Do Christians on here feel that state Church schools should be scrapped?

[nolongeraworriedmummy]

Ok this is a thread about a thread really but I just wondered what Christians thought, to me being a Christian is about living everyday as a Christian but have just read a post on another thread that says if I want Christian ethos and morals for my child I should give them a bible at night and take them to church on Sunday and they shouldnt be allowed to have daily prayers and religious assemblies as there is no place in school for that basically,

What do you think?

I'm off the hook as I teach in a Catholic school.

I can inflitrate it with evangelical theology!

I am against faith state schools - they are a ridiculous idea. State sponsored promotion of any religion is bizarre to me. They promote the ideas or difference and exclusivity. I am an athiest by choice (catholic upbringing) and don't feel that the calssroom is the right place for religion. Yes we are a Christian country - fair enough - yes promote "Christian values" - an excellent idea - but you don't have to teach the faith part at all. Decent values are decent values and remain so without the religious side.

And in fact after this afternoon I am dead against them even more for the simple fact I was researching nursery school for DD and all of the state nurseries within walking distance are religious and have religious criteria so DD can't go unless I suddenly find a latent religious tendancy. Which isn't going to happen.

Which means I will have to drive DD to a non denominational nursey - if she gets in - which she probably won't - as she lives too far and the non denominational ones will do it on proximity.

So why am I paying all these taxes for provision of schools when because I am an athiest I can't actually send DD to any local ones? Seems bizarre to me.

FFS.

Thanks justabout I knew I was right to be feeling extremely hard done by!

Really not sure what I'm going to do though. I am also fairly opposed to private provision for various reasons and so I suppose that logically this would extend to private nurseries which would actually leave DD with no place to go for nursery at all...

[Big thoughtful sigh]

The reason so many church schools exist is that in the days before it was generally accepted by the state that each child was worthy of education, it was only churches which believed that (free or very low cost) education SHOULD be provided as a moral obligation. Nobody else cared.

I can understand why people who aren't religious feel uneasy about them, but this implication that they have some kind of unfair advantage is unfair. If you have, like me, ancestors from humble origins, it would have been the church which bothered whether or not they could read and write.

I am not Anglican but have been very happy with the education my children received in our local church school. It taught them to be kind and community-spirited individuals. Creationism has never been preached. In fact, even in my convent school in the 70s, creationism wasn't taught.

Bride, that's all very well, and although I would be uneasy about sending DD to a church nursery, it's only nursery, I would be happy to have her go.

But the fact is they won't take her. So what am I to do with her?

Times have changed and these days church attendance etc are well down and it seems to me there are more religious (esp anglican schools) than there are genuinely religious people.

It also seems unchristian to refuse children entry to their nearest schools simply because of their faith (or lack of it).

Or in fact refusing entry because of the parents faith or lack of it.

I'd have thought religious schools would be crying out for young impressionable children who won't get religion at home, to swell their ranks.

I think that's a fair point and I can see why it seems unfair.

There is a pressing need for new schools and nurseries in some parts of the country--I know this is the case in London. This seems to me to be the real issue, not whether the existing schools are or aren't church school.

Well Bride it is London - seems that all religious communities are well served but not the non-religious community!

Am now getting into general vague panic surrounding what to do with DD when personal ideals say I can neither pretend to be religious, nor pay. Yet want DD to go to nursery, obviously.

Maybe will bite bullet and put her down for CofE place (where I did nursery, even though catholic, were things more relaxed a few years back?). When they ask about religion i can point in direction of DH parents and try not to mention the pope...

Is just stupid, i mean really, it's lie about religion, drive, or pay. And all so DD can do some glueing and sticking before she starts school. Maybe nurseries should be non-denominational. I mean, do they really learn about Jesus amongst the glitter? Does it matter if their parents worship when it comes to storytime?

I am a Catholic and a biology teacher and although as I've said on these threads before I will not completely ignore questions that are raised about creationism in lessons on evolution, I use them, as suggested by Michael Reiss, as a means to highlight features of scientific method. I certainly would never go through the creation story and show that it matches whichever scientific theory I was teaching

Squeakypop teaches in an independent school. I expect she is given more leeway. I completely disagree with her approach, naturally.

I have chosen not to send my children to faith schools BTW, to answer the OP.

Do remember Onager thogh that I am also a Chrsitian but I have managed a degree in this so far without letting my faith cloud my views and I am certan I would not allow it in the classroom should childcare ever allow me to get there .

If I believed my views were colouring what I was teaching at all then I would not teach.

I only mention the biblical account if the students bring it up. They didn't when I taught the topic last year, but did the year before.

I don't have a particular agenda in lessons other than to meet the needs of my students.

They think I am a walking encyclopaedia anyway, and save up their weird and wonderful questions for my lessons. I hate to fob them off, and if I don't know the answer will wiki there and then.

ChukkyPig have you checked because all the church schools here admissions policiy doesnt apply in nursery, its just who's
name is down first. Saying that other church schools must be a nightmare because dds school offer 30 general catchment area admission places and 30 church attendance places and the church side is never full so the allowance gets carried over to the general admission section, much fairer in my opinion.

There is no "secularist agenda", at least nowhere outside the minds of the paranoid "churched". There are simply people who want state schools to be state schools, undivided by superstition - just like state hospitals, transport, fire services and dustbin collection and all the other things our taxes pay for.

I'm happy for children to learn about religion and its texts and beliefs, in the same way they learn, for example, about the stories of the Egyptian gods when they study Egypt in Year 3.

But a school can't be "neutral" about religion if it is a faith-based school.

Atheism and Secularism are 2 entirely different things though.
There are many people of faith who want secular schools, and many atheists who don't actually ever contemplate the issue of state-funded faith schools.