Starting C of E primary

[stellamylove]

My D, starting local school in Sept. It's quite holy, with daily prayers, a message board to god, hymns etc. As an atheist I'd rather she wasn't exposed to this kind if brainwashing, but I don't want to stigmatize her by asking she be excluded. Is there any mileage in canvassing other parents to see if they feel the same and trying to set up a group of kids who are spared it. Has anyone tried this?
Pleas don't suggest sending her to a different school. It's our nearest local village state school + all her mates from pre-school are going!

You have the right to withdraw your child from RE lessons.
Are you sure you want to raise that sort of shitstorm with the staff, governors and community?

How about take =her out of the school and find another (who give a fuck if its the nearest, surely it's not the only one?) or homeschool her or put up and shut up?

It's quite holy? its a C of E School!!!!!! Take her out, give the place to a child with C of E beliefs whose family would appreciate the place!!!

Or is belief not as important as an extra 15 minutes travel time to a more appropraite schol?

FFS: religious school, religious teachings. Don't like it? Don't accept the place. If I was staff at the school I would be furious you were undermining its basic principles, and why in Gods name are you trying to create a dic=vide, a 'them and us' scenario for PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN???? do you not think your dd will have anough of this to put up with in later life?

You don't think that isolating her from competing influences abounts to a kind of brainwashing? You don't think there is any mileage in letting her rub along with other people's ideas alongside your own ideas and her ideas so that she can form judgements based on exposure?

I hate this kind of sanitising of a child's experience. They have a robust intelligence. Is exposure to religion really so dangerous? Isn't this sort of exposure a precondition for the free development of a critical intelligence.

Isolation is the intellectual equivalent of refusing to let a child climb trees or get on a skateboard. In the short term you keep them safe, but at the expense of muscular atrophy and a future lack of judgement.

I think - for any child, no matter which school they attend - the key is going to be to send them to a school with an ethos that your family can support. How are you going to handle it if she comes home and asks whether she is christened, why you don't go to church etc?

What is most important to you: that your DD goes to school near to your home and with her friends, or that she receives a secular education? Because the school isn't going to change, surely? And if it is "quite holy" that doesn't suggest that existing parents are just feining religion to get a place...

Hmm - why don't you give it a term and see how it all works out - you maybe surprised at the lack of 'brainwashing'. I think as its a C of E school you would struggle to separate your child from all RE as it appears (from your op) its part and parcel of school life. I think if you do something like that now it will get peoples backs up and you'll become known as 'that' mother.

If your dc goes to a non-C of E 'community' school there will still be an "act of worship of a broadly Christian nature" as that's the law.

I don't agree with the system and am an atheist too but it's not the end of the world if your dc is exposed to this.

My son goes to a C of E school, sometimes he comes back saying stuff about god and we just politely and respectfully say "yes ds some people do believe that, I don't and you can make your own mind up when you're older".

If your dc will be the only one who is not religious among pupils from very Christian families that could be a problem but our school is very diverse and the true C of E churchgoers are a minority. People don't make a fuss and I'm sure all the kids don't all leave year 6 as Christians for life.

I'd give the school a go. My kids go to a CofE school and there were some things in their policies I was a bit worried about it, but it was our nearest school (and I don't drive so proximity was important to us!) and so many of the schools near us are CofE anyway. But I've been very pleased with the school. Their RE lessons have included studies of other religions and while Christianity is practised there and the school has strong links with the local church, it's never been rammed down their throats.

What RunOutOfIdeas said is correct. There are no secular schools in England. All schools have to have an act of daily worship. And they all teach RE.

So although my children go to my local non church school they are still exposted to an awful lot more Christianity than I would like them to.

I find it all very weird, becasue where I come from schools are secular and it is illegal to do any Christian stuff in a state school....

Basically, even if you do withdraw them from worship - they will still get exposed to an awful lot of Christianity.

It bothered me at first - but now I have so many more important issues with school that this is not something I ever think about

So I guess - don't sweat the small stuff.

I agree with runofideas point that most schools including this one are diverse, and I think only a tiny minority are christian in any meaningful way. This is why I feel it's unreasonable to impose this teaching on everyone.(I do realise it's a Cof E school,yousaidit, and that's the way things are; but I dont see why the status quo shouldnt be challenged) I suspect alot of parents would prefer it didn't happen but don't want to rock the boat, or are too apathetic or just don't care enough to make a fuss. C of E Schools usually bend over backwards to accomodate kids from different faith groups but seem happy to cram any non-believers children in for christian teaching as the default position. THis seems wrong. A state school should be for education, not indoctrination.

You might also need to think about how much you would like to get involved in the life of the school. If you don't have the time/inclination to get involved in lots of stuff it may be a bit easier to ignore things than if you are wanting to be very hands on. In any case you are likely to find that, for example, most performances/productions will tend to have a strong Christian theme so, as I'm sure you would want to be there for your DD, you may have to endure a certain amount! However this is all relatively minor compared to some atheist parents who sit through church every week for years just to get kids into certain schools.
The whole issue is very difficult and I'm in the strange position of being a regular churchgoer who doesn't send their kids to the outstanding CofE school as it isn't right for them. The 'forced attendees' do look very strangely at me when I say that!

That's an interesting angle Logopolitan. I don't really mind the odd navity play or harvest festival. It's just the blind acceptance of a daily regular religious input by a majority of parents who don't really believe in it that I find strange. Maybe its just the English way. Accepting how things are without question.
My original question was really to find out whether anyone has any knowledge or experience of this being challenged in an organised, non-confrontational way. I don't want to piss off the school or make teachers life difficult. It'd be useful if there was some easy way of opting out. I suspect there isn't because it mght prove too popular and undermine what the school feels is a big part of it's raison d'etre

"I don't want to piss off the school or make teachers life difficult."

well you will
so i would just see how it goes if i were you.

or start up your own alternative school and see how you get on.

As you have not yet joined this school community how can you say that 'a majority of parents don't really believe'? If you are ready to jump to such a conclusion at the outset it seems likely that you will not be comfortable with the school as a setting for your child. If you are thinking of trying to alter the basic tenets and ethos of this school you will also have to engage with the Diocese as well as the Governors, Staff and parents.

Having seen CofE schools in a number of parishes (though from the church not the education side), I would say the main driver of the ethos is the head. In some schools the head isn't even a practicising christian and you would struggle to tell if it is a church school. This is more common in areas (like yours) where the local school just 'happens' to be CofE ie it has a local catchment that provides most of the kids. The other style is where the CofE school is an 'overlay' and doesn't have a catchment and instead selects on the basis of faith. This tends to where you have the schools with the strongest christian ethos and the issues around parents having to attend church etc. Other things that can drive the amount of christianity is if it is closely attached to a certain church, particularly if it happens to be very strongly evangelical (the vicar is normally a governor if not chair).
In terms of changing things, market pressure is always a consideration. If the school is good and parents are queuing up to get in the answer is likely to be no, particularly if it is the head's vision to have an actively christian school. This would certainly be the case where I am - the head has 90 other applicants for the place and knows it. This school is fairly strongly christian - prize assemblies are done in church as services, parents are encouraged to come into school and pray together, using drama to find ways of praising God's creation etc. Don't mean to freak you out but remember that some christians will see it as a duty to spread the message, including to the parents! IIRC this was one reason for establishing CofE schools in the first place. However most of your DD's time will be dominated by literacy, maths etc so the overall experience won't be that different. Nothing that you have described about the school sounds particularly heavy to me.
Also remember that things can change very quickly in this regard, particularly if the head moves on.
None of this answers the question but may be useful background.

I understand. My sons go to a CofE primary - it is the only primary school in our village.
All the surrounding village schools are also CofE primaries.
To find one that isn't we'd have to travel a 20 minute car journey into the nearest town - and given that even "community" primaries have to do the collective worship thing, I didn't think the slight decrease in godliness was worth missing out on being able to wallk to school with all their friends.

There is no choice, really.

A lot of parents here actively attend church while their children are at primary school. The cynic in me might suggest this may have something to do with the "outstanding" CofE secondary with the great exam results and the stringent admissions policy.....

I am putting up and shutting up. I'm crediting my children with enough independent thought not to be overly affected by a little mild brainwashing.

OP I very much sympathise with what you're saying but my stance is the same as mitochondria.

yousaidit = N A S T Y

I do wonder, however, if some of the more critical posters would have said the same thing if the OP's child was of a different faith, rather than none.

Yousaidit's assumption is that there is an alternative, non-Christian school available.

If there was a secular school in the village I'd choose that, no question.

Unfortunately there don't seem to be any secular schools in the whole country (yet?)

Pixie, she clearly wont be experiencing"as many faiths as possible". Quite the opposite.

I feel most parents really don't believe because I know alot of them from pre-school. None of them go to church. Or have little fish shapes on their cars. I've seen their glum, awkward, faces at the one harvest festival event I attended with pre-school. They weren't at home in church, and that was just the few that bothered to go. It all seems a bit of a farce

And Zap; no I don't think it'll damage her. I went to a similar school + think came out fairly unscathed. The fact it probably isn't harmful isn't a good enough reason to carry on doing something.

Logopolitan thanks for that useful background. I hadn't appreciated how important the head's view is. (that kind of makes it worse, that one person can impose this on a school, like a mini theocracy)

stella I can understand where you come from

Our local school is a Church school, it doesn't have a waiting list as people think (they rarely exist outside the provinces IME) but it does happen to be the local sschool and the next one on is a 45 minute trek up a bloody steep hill that would cause me extreme issues wrt to ds3's SNU pick up

I don;t have issues with there being a fairh education option but I do when it is extreme and the local catchment scholl; to get a palce elsewhere I have to apply to LEA for official out of catchment agreement before applying. PITA!

As it happens barring one or two glitches ('Mummy is wrong about Darwin darling, God made the animals'- ???) it's been OK but M trying to get ds4 a place elsewhere if we can arrange SNU situation (DS4 starts in 2 yaers, Nursery next year (in Wales so school Nursery)

Now, am not an Atheist in fact but would align most comfortably with Quakers and our school is quite the other side of faith.

But OP what I would say is twofold:

1. kids are bright; they work out what they want to believe. Am a bit sad as my two at this school have as a result of extreme RE (and my degree is RE so have some idea) decided Atheism suits them. Far from brainwashed, then. I am hoping they grow up to at elast appreciate liberal Christinaity as distinct from what theyw ere taught, even if they believe none of it.

1. Give it a go and see if it suits: a parents home based education will always out IMO. Our school doesn't do Hinduism, Islam etc (they have to teach two faiths- Chrostinaity (N testament) and Judiasm (er, O testament) are their choices ) but I do, and so the boys know it anyway, and even better they know it from someone who isn't biased against it. Fabbo.