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 ?

Apparently there are two other families at our school who keep their children out. I put a post on the School's Facebook page asking if any other families are opposed to this, and the post was removed within 24 hours. I have been in touch with one of the Governors, and we are planning to have s meeting. We have a new Head starting in Seltember, and the existing Head is going hand this over to her. Once she has settled in, I intend to discuss this with her, and hopefully have a look at Open The Book's code of conduct and establish if it is being followed.

"Holding a different opinion to yours or anyone else's on whether religion in school is an issue does not make me either wrong or selfish or you correct."

If you insist on christian worship in school, you are insisting on something that I don't want, and which is nothing that you cannot easily provide for your child out of school. You are asking me to remove my child from a part of the school day so your child can have what you want. But which you cannot explain the benefit of. If that's not selfish I don't know what is!

But you're using terms like 'majority' and 'minority' again, Lurking, with no basis for them apart from your assumption that people will behave in a certain way if they think a certain thing.

You have ignored polls that show that the majority don't necessarily follow the behaviour patterns you expect them to.

So the status quo isn't necessarily there because the majority want it, rather than bureaucratic inertia and lazy or fearful politicians.

I can follow that you don't need religion to have the quiet contemplation, but I suspect that it would just be cut out in the majority of schools- the timetable is so full.

I also wasn't giving it as a justification for continuing with it. I was merely asked what value there was in it. I listed the things that I thought were valuable as it stands - that is not to say that it should stand.

www.law.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofLaw/Research/ResearchProjects/OptingOutofReligiousEducation/

you can find that research paper here. (Queen Mary's is a college of Queens University, Belfast.) They did actually include atheists, their survey was of young people from what they term minority beliefs. Unfortunately they only interviewed 26 of them, and NI is quite different from the rest of the UK in terms of religious makeup, so difficult to generalise, but definitely some food for thought there.

I put a post on the School's Facebook page asking if any other families are opposed to this, and the post was removed within 24 hours.

Yes, that's going to give parents the idea that the opt-put is an equal and supported choice....

Mehitabel - I get that. But if it's valuable, it could be included in statute without the religious elements.

clickable link

To your first question jassy I honestly don't mind if the majority object to worship, I just don't understand why if it's a majority view then the withdrawn group would be a minority having their differences emphasised.
When someone wishes to express athiest opinions, I have an equal right to put forward my differing athiest views.
I already answered your second question. The congregation of the nearest synagogues, mosques and temple would easily identify I am not a follower, therefore would possibly be offended when an unknown non follower turns up for standard worship,unlike Christian churches where I physically blend in. I notice you clearly didn't read the rest when I said she had both experienced others both as everyday home religion and as celebration, including worship.

I was in trouble for assuming that people were moaning and not doing anything. However nothing has changed my mind as some people have been on these threads for years.
It would actually be good to compile a list of things to do, with links and so next time someone comes on because they have found out that schools do collective worship in UK they could be given useful pointers.

Perhaps MNHQ could make it plain on a starting school article that there are no secular state schools in England.

What surprises me is that most posters went to a UK state school and must have had assemblies - when did they think it changed? Or was it just that they went a faith school and assumed the rest of us were different?
It would be national news if it changed- not to mention all the campaigning etc beforehand.

bertrand I'm not insisting on Christian or any other worship in schools. If people got up petitions banning it at none denominational schools and another in favour I wouldn't sign either. I'm insisting on being entitled to the opinion it's not an issue for all athiests.
Get up a petition banning all Christian overtones in schools and I'd be on the other side fighting to keep my right to holidays that match my beliefs of presents and food and decorations at xmas and eggs at Easter and the nativity play for 5yr olds.
recall removing your post really sucks on their behalf

*Interesting. That ComRes poll from 2011 also found that 2/3 of parents say their children don't have collective worship at school, with another 8% being unsure.

Which means that either the schools educating 2/3 of children are breaking the law, or a significant proportion of parents don't think their children are participating in collective worship, when in fact they are. *

It is quite alarming. And concurs with mehitabel's point that parent assume they are sending their children to secular schools.

There is obviously not much transparency, I wouldn't have known that my children were being indoctrinated to such an extent had I not volunteered in the school and become a school governor.

It's all very sneaky and underhand.

Yes, I believe you do have the right to withdraw your child from religious instruction, which includes the daily act of collective worship. Your child will be separated from the rest of the class during assembly, religious instruction, assembly rehearsals and performances, and presumably Christmas, Easter and other, possibly multi-cultural, observances and activities.

Is this what you really want, to isolate your child and make her feel different from her peers?

If I have read your post correctly, you don't approve of teaching about Christianity (and presumably other religious beliefs) in schools, therefore no-one should be allowed access to it. Sad.

Alternatively,you could allow your daughter to attend, discuss the ethics with her afterwards, and impose your beliefs that way.

Is your use of 'preyed' a Freudian slip?

lurker- christians don't own christmas and easter.

Diddle, thanks for clarifying - I saw the 'minority beliefs' and assumed excluded atheism - atheism not being a belief.

Lurking, in response to this:

To your first question jassy I honestly don't mind if the majority object to worship, I just don't understand why if it's a majority view then the withdrawn group would be a minority having their differences emphasised.

If this stuff was easy to predict or understand, behavioural economics wouldn't be such a fertile field.

In relation to the rest of the post - I simply thought it interesting that you weren't seeking equivalent experiences to fulfil your stated goal of letting your daughter make her own mind up.

I don't think they do either four but whatever most of us now think of them they are originally Christian and unlike taking your children out to help with harvest, are still used by practicing Christians for religious reasons, so if we blanket banned all Christian overtones they'd need to go too.

If I have read your post correctly, you don't approve of teaching about Christianity (and presumably other religious beliefs) in schools, therefore no-one should be allowed access to it. Sad.

Can you find a single post on this thread where anyone has objected to Religious Education?

If there is confusion between religious education and worship, then there's a problem.

But thank you for setting out some of the arguments that some people might think twice about removing their children from collective worship, particularly in schools where it's an all-or-nothing game.

they are originally Christian no they are not I'm afraid.

Christmas has been used for a long time by the christians, but originally a pagan festival.
Santa, trees, mistletoe, stockings, flying reindeer- not much of this is mentioned in the bible. Even the bible warns of decorating trees.

Christmas means lots of things to many people, pagans, christians and atheists. The secular aspect of christmas is hugely important to many families- jesus doesn't figure much in many people's celebrations.

I live in Scotland where christmas was banned by the church for 400 years as being too pagan, people caught celebrating could face criminal prosecution. It only became a public holiday here in the 1950s.

I was shocked to look at Gov UK website, where they give information on everything , that there was no mention of collective worship. I haven't looked lately, so maybe it is in. It ought to be.

Mid winter festival/ winter solstice was traditional but when it got renamed Christmas it became the Christian festival. We'd need to go back to the pagan name to reclaim it. Then we'd be debating the fact the pagans get preferential treatment in having their religious celebrations recognised in the school term!

I was shocked to look at Gov UK website, where they give information on everything , that there was no mention of collective worship. I haven't looked lately, so maybe it is in. It ought to be.

You've got to really hunt for it, and then it's the guidance which was last updated in, er, 1994. But still stands, apparently, as SACREs reference it in their guidance.

So by your logic lurked Easter ( Oestre) is still a pagan festival, not a christian one, as Christian's haven't "claimed" it by name?

How you manage to get through Thursdays without paying homage to Thor?
Or do you simply have a Thursday- like the rest of us.

I have a very merry christmas without jesus.

Mid winter festival/ winter solstice was traditional but when it got renamed Christmas it became the Christian festival. We'd need to go back to the pagan name to reclaim it.

So if the name is what determines whether it's a religious event or not, I'm guessing you're cool with the idea that Easter isn't Christian?

How you manage to get through Thursdays without paying homage to Thor?

We have a special hammer in our house that forms part of the commemoration of the day.

X post

I thought I had an original point!