Superstitious crap-peddling in non-church school, how to deal with it?

[SpringchickenGoldBrass]

DS (6, in Year 1) came home from school today talking about what he's going to give up for Lent. I asked him if he understood why he was supposed to be giving up things for Lent (of course he had no idea) and made sure he knew that he didn't have to and I would be doing no such thing, and we had a little talk about superstitions.
I am seriously pissed off with this and want to speak to the school about it. We live in a very multicultural area and I want to know A) if all the 6 year old Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and whatever else are trotting home stuffed with this crap and if not, how can I get DS exempt from it? Just because we are English does not mean we are CofE, I am a hardline atheist and DS dad and I have been raising him with as little superstition as possible.
I do not think it's appropriate for a group of culturally-mixed 6 year olds to be fed this sort of bullshit (which is going to be beyond most of them anyway) - I have no problem with DC being taught about the various mythology brands but the actual practicing of this nonsense should not be suggested to them at school.

Did he really say it all? "I am not an atheist", is another quote.

Old Einstein said it all in your opinion.

I'm sure there are physicists who disagree with him about God.

No, you're right, it's because they're better schools. What it shows is that outrage about religious education is limited.

I do think that adults draw connections about these things that are there, but are not paramount for children. We have a vicar who comes into school to enact Bible stories with puppets-kids love it but I've only once heard him mention God, and never in a context meaning 'do this to be good because God says'. What moral instruction is given is fairly basic and general and again not portrayed as exclusive to Christians. Our nativity play was fairly straight, except we dropped references to the Messiah to have (appropriately some would say) a keen Jewish child playing Jesus. Can't say it was any more or less well received than Jack and the Beanstalk. When I was at primary school the vicar was perfectly inoffensive guy whose only piece of religious instruction made me believe if you plugged him in he'd light up the world because someone called Jesus said so, at secondary school 'Church group' meant ' chance for shag with someone middle class'. Can't say any of this detracted from my atheism in any way, if anything the reverse.

I really think acts of worship need to be considered sensibly on their own merits. If there is an overt ethical focus linked to faith, fire and brimstone preaching of damnation, then clearly this is unacceptable. But most CofE vicars understand this, and view their role as pastoral and informative rather than conversion (as they often do for their own communities).

To return to the OP, her DS didn't know why he had to give up something-he hadn't been indoctrinated with any belief at all.

Re faith schools being "better", you tend to find the biggest difference in attainment between faith schools and community schools in areas of high social deprivation. There is no mystery as to why this should be. If you give priority to children whose parents are settled enough, organised enough and clued up enough to get their children baptised, sit them quietly through a church service for an hour every Sunday (for at least six months prior to the admissions deadline), and get the necessary forms signed by the priest, you automatically exclude a large number of children from backgrounds which are chaotic and/or transient, and end up with a completely different demographic between two schools in close proximity to each other. The community schools in these areas will tend to have far higher numbers of pupils from poor backgrounds and far higher levels of SENs and behavioural issues, all of which are linked to attainment levels. You can see it again and again if you look at the stats for SENs and free school meals in VA versus community schools. It's not rocket science, just a rather subtle and nasty form of discrimination.

As to the main discussion, I personally can't see that it's worth getting any more worked up about giving something up for lent than about putting out your stocking for Father Christmas. As someone else said, pick your battles.

Although it's not quite as simple even as that becasue different faith schools do different stuff. I live on a council estate built in the 1950s. My two closest schools are both voluntary aided and set admissions criteria using parish boundaries (hence excluding those in the new estate parish). There are only two other voluntary aided schools in my town, both on the borders of the other 1950s council estate. The other CofE schools follow normal admissions procedures and don't prioritise church attendance.

At points like this it's hard not to see some sort of conscious, rather unchristian decision, to keep the scummers out being made.

I've always wondered why faith schools don't just put all the names in a hat, and then pray for the ones who are most in need of their spiritual guidance to be revealed before picking them out randomly (but in a spiritual and suitably ritualistic fashion).

All this business with parish boundaries and churchgoing families does seem designed for yup - keeping the scummers out.

'Is there any good reason why all schools can't be secular?'

Yes-you have to have disestablishmentarianism first. The Queen is head of state and the CofE-state schools have the state religion.

"Pick your battles" is very well said.

It's not designed to keep the scummers out, it's exactly as Zephrine describes. If the "scummers" want they can send their children to a church school. They don't want it enough.

Like NormanTebbit, I beleive that the catholic/non-denominational segregation in Scotland helps perpetuate the cancer of sectarainism in the West of Scotland :(

It's not quite the same as the set-up in England: here the catholic schools are 100% state funded, run in parallel with non-denom schools and you effectively have two catchment schools wherever you live: the Catholic school and the non-denom school. There is also a Jewish primary school and I think one Church of Scotland school which are similarly state funded. There has been talk of converting one of the state primary schools in Glasgow to a Muslim school but so far it hasn't come to anything. However, logically, if the state chooses to fund the catholic schools - why shouldn't it also fund an Islamic school? .... especially when the local "catholic" school is 90% Muslim/Sikh

For that reason, I think we should be making all schools secular. By all means teach about religion, but take away the "acts of worship".

gooseberry bushes - that is exactly the point though, church schools do better because they are able to select parents who 'want it enough' and are able to jump through their hoops.

As zepherine said - chaotic and transient families are less likely to be able to do this so they get screened out.

If other schools were allowed to select children on the basis of those whose parents 'want it enough' they could also get better results by screening out the less motivated families. But that's not really the point of state education is it??

gooseberrybushes

Well, no, we can't because the criteria go: usual top priorities, siblings, distance within parish boundaries, churchgoing in parish, churchgoing outside of parish, distance outside boundaries. For the last five years distance within parish boundaries has been the point that admissions stopped. The two schools are 0.2 and 0.6 miles form my door, the local community school 0.7. There is nothing I can do to get my children into my nearest schools-even going to church won't help.

And, as I say, find it curious that the only four schools operating this policy locally are on the geographic borders of deprived areas, where distance or even churchgoing might dilute their catchment.

Oh no, another thread where those with faith and those without just carry on the same old same old! You are never going to reach a truce, just let it go!

To answer the OP, we seize on anything non-Christian with a fervour and talk about that, while showing little interest in the Christian stuff. The school won't provide a balance (whatever they say) so we try to do it for them. I don't mind a bit of bible as it's a basis for a lot of English metaphor and you're kind of handicapped if you can't understand your own language.

The most pernicious thing ds has come home with is 'Well it's NICE to have a faith' - I hated that more than any number of bible stories as it was turning the whole faith/non-faith thing into a moral, adult-pleasing difference and not just blathering on about Noah, as I'd expected in a year one class.

We also talk a lot about science as dh is, well, a scientist and ds is interested. (Not sure where this idea of many scientists having religious faith comes from. We know loads and being religious is FAR from the norm.)

I came to the conclusion there is no point in expecting school to be impartial as many, many people are agnostic or self-identify as Christian and honestly cannot see the fuss - which spills over into not really giving it too much weight when it's a teacher planning classes.

No, it's not the point of state education, nor is it the point of faith schools.

It's the way it works. They're not designed to keep people out. They're not designed to be the best schools. They're not designed to cream people off. They're designed to give families wanting it a religious education.

It's turned out differently: but they weren't designed this way. Parental commitment makes the schools what they are. Other schools can be the same way if the parents have the same commitment.

The difference in church schools is that it's usually 90-100pc of the parents who demonstrate commitment: in non-church schools in church school areas the proportion will be lower and it's very tough for the parents who do show commitment and feel despair at the lack of other parents' commitment.

I think the knowledge economy is a good enough reason for maintaining faith schools, rather than religion.

The whole issue of faith in admissions is mad, and I guess we shouldn't discuss it here given the OP is about what is taught, but...

CofE and VA schools were set up to serve particualr religious communities only becasue at the time local communities predominantly went to those churches-they were local schools for local people. Now an evangelical vicar or a governing body can use this circumstance in precisely the opposite-to exclude local children. I addition to those I mentioned, criteria around here could reach the absurdity, for instance, of one school (which privileges churchgoing in associated evangelical churches) offering a place to someone living 10 miles way but not to someone next door.

Sorry for vehemence, it's not directed at the OP or at CofE schools (three of which are on my preference list and all of which follow LA admissions codes), just at the situation in some schools who more concerned with maintaining their Outstandings than with their christian duty of care.

It's certainly a strange way to ensure academic excellence, but it does show that selection is a popular educational option.

gooseberrybushes

"They're designed to give families wanting it a religious education. "

No, they were not, they were designed to provide an education to everyone in a community at a time when most were Christian. It was a magnificent act of Christian charity from which the whole country benefited.

CofE and VA schools are in this respect totally different from other faith (including RC) schools which were indeed designed to preserve religious affiliation and education in a world dominated by another faith.

If someone wants to set up a new evangelical school, fair play to them, but turning a local school into one as a result of historical accident is completely different.

Fair point. I suppose that is the aim of new religious schools.

I was just trying to deflect the point that they're designed to keep people out. That isn't true, but it has turned out that way.

gooseberybushes

This is where the whole issue gets me, though, because there is no real way of moving from where we are without simply demanding that no state-funded schools use religion as a criterion, and then allowing new schools to be established (which is horribly expensive).

It frightens me a great deal that a small governing body with views probably not held even by most Christians who attend the associated church (wheels within wheels of involvement) get to dictate so much about admissions.

AdelaofBlois - couldn't we get there though by just demanding that no state funded schools use religion as a criterion to discriminate on admissions (it is after all quite bizarre that state services can discriminate in this way).

They could stay as faith schools but without selection. They would end up serving more of the local community and having more nominal/non-committed Christians as well as other religions/no religions amongst the parents and governing board. Some of them might end up becoming non-faith schools if enough of the parents/governors wanted (not sure if that is possible?) or just becoming nominally faith schools.

All the St so and so's hospitals around the country were presumably set up around the same time as faith schools for the same reason, but somehow they managed to become non-discriminatory.

But then standards would fall across the board though. That's the reason the anomaly stays. And this a small governing body with views probably not held even by most Christians who attend the associated church is definitely an anomaly.

It's different to religion in non church schools though. The answer to that is, we live in a democracy, and it's what most people want I suppose. There's no huge campaign. Most people don't seem to mind. The outraged just have to abide by the wishes of the people hwo think it's quite nice.

Faith schols were not designed to keep people out-and they don't in many places today. Villages often only have a Cof E school and they take everyone in the village first.
The church was one of the few organisations that wanted to give education to the poor and set up schools. In the education act of 1870 Board schools were set up to provide education in the places where there were no schools run by the church, to give all children an education. Because of the times, they obviously followed the church school-after all most people's reading material was the Bible. There wasn't a wealth of children's literature.
It would be interesting today if all schools had to be secular when the church must hold a lot of the assets.

(I haven't studied the history of education in any detail-but I think that my facts are braodly correct).

gooseberrybushes,

Why would standards fall across the board if schools that are allowed to select for keen parents were no longer able to do this? You would still have the same number of keen parents, just more evenly spread between schools.

I think the reason why support for faith schools seems to be so much more than support for campaigns against them is because the incentives for those inside the system and those excluded is so different.

If you can't get your kid into the local school because of religious discrimination you do feel outraged, but you get them in wherever you can, put it behind you and put your energies into supporting the school they are in.

If you do get your kid into a good local school because you happen to go to the right church or live within parish boundaries you are probably just glad you got in and you support the school they are in.

So faith schools have a constituency of vocal supporters but those excluded don't form a natural constituency.

But when they do polls on whether people support selection by faith the majority in the country are against. So much for democracy.

'Involved' parenting correlates much better with parental educational achivement, which statistically makes them more likely to profess no faith, so it's hard to argue that. Many who think the system 'nice' think so because of its christian (not Christian) values and the fact that, if parish boundaries are used, it lets them preserve their advantage because parishes tend to correlate with established communities (at least round here).

The same argument about standards falling could have been and was made about selection of parents generally. Twenty years ago my partner and I (educational publisher with associated discounts, former Cambridge Fellow and now primary teacher) could have unfairly bludgeoned our way into any school of our choosing on 'parental selection'. The fact we can't is right and proper, and has not seen a huge decline in standards, just a selection based primarily on property values instead.

I don't think that's fair, but do find the whole idea of a systematic loophole of this size disturbing.

I guess I feel Religious affilaition should be like a specific medical complaint-you can only use it to advantage application if you can show you have needs no mainstream school could meet, and a particular school could.

exoticfruits

"Faith schols were not designed to keep people out-and they don't in many places today."

I absolutely agree with this, and said so before-the establishment of a network of Church schools was a wonderful act. And to talk of 'Church' schools as if a CofE primary using LA admissions policy is the same as a VA one using parish boundaries is clearly absurd.

But the problem is that as a result of this some (not by any means all) church schools can now design criteria to keep people out (or to include people on grounds not based on siblings or distance). Stopping them doing this would not stop committed parents seeking good schools, or local children attending the local Church school, it would just stop the capacity to fiddle the system.

It's not just the oddness of this that seems unfair, but the fact that every other criterion is based on something which children need (ease of access, special help) whereas this is based on what parents do (it seems absurd to me and indeed many Baptists to talk of a five-year-old Christian). This sort of selection was supposed to have been eliminated.

Because all schools would fall to the mediocre or the mean.