Calling Atheists / Agnostics / Non-Christians (OK christians are allowed to have a viewpoint)

[Twiglett]

DS has a letter asking for permission to 'visit a church' which is a 'crucial part of our RE topic' and focuses on what 'we can learn about Christianity' by visiting a church

they haven't visited a mosque or a synogogue or a meeting hall when covering other religions

am a little pissed orf and would not like him to go tbh (due to the unfairness not because I have an issue with churches)

what to do?

write saying ''and when are you planning on visiting a mosque/meeting hall/synogogue/stonehenge/temple?''

I agree, write and point out that you are very happy for your son to visit a church but hope that he is getting a rounded RE education and will visit other religious buildings of faith.

I applaud your stance, twig - not sure DS will though, if he's the only one who doesn't go.

Definitely ask when they're going to visit the other religions' places of worship.

I suspect they will do other religions. From what I've seen there is s grim determination to work through every single faith.

Can't see it will do any harm, but I really doubt it will be an honest attempt to "learn about Christianity". It will be propaganda about how faith inspires people to create great things.
Nothing about the theft from charity funds used to pay for most churches.

I might ask however, whether the school is carrying out it's legal obligations to carry out a criminal records bureau check on the priest...

who should I write to the class teachers or the head?

should I just have a word instead?

If the letters pinned up from the local primaries on our church board are anything to go by I expect they will be asked to find the eagle in the church and draw a picture of the flowers.
I would ask when they will be visiting other places of worship because I think that's very important. If they have already covered other faiths in RE you could ask why they didn't visit the relevant meeting places. For all the vitriol heaped on the established Church on this site, I would guess your local church has been chosen because a lot of vicars, IME, are genuinely welcoming and put a lot of time and trouble into preparing the school visits.

I'd write to the head, politely, asking him to confirm that all staff involved, including the priest have had criminal records checks.

FWIW, DS2 did visit a mosque and a synagogue (in Blackburn & Manc respectively) but not until Y5 or Y6 - I suspect with little ones a local church visit is much easier to arrange and organise.

Speak to class teacher I think.

DC, give it a rest, there's a good boy.

just have a quiet word with the teacher...

Twig, I'd write a pleasant (not too stroppy) letter to the head saying while you applaud the school's efforts at getting the children out into the wider community, you would just like some clarification on whether future visits to other places of religious workshops are planned, so as to give a full picture of spirituality in this country today.

Maybe it's because there are no mosques/synagogues etc within walking distance and so the school would have to hire (and pay for) a coach? In our school I know some junior classes have been taken to visit mosques, temples, etc in London but that has been akin to a school trip - they haven't been taken when they were covering those religions in the infants.

Snap wendy!

Oh there's a mosque down the road, probably equidistant to this church .. I'm going to phone them and ask if they do school trips?

OK there aren't any synogogues that I'm aware of withing walking distance .. but I'd lay odds on there being a Quaker meeting hall

My children have visited synagogues, mosques and iirc a gurdwara as well as churches, Twiglett. There really wasn't any religious indoctrination involved, just listening to the rabbi/imam/vicar/etc saying a little about what people do in the relevant place of worship. The children wrote about and drew pictures of what they'd seen. I had no problems as an atheist about what they did. A fair few Muslim parents kept their children off school when there was a visit to another religion's place of worship though. I'd let your son go to the church but write a letter suggesting other religions should be treated equally, as FMV suggests. It could be that the school is unaware that they can arrange visits to other places of worship - educate them!

Oh they do cover other religions .. He brought home diwali candles that they'd made and they did something on a menorah IIRC but not to this extent

its just so focused on christianity its rather irritating

This is a community school by the way .. not a religious school .. and we chose it partly due to its 'community' status as we thought there would not be indoctrination but the Head is a lay minister and there is a requirement from the government

WHat's a gurdwara?

A Sikh temple, Twiglett.

it's a Sikh Temple. There is an outstandingly beautiful example in Hendon.
I am glad your dd1 enjoyed her trip sobernow

To put the cat among the pigeons a little, I'm not sure it's completely unreasonable to give Christianity prominence given its role in Making This Country What It Is. I do worry about how little my children know about it, and whether they'll ever understand Victorian novels.

I would imagine that over 60% of this class are not Christian

Our latest parish mag has a long piece in it by the curate/assistant priest/whatever he's called (whose proper job is Head of a v large comp elsewhere in the county) about the percentage of the population who gave "Christianity" as their religion in the last census - it was something like 70% - so that is a very valid point, Hallgerda .

(His theme was, where are they all then, as regular church attendance is something like 9% - ie most people put Christian without thinking, purely because they were baptised once many many years ago. He said it's like calling yourself a football supporter because you went to a match once many many years ago but know nothing about it. It was written with some humour luckily.)

Good and bad, you are right Hallgerda. While organised religion around the world has been responsible for terrible deeds, IMO it is impossible to understand our country's culture and history without a basic knowledge of Christianity. Crusades, Henry VIII, St Thomas More and the Reformation, the Edict of Nantes and the arrival of the Huguenots, Barnardo, Shaftesbury and Mayhew...whatever one's personal belief system, whatever one thinks of the outcome, it helps us to know why individuals and nations acted as they did.

Interesting you bring up St.Thomas More. He's one of the nastiest people in English history, got his jollies by torturing people who owned Bibles in English.
We get a lot about the wrongdoings of Henry VIII, but not only does RE have him as a good guy, but so do history lessons, and "!A man for all seasons", which has been a GCSE English book all have him as a good bloke who never hurt a fly.
In none of these subjects does anyone question quite why such an "obviously" saintly man was so well regarded by a thug like Henry.
It's because he was a thug like Henry, and was valued for being very good at it.