of parents and their religions, in homes and churches if they insist on indoctrinating their children in their particular faith. It should be not be the business of the state education system to do other than educate, or to condone indoctrination.
3.

Children have rights over and above those of their parents and they deserve objectivity.
4.

Teachers should be free to teach their subject/s without having to undergo vetting on their religious affiliations, or lifestyle choices, and should be qualified and allowed to answer questions of ethics, belief etc. in an objective way.
5.

There should be a programme of integration of Religous Schools.
6.

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GooseyLoosey · 04/04/2008 08:19

Cappuchino, that is indeed what the church did, but this should not been seen as benevolence on their part. I live in a village which was owned by the church and they took the majority of the fruits of people's labours whislt leaving them to live in fairly accute poverty. In most small communities, people paid a reasonable percetage of their income to the church.

I too have enquired about my dcs not partaking in the religious element, but leaving them as the kids on their own in the corridor does not seem like a good way of dealing with it.

I am currently attempting to undermine from within.

Cappuccino · 04/04/2008 13:20

Mine can, and do, in their school

indoctrination? really?

This includes being able to be open to faith even if their parents did not share it

This happened to me - my mum was a non-believer, I went to a C of E school, and now I go to church and am very happy that I didn't have to start from scratch when I did want some spirituality in my life

4

Oh crap, Squigglit is over.

ArcticRoll · 04/04/2008 13:22

I don't disagree with faith schools just think they should not be funded by the state.

OverMyDeadBody · 04/04/2008 13:26

I'm in.

The state shouldn't be funding faith schools.

mummypig · 04/04/2008 13:27

I'm in, too. I hadn't heard of the Campaign for Secular Education but I did recently sign a petition on the Downing St website along these lines. Unfortunately the petition is now closed and (as you might imagine) the response from Gordon Brown was not to address the issue properly but to state that the Church has historically had a large input into education in this country to which he is grateful blah blah blah...

Incidentally, although I would call myself an atheist nowadays, another family member is an ordained minister and we both believe that state education should be separate from any religion and that faith schools are divisive.

OverMyDeadBody · 04/04/2008 13:29

Of course it's indoctrination. There's a reason most CofE school are primary ones. It's easier to indoctrinate primary aged kids.

If there where no CofE primary schools Christianity in this country would have died out long ago imo.

MegBusset · 04/04/2008 13:32

Count me in. Would like to see all religion removed from all schools.