Does your school hold mock marriages and christenings?

[Ormirian]

Ours does. DS2 is attending a christening today. They are christening a baby doll with extravagantly long eyelashes in a rather hideous shiny christening robe. They are calling her Ebony after a poll in the 2 year groups. DS didn't vote because as she has skin and not fur or scales and only 2 legs he really couldn't give a stuff.

Last term Child A 'married' Child B in a moving ceremony in the church. After which child A pushed child B in a puddle (actually she didn't but it would have been funny)

On both occasions a party followed with food supplied by parents.

Is this a new phenomenon. is it because not enough people get wed or christen their babies for it to be a commonly witnessed occurence and children might grow up never seeing it?

The pupils were told to get dressed in their best clothes for the ceremony. So DS2 is wearing his school trousers as they are the only ones that aren't jeans or shorts, and a t-shirt with a bat on it as it is his 'best' shirt. But I am not sure it is quite what the teacher meant But whenever we've been to weddings recently they have been the sort of laid-back weddings where everyone being comforable and happy was the top priority.

When I was in primary 6 our class had a mock wedding in the classroom. I remember there were trays of vol-au-vents at the reception.

Plenty of 'pretend royal' weddings round here last term. Much sharing of waistcoats for pageboys, ushers, bestman etc. Think it's part of the curriculum under ceremonies - apparently at DS's school every yr2 does it.

< bit of a tangent but dd's junior school had a classmate performing a mock suicide -'twas Boudicea apparently, nice>

We alternated between Christenings and weddings for the past 10 or 11 years (it's part of the curriculum) I even have a very nice hat bought to wear every year
We go to church where the vicar does a really nice service then a reception back in school - parents do us proud with wedding outfits, flowers and even 3 tier wedding cakes
Ormirian we once had to ask a parent to change her son when he turned up dressed as Thomas the Tank Engine (it was his best party outfit apparently)

No, never.

No but I have seen photos in the local paper of other local schools holding 'weddings'

This is the only second time I have come across references to this sort of event, both times on MN, and I am shocked.

I think it is beyond bizarre. What are the teachers trying to impart here?

I do so agree, mathanxiety, it is downright weird.

I think it feels so odd because marriage is actually a very ADULT ritual. To have small children re-enacting it feels a bit eeew in the same way as those kiddy beauty pageants do.

The week before I got married my class did a whole project built around weddings including role playing the ceremony (I feel I should point out it was my student teachers idea not mine!) It covered the part of the RE syllabus on weddings in the Christian faith but also we looked more generally at celebrations and how people use music, art, food, clothing etc to celebrate special times. No strange motives just a lovely week for all the children. Children act out adult roles all the time in their play and we don't think that we must stop them.

They did this at my DD's preschool and I was a little about it until I found out they had chosen DD to be the bride They had a lovely party and everyone got dressed up.

PandaNot - I appreciate that it's absolutely not done with any sinister intent by the adults involved, and that many parents will find it cute and educational. And of course children do copy adults all the time and that's completely normal.

But to me mock weddings, especially with full regalia in a church with a vicar, seems just, well, odd. As I'm apparently not alone in this, maybe it's something that schools should take into account and not assume that parents won't be going but are nervous about saying anything?

They did a mock wedding at dd's school - not in church or anything, just in the classroom. They also did lots of work about weddings around the world (IIRC dd had to research different wedding customs in India). I'm generally not a fan of overly religious education, but it seemed a fairly harmless way of discussing different customs, I think they also talked about civil partnerships.

We've been doing it in our school for years! The children love it and role-play is one of the best ways to get children to learn, especially those with attention difficulties. We've never had a complaint. I suppose our parents are just either very open-minded and love the idea of their children taking part in something that many may not get to see or is totally boring when it's adults (they're the ones involved in role-play) OR they never read letters. I don't suppose it's the latter as our children come to school with their party clothes in a bag.

Our Y4 children are holding a VE day celebration in July.

themildmanneredjanitor and Takver it seems much less worrying if a few different options are explored.

I recently went to a civil partnership myself and a lot of my parenting friends were wondering what I would tell my children. They were horrified that I just told them the truth. I could see no good reason why I wouldn't. If this was covered in school and seen as part of the wider picture life would be a lot friendlier for everyone.

I wonder whether mock civil partnership ceremonies would be acceptable in schools? If not why not?

Hear hear, Carrots. When dd2 (4.5) asked me if boys could marry boys or girls marry girls, I told her that these days they can, though in the olden days they weren't allowed to. She was more focussed on 'why couldn't they' than on the fact that they were allowed to now, as was dd1 (7.5).
Have to confess I winged that one (was driving car at the time) with 'boy plus boy can't make babies on their own, ditto girl plus girl, and people thought it was only ok to get married if you could try and make babies together.'
I would hope a school would be more prepared for the questions than I was on the school run!

Elibean and Carrots - yes indeed, I don't understand how people can tell children anything other than the truth these days

Hopefully it'll make for a more relaxed and tolerant society in years to come!

We did have a pretend Royal Wedding, which was actually a dance by Y6 pupils wearing cut-out masks of all the main 'characters'. It somehow managed to be creative and funny without being at all disrespectful - everyone enjoyed it.

Other than that, nope. No pretend weddings, lots of other role plays though. I'm guessing that if we did weddings, it would probably be in the context of looking at rituals generally, across different (or specific) cultures.

No, not weddings. But the children have been to a local church and a teddy bear was christened there. It's not a church school.

I was a bit suprised TBH but actually it was really carefully done. The concept of being christened was well explained and at no time did I feel that the children were being indoctrinated or anything similar. It was just a visual representation of something important in the Christian religion and the children enjoyed it. One of my chn was in the group (hasn't been christened) and didn't come away asking why etc. He just took it as an interesting extension of a RE lesson on Christianity.

I think mock weddings where 2 pupils are 'married' are a bit weird though.

www.kentonline.co.uk/dartford/news/child-marriages-sparks-bitter-row-128370

I have written to all sorts of people about this issue. When I wrote to the Queen, this letter was forwarded to the Archbishop of Canterbury who did not answer for 3 months. When I chased him up, his correspondence secretary replied saying that the reason why I did not get a reply was because they "have a policy not to answer third party correspondence." When I asked him what the Church's stance on same sex children role playing this ceremony, his reply was that as this hadn't happened, the Church did not have a stance on it and he was not going to "invent one for such a hypothetical, obscure scenario".

As you can see from the article this happens up and down the country and is common practice. I have found about 15 schools online with photos of these events.

I have had 'Save the Children' tell me that "it is at the very least odd, and raises a number of child safeguarding issues" and the National Secular Society have said that it is "ill considered, inappropriate and educationally dubious".

This is not the same as role playing say Prince Harry and Meghan's wedding - the children were not role playing themselves. It is not the same as pretending to marry each other in say, a wendy house - these are sacred vows, made in a church building in front of an ordained Priest.

I know my niece "married" a boy and christened a child in a school trip to the local church when they were learning about christianity in RE. Having a giant ceremony in school and party afterwards sounds bizarre though. I've never heard of something like that!

Never heard of this and it is totally inappropriate, weddings are for adults.