The school is making my 4 years old to sing gospels, how to get out of this?

[Lokova]

My 4 years old DS is singing:

"My God is good, good, God.
Yes, he is..."

I asked why he sings this and apparently the whole school is singing this in assembly. For Harvest assembly all pupils were made to read a prayer from the screen. This is a non religious, local community school. My elder DS went there and there was no such thing. It was perfectly secular.

I don't wish to offend or be unkind to anyone, but it is offensive and unkind for the school to do this to our family. Now I need to tell him not to sing such things and to explain to a 4 years old that the teachers are wrong to make him say such words etc. He would want to join with his peers. This is very wrong. We should not be in this position.

What is the legal position on collective worship? Can they just take over the assembly and the whole school like this to exclude secular pupils?
Surely religious freedoms don't involve the freedom to force-feed and brainwash secular children into religion.

But WHY????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't see why they can't get all views. It is an accident of birth which family you get born into and it would be very weird if they it is set in concrete that they must follow their parents. I used to enjoy arguing all sorts of things with my parents when I was young, I am very thankful that they didn't say 'there is no God because I say so' or 'you must believe in God because it is a Christian family'. One thing is for absolute sure -and that is they will make up their own mind when they are older.
One sure way of making it interesting is the parent getting all upset about singing a gospel song.

We are going around in circles seeker-we are a Christian country-missed by most people until their DC starts school. It will be the same until church and state are separate. It is done because it is the law!

I am so baffled by how perfectly intelligent people seem incapable of seeing the difference between learning about religion, which is a good thing, and actually doing religion.

I realise it's the law. Ish. Because the law actually says that 51% of the acts of collective worship should be broadly Christian in nature. 51%. not all of them

ExoticFruits - the fact that the teachers may or may not have faith themselves is irrelevant. They have (by law, as you point out) to behave as if they DO.

I agree, seeker. I don't think that collective worship should be in schools BUT it is the law. The other 49% has to be something-it is worship. It makes sense to have more than 51% Christian as our whole culture is Christian.

They generally don't Bonfire-they are quite clear on 'Christians believe' at the start of a sentence which shows that it isn't necessarily what they believe.

"They generally don't Bonfire-they are quite clear on 'Christians believe' at the start of a sentence which shows that it isn't necessarily what they believe."

What - before prayers in assembly, and before every rendition of 'All things bright and beautiful'? Really?

Obviously not Bonfire-as the DCs are there everyday they will understand the drift. If they know that they don't have to say the prayer there is no point in saying it everyday.

The culture in the UK stopped being broadly Christian long time ago thankfully. I would say categorically it is highly secular. Thank God.

DCs understand that prayers and hymns are Christian-they understand that not everyone is Christian and that they have a choice.

So why do both houses of parliament start with prayers bemybebe?

Hospitals have chaplains-so do prisons, the armed forces-any state institution.

They have them because the UK is a Christian country. The difference is that adults have the choice. MPs don't have to go to prayers etc. DCs don't have to go to assembly-the parent has the right to withdraw them.

exotics - because they are way behind with time... they also have a lot of unelected bishops sitting, that will end very very soon

the fact that all the places you mentioned still has christian representation says a lot for the tolerance of the british society and not about relevance to the people in this country. only 2% make regular appearances in churches and I wonder how many of them are forced by the admission rules of the state funded christian schools.

sorry for the typos

"DCs understand that prayers and hymns are Christian-they understand that not everyone is Christian and that they have a choice."

I would imagine that in practice how this is transmitted to the children will vary a lot, as will the amount of 'Christian' content in assembly to start with. Isn't it largely dependent on how the head teacher and governors choose to approach these things?

And I don't see that a hospital chaplain is really comparable - patients presumably have to actively choose to see the chaplain? The chaplain doesn't turn up in the wards and start singing hymns to the bedridden of a morning (I hope).

I went through 13 years of education in church schools with daily Assembly complete with Bible readings and hymns. Didn't make me a zealot. Did give me a rich understanding of some of the building blocks of our society and history, literature, art, music and poetry. It's nice to be able to go round a gallery and understand the iconography in the paintings.

Wish ds still sang hymns like To Be A Pilgrim instead of all the modern rubbish, but hey ho.

My DD goes to a Catholic school, so we expect prayers, and we knew about it when we chose, which is fair enough.

Normal schools should not have to have collective worship. OP is right. It is not on to not have the choice to send your child to a school where there is no religion.

When I was at a mainstream school as a child, we had someone come in once a week and tell us that evolution was impossible, that sex before marriage was a sin, that nonbelievers would go to hell and that prayer could heal. Which are all fine IF you beleive them, tolerable in a church school, but not the kind of thing that parents expect when they have chosen not to send their child to a church school.

I don't like the fact that DD goes to a Catholic school (although I love the school itself) but I just have to deal with it and let DD join in, because what would be the point in going out of our way to go to another school? At least at the catholic school we know the set of beliefs we are dealing with. We support the catholic stuff, we just don't join in, but that is because our family is pretty mild atheist. Families should be able to trust the school to teach only verifiable facts and skills that are relevant to all, and prayers etc should only be in schools clearly labelled as religious.

I'm a socialist feminist - we sing The Red Flag at home, we learn about related history and values, the kids dress up as suffragettes, we take the children to marches and so on. I would consider sending them to a overtly socialist feminist school (...you get what I mean, don't get pedantic) but I wouldn't expect mainstream schools to start foisting our family beliefs on other people. Arguably, politics has much more relevance to daily life than religion, so why does religion have such an unavoidable place in education when it is becoming more and more of a minority interest?

I'm not advocating missing out the cultural and historical stuff - I take the kids to see cathedrals, we learn bible stories and to be respectful of other belief systems, but we also learn about Islam, ancient Rome, local legends and so on.

I have no objection whatsoever to people practising their own religions. They can do what the hell they like, and so can their children, as long as I am not forced to join in. I might choose to join in (eg by sending my child to a Catholic school) and by making that choice I have also chosen to do what is needed (eg allowing my child to pray etc) but it should be A CHOICE.

Religion (or lack of) should NEVER be forced on someone. End of.

I think that you are a bit lacking in understanding the history of the UK, bemybebe. I think that there will be change eventually-the fact there isn't is because people don't realise that anything actually needs to be done-otherwise they would join the secular society.
Change in the collective worship in schools policy needs an act of parliament-not just people assuming that the Head can do what he/she likes because most people don't attend church these days.

Oh, and I would argue that a working knowledge of classical belief systems is just as important as judeo-christian ideology in understanding and participating in cultural life. Doesn't mean you have to start sacrificing goats to Zeus.

The chaplain doesn't turn up in the wards and start singing hymns to the bedridden of a morning (I hope).

When I had DS he turned up in the ward to do a service with new mothers-you could choose whether to join in, but you couldn't avoid hearing it!

exoticfruits - reallly, good grief. Thankfully nothing like that happened to me, might have sent me over the edge

"I think that you are a bit lacking in understanding the history of the UK, bemybebe."

Maybe so. But I believe people live in a secular society already exotic. Look at the stats. They just tolerate religion around them.

I personally don't know a single person below 60 who is a practicing christian. Plenty of people who flock the local catholic church in order to get their offspring into an oversubscribed local catholic school. Fair enough. I would not send my kids there if someone paid me to.

As the "service with the new mothers" - I would actually insist on not having this inflicted on me. Totally inappropriate.