Compulsive Worship or discrimination for my children at school...

[recall]

My three children attend a Primary school, it is not a CofE School, or any other type of faith school. They have an assembly once a week and "Open the Book" come and act out plays taken from the Bible. At the end, ask the children to prey. My daughter who is 8 said recently that "God does exist" "God is all around us" I asked her who had told her this, and she said it was the Christians in Assembly. She said she bowed her head when everyone preyed because she did not want to upset anyone.

I have spoken to the Headmaster regarding this, and he said they have to have 15 minutes of Christian worship a week.

I feel this is so wrong, that Christians are proselytising to children as young as four at school where I as their parent am legally bound to ensure that they attend. They are being taught individual's personal beliefs as if it is fact. I see this as a violation of their human rights - its is compulsory worship, they are too young to decide whether this is desirable. I am told that I am able to excuse them from these assemblies, but this is segregation and discrimination. It is heart breaking that children are being segregated from each other due to religion in school, a place of education. Christians are free to proselytise anywhere else, why must they do it in schools? This is dividing the community unnecessarily.

So this is my choice as far as I can see it....either I allow the compulsive worship, or my children are excused/excluded.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can come to terms with this ?

In answer to OP - you come to terms with it by using it to have philosophical conversations with your children and getting them to question things- including your view point.

What I find most baffling and frustrating about the threads is that it seems completely impossible to get across the message that not wanting your children to worship does not mean that you don't want them to learn and question and form their own opinions. Christian worship in schools is an utterly separate thing to religious education.

And no, I do not think that christian worship will brainwash my child or make them into Christians or whatever. I just think that worship of any kind has no place in a state funded non faith school. Schools should not normalise the irrational. And that's not "Christian bashing"- faith is irrational. Otherwise it wouldn't be faith.

And I know that it is a statutory requirement, and would need legislation to change. But I suspect that most people don't even know it happens. And, frankly, that suits Christians just fine. All part of the privilege they expect-and get- within our society. This is the sort of thing that we need to think about when Christians say"why can't we just live and lt live"? Well, yes we can. Once we are in a position where, for example, I don't have to opt my child out of praying. Christians have 18 hours in the day to pray with their children. It is selfish in the extreme to insist on prayer in the other 6 hours as well.

Bertrand do you really think Christian parents are behind this compulsory worship? Do you believe they are lobbying the schools to continue with prayers etc on assemblies? I would assume the staunch Christians/Catholics have their children in faith schools where possible and the rest of the people you are classing as Christian are actually just average joes who have more worrying things to think about than school assembly, ie they either don't know or don't care.

I think the vast mqjority of people don't know about it or don't care.

The people I have come across who are strongly in favour of maintaining the status quo are, naturally enough, Christians. The people I have come across who are strongly opposed are either people of non Christian faiths, people of no faiths and secularists. The vast majority of people fall somewhere between these two groups. But Christians do like to hang on to their privilege!

The vast majority of people either don't know or don't care. If they did it would be entirely different!
Having been on these numerous threads, where people moan but are not actively doing anything, the same people crop up with the same arguments.
It doesn't even spread the word- next month someone will pop up thinking they have a child at a secular school and they will have no idea of the Education Acts on collective worship.

OP can:

1. Carry on as normal and ignore or discuss at home.
2. Withdraw her children

3 Campaign on a local level and get more parents to withdraw at school so they are not 'odd'. 4 Campaign at a National level with secular society and get actively involved.

I would do 1 and 4 if it bothered me.

you keep asking 'Why in schools?' this is why: "section 78 (1) of the 2002 Education Act states that all pupils should follow a balanced and broadly based curriculum which ‘promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, social, mental and physical development of pupils and of society, and prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life’. " From the National Curriculum, Non-Statutory Guidance on RE.

Yes, we know that...but why? We're asking why is this law, and you are answering by quoting the law. Doesn't really take us any further forward.

So why in schools? That's what recall is asking.

I think that you need to study the history of education to know why. We don't need a long summer break to get in the harvest now- or retire to our Scottish estates!

Oh yes, that's the other thing that baffles and frustrates me about these threads- the assumption that those of us who object are not actually doing anything else apart from "moaning" (aka expressing an opinion that differs from yours) on here.

Because it's the Education Act and is geared towards pupils, that's why it's in schools. If you're asking why target children and not adults, I would assume it's because children are the main demographic who are learning and being educated.

I think adults are at much more risk from the radical elements of religion anyhow. Kids tend to parrot things they hear without brooding too much on the content. Teenagers on the other hand are much more likely to latch onto a group/ideology and take it as their identity and thus act on it. Much more scary IMO.

I've been a none believer since I was maybe 7/8 so I'm certainly not coming at the problem from a Christian view. It's just in the scheme of things it's not something that bothers me, in my mind it's like objecting to your child taking part in gymnastics, or French, or anything else you dislike/ don't believe beneficial etc.
In my mind an athiest objecting to their child joining mild group worship equates with the religious person who objects because it's a different religion. Which for me attaches too much importance to 'my way is best' religious or athiest. I'd say the same if someone of a different religion objected to mild school worship, i.e it's the same God you believe in so doing it a different way for a few minutes shouldn't bother you, if your way is 'best' then exposing your child to another way shouldn't matter.
I get the point about learning about the bible etc without the worship, however the more knowledge you have of the other way the better you can validate your own choice.

lurked- I don't agree.
You are treating atheism like just another religion- which it isn't.

I don't believe atheism is another religion, that's my point, because I can't understand why if you don't believe, you attach the same importance to what is mild Christian worship as you'd expect from a strict/ orthodox member of another religion. People are entitled to have whatever objection they like to worship, and to withdraw their children if they see fit, but saying it's against my athiest belief is likening atheism to a religion.
Whilst I'd privately disagree, I could follow the logic of someone who from a moral stand hates religion and thinks nobody should practice or learn about it. Same as I'd object to school inflicting compulsory eating of eggs from caged hens on everyone, because I feel it's morally wrong and nobody should eat them. However nobody on this thread objecting appears to take the view nobody should be religious.
I just find it difficult to equate a none belief as something that evokes such strong feelings, when to me and I suspect the majority of none believers once you've decided it's not for you it's no more important than choosing not to play piano, or that ballet bores you, and therefore not important.
( I also don't think the majority of athiests think like me due to it being my opinion and therefore correct, I just think there'd be more atheists pulling kids from worship if the majority of them really had an issue)

"People are entitled to have whatever objection they like to worship, and to withdraw their children if they see fit, but saying it's against my athiest belief is likening atheism to a religion. ,

Nobody has said anything like that at all.

Nobody has but 'because I don't believe' and the reasons why ( eg it's not real etc) which is atheism in a nutshell.

I assume that the objectors are just moaning because nothing is changing. I can't see any difference since I started teaching in 1970s - except that schools are under far more scrutiny now.
The same people moan on these threads and they never tell people what to do - an easy thing to do if they were actually doing something themselves.

But as I've said school isn't just about education, facts and critical thinking. Few people ( at least none I know) would object to awards going to children who haven't achieved highest, on the basis it's not factually true and only fear of the isolation stops them withdrawing from awards ceremonies. Yes we complain when it's clearly unfair but neither does anyone want only highest achievement awarded. Nobody wants their y1 childs class telling they're all losers because the actual facts show only jack won. Or their child factually telling that yes, actually Molly is crap at running and will never win but they should all clap and cheer anyway for her confidence and happiness. And yet we accept that actually, while not factually true, it's at best in the interests of the majority to deviate from pure fact, and at worst even if you're well behaved child is passed over for the one that didn't kick anyone for an hour then it's not the end of the world.
School is about the social aspect as much as anything else, and if we're talking mild worship then like lots of other stuff schools do its not really worth being offended by.
As an aside dd went to a church school, because it was for her the best school, although admittedly if the none religious identical school was available I'd have picked that. However despite religion being a bigger part than 15 mins or so a week, I'm now glad I chose it because her and her other athiest school friends can debate the subject far better than otherwise, and are more than equipped with the knowledge to hold their own against adult believers.

I was answering BertrandRussell's post of 9.27!

My Ds found faith through open the book etc at school.. I have none. What I never really understand is why people don't want their children to have faith.

I want my DC to develop his own opinions on the world..He will already tell me we can have a different opinion ...He understands the difference between opinions and rules.

I never understand that either, starlight2007. They seem dead scared that their children will think differently. BetrandRussell will no doubt appear and say that Christians have Christian children and yet I don't know a single adult who was brought up a Catholic who is still practicing and when I was young we nearly all went to Sunday School ( CofE) and I can't think of many who are churchgoers now. BIL was in the church choir and is now an atheist.
The world doesn't fall in because your parents are Christian and you are not!
All the really committed Christians that I know are ones who came across it as adults, they were not taken to church as children. The world hasn't fallen in there either.
I took mine to church and they were Christened. They are not confirmed, DS has not had a church wedding. They gave up going to church aged about 8 yrs. no one has yet told me why this should matter!
My mother can think what she likes- so can I. They don't have to be the same. They don't have to make any difference to the relationship.

I don't think that collective worship has a place in school.
However it isn't something that bothers me- there are far more important things wrong in schools IMO - if I did wish to fight something.
I come on to point out that collective worship is the law and there are no secular state schools in UK. I used to do a link to the secular society but I have given up because I am not sure they have been used. If the thousands on MN joined they might make a difference!
My argument is that moaning on MN doesn't even get the point across to all members that there is collective worship -and so you need to actively do more.