Remind me please - can I withdraw a child from RE?

[Ladymuck]

Or is it just collective worship? Not that I actually want to withdraw him from RE, but his current RE teacher seems to be making his life a misery, and this would be a useful shortcut!

Yes you can withdraw your child from RE. One of the children in my DS's class doesn't do RE at school.

Brilliant. Thanks

Have you done anything about the teacher who's the problem? Have you asked to speak to the head?

I'm gearing up to that. But I just wanted to check whether this was a possible solution to what is essentially just a timetabling problem. Ds1 has a instrumental lesson which clashes with part of his weekly RE lesson 2 weeks out of 3. RE teacher is on ds1's back constantly. Ds1's music teacher is only in school one afternoon per week, so clash unavoidable, and ds1 feels aggrieved that he is suffering the brunt of the RE teacher's complaints. Situation has been ongoing all year, so I wanted to see if there was another approach.

I don't think you would be able to withdraw him on this basis. You would need to make a case on the grounds of belief. Surely you can speak to the school about the music timetabling first??

From what I can see I don't have to give any reason for withdrawing him from RE?
This has been an issue since September, and doesn't seem to be getting resolved. I know that I will have to take it to the Head this week, but at least this is a workable "solution". Dh has just got in and informed me that he was withdrawn from RE for the same reason!

Is your son at a state school? I'm not sure to what extent the legal provisions around withdrawing children from RE/collective worship apply in independent schools. Does the guidance you've found cover that?

Sounds a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut tbh, I would have thought getting the root cause of the problem sorted is better than your DS missing important lessons (even as an atheist scientist I think RE is very important!) IMHO you should insist that the school talk to the RE teacher, if the school have authorised his music lessons at that time...are the instrument lessons in the school building?

What year is he?

I remember we had an ethics lesson I think and every week a different child would miss part of it for a music lesson. There were at least 5 or 6 of us and the timings of each of our lessons rotated round. Each week the teacher would get crosser and crosser with the next child thinking it was always the same one missing the lesson.

Anyway - irrelevant but not very nice for us then and not very nice for your son now. I definatley think you should talk to the head about the situation honestly and try to get the RE teacher to calm down about it rather than pretending your religious beliefs are the issue.

How do you make a suitable case that your belief is that RE is a waste of time and resources? Sex education too.

I'm only asking for information, rather than having this as my only course of action.
Ds1 is year 6, so in general I expect him to sort out school issues without my involvement. But so far this year I have already raised the issue with his instrumental teacher, the Head of music, his form tutor and of course the RE teacher. I tend not to go straight to the Head ever, as usually the matter is best dealt with by the teachers involved. I'm doing one last email to the class/subject teachers involved before taking it to the next level so I wanted to explore whether this was in fact an option (as given a choice, and having explored the topics being covered in RE this year I would prefer him to miss RE over music). Certainly if this was a state school, then I wouldn't legally have to give any reason as to why I wanted to withdraw ds1 from RE, though most Heads would ask to ensure that I was aware that RE could creep into other subjects.

Learnandsay, I don't think that RE is a waste of time and resources, so I won't have to present any case on that.

Having already determined what the RE syllabus covers for the next term and a half I could, if necessary, make a strong case that ds1 has already covered the topics to a satisfactory degree.

Ah. Private school. All bets are off- you don't have any statutory rights.

But you do have the right to say "I am paying for this- sort it out"

But the best bits of RE are the discussions that come up, not just the syllabus, why would you rather he missed that than ask the school why they can't sort it out?

The issue isn't that he is missing RE, the issue is that the RE teacher is telling him off for missing RE. He has to miss RE as this is the only time that the music teacher is available (and the music teacher teaches at other schools as well). I merely want the RE teacher to stop berating him for going to his music lesson. As a last resort I would consider asking to remove him from RE for this year if it saved ds1 grief, but I don't expect that to be necessary. I do expect the teacher to be reasonable, but I prefer to enter such dialogues as informed as possible as to what options could be considered.

Having looked at the school's policies I see that I can removed him from sex ed (wrong afternoon unfortunately) but it is silent on RE.

Can't believe this still goes on. We had a crazy maths teacher who used to rant and rave every time someone had to leave for a music lesson. My best friend had a stand up row with her at one point.

The friend in question is now a professional pianist. I seriously hope the teacher in question has noticed .

But withdrawing from RE isn't the answer. Creating hell with the head teacher, until they do something about it, would be much mroe senisble.