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.

As someone who has taught in both I would say there's a massive difference between a faith school and a non denominational school. At the Catholic school I was in, there was praying at the start of the day in class, before lunch and at the end of the day, and RE was basically learning the dogma and tenets of catholicism because it's so damn complicated and tedious it needs many hours to untangle it in their heads. Then there are normal assemblies which are far more pray-y, special lessons for first communions, visiting priests in Assembly and the regular masses in the church the school attends. Oh, and they learned NOTHING of other religions.

"Normal" schools sing songs and have the odd prayer in assembly. Admittedly, depending on the kind of culture promoted by the head and senior staff, there might also be carol services at Christmas and perhaps a visiting vicar to assembly. And crucially, they learn about other religions in RE - at the time (don't know if it has changed) it was Sikhism, Judaism and Hinduism in our primary school.

There is a big difference between the two types of school, but if I could change anything it would be the level of influence that individual head teachers have on how much/how little a Christian ethos permeates.

exoticfruits - whilst I agree that addressing this complaint to the Government and getting the law changed is the only way to fully make assemblies inclusive, I think these threads serve a function in raising awareness too.

As you say, many parents just don't realise, and since they don't attend the assemblies themselves there's no reason for them to until their child starts discussing it (which many won't of course).

Also - as you say - many parents don't give it much thought - or vaguely think 'what's the fuss about', as evidenced by many of the replies at the start of this thread. But threads like this give the other side of the argument, which imo is a pretty persuasive one. So, if any parent did decide to 'campaign' in the playground for parents to withdraw their children from assembly, they'd stand more chance of success of the parents had done a bit of MNing on the subject!

Crikey, whoever said they would think a political school is more relevant to our society, that has sent actual chills down my spine. Imagine going to a socialist or right-wing school?!? eek!! After thinking about that, a few hymns once a day seems very mild indeed and I consider myself atheist (although probably more agnostic but I can't really suss myself out )

Do we know if children actually listen to the words and believe them any more than they do Waybuloo or Star Wars? My favourite hymn when I was primary age was "when a knight won his spurs" or whatever it's called, still love it. There's some god stuff in there but what a tune and sentiment eh? How sad for future generations of children to miss out on that.

I actually think that to be an atheist without militant anger on the subject we have to come close to religion, be close to the precipice of believing and say to ourselves "no, hang on, not possible and not for me to believe this" rather than never be exposed to the actual worship but just being taught the facts. It is important to experience putting hands together, closing eyes and praying...and either feeling good about it or feeling it is pointless. Yes, learning about religion is very different and without ever having to actually worship, how do we know we don't want to? That is doesn't feel right or give us comfort? As long as the religion experienced is gentle, not used to scare children ("you'll go to hell" etc.) and is balanced and truthful about evolution I can't see the problem at all. My DS is 6 and tells me he believes in God and Jesus etc. but he believes in FC and the TF too, I'm confident he'll question all of them in a few years time but he's happy enough atm and I'm pretty sure he's not planning any religious crusades or oppression of minorities.

Of course the above is true for any religion but we have mostly Christians here in the UK so fair enough we go with that. If a child from an English atheist family decided they like the worship it will be easier for them to access a CofE way of life in our culture than, say, a Muslim one.

The most sensible post on the whole thread, jalapeno.

Ok- so your child can't possibly know whether they want to be a Satanist unless they have actually sacrificed a black cockerel either, but nobody's going to say that's a good idea in a primary school!

Well, no which is why I say CofE is the best thing to practise in primary schools in the UK. I don't group satanism (if that is indeed a word ) with any of the major world religions but, like you, I find it just as difficult to believe in as god. However practising satanism is a far cry from learning about Noah's ark and singing "Jesus love is very wonderful" a few times a week though. I think we can all agree on that?! Or can you truly see no difference?

There are many harmless and actually positive things about a mild CofE-lite worship in morning assembly. I have no problem with bringing children together for a few minutes, singing together, thinking about a theme of the day- it must be helpful to teachers and pupils alike on so many levels. Yes, the stories and songs could be secular but I bet they'd be crap

As long as children can question things without fear and they are not made to believe anything they are not comfortable with, I have no problem with my DS being made to put hands together and sit cross legged for a few minutes to hear a different view to the one he would hear at home.

Whilst ideologically I would love to have secular schools, having thought about this a lot and talked it over with lots of people I believe we would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater and lose valuable aspects of our history, culture and education by banning the collective worship.

But don't you get the point that collective Christian worship is excluding non Christians of all sorts? All the things you talk about- the reflection, the thinking, even the singing can be done in a completely non religious way. And the BHA, among others have loads of lovely ideas for secular assemblies.

Yes they can be done that way, I agree and "see the point", but I don't think they would have the same cultural, historical or even artistic impact. It is my humble opinion obviously. I should also admit that I don't like some of the the happy clappy newer Christian songs and stories, they can be far too evangelical for my liking. Traditional songs that focus on nature or humanity and thanking god for it are fine imo. Obviously this relies on a good HT which was mentioned upthread.

Secular assemblies are fine, do those for half the time. I just don't think we can or should erase our cultural history totally. I also think it does no harm to anyone, Christians, other religions or atheist/agnostic children. Or satanists Again have we got any research about long-term effects?

Perhaps primary schools could keep the worship and High schools lose it? I know I'd had enough by then!

Who is talking about erasing Christian culture? That's what RE is for!

So you would be happy with all no. Christian children missing half of all school assemblies?

No, RE is for learning about major world religions and contemporary society, not maintaining Christian culture.

Small point but valid. You are contradicting yourself.

Maintaining "christian culture" is a personal matter. Collective compulsion to pray during an important part of the school day is wrong on so many levels and I bloody hope it will be abolished when my lo is ready for school.

How am I contradicting myself? Is Christianity not a major works religion to be studied in RE?

Oh, and I said "not erasing". Not "maintaining". A subtle but crucial difference. I don't think it's the role of a school to promote or to maintain Christian culture. It is the role of a school to teach about it.

Yes I know, but RE teaches about all world religions, so it's not going to help to not erase Christian culture. But anyway.....

I'm not a rabid Christian, or even a believer. But I don't see the harm in a bit of together time at the start of the day with some traditional music.

And just as a little aside, I'm not sure that some of the 'Christian-lite' stuff is all that innocuous.

For instance the images of Jesus on the cross is something we are all so used to as adults we don't really think about it too much, but for a small child there isn't really much difference between that and any other murdered body. Would we think it was appropriate to stick pictures and sculptures of bleeding people who had been hung, shot or stabbed all around a primary school?

For me personally I have quite a lot of issue with the modern hymns - I grew up going to schools where we sang Jerusalem, To be a Pilgrim, Onward Christian Soldiers, The Lord's my Shepherd etc and the worst was 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' and the gruesome 'Kumbaya'...

But I couldn't have told you what half the words were to those songs - they just sounded nice and were good tunes.

On the other hand 'Shine, Jesus, Shine' isn't exactly a masterpiece of musical composition or lyrics and is far too evangelical for my tastes.

It also annoys me that the head's ethos and level of religosity can have so much influence.

DH and I are both Secular Humanists, members of the BHA and the NSS and have both sat on our local SACRE (Standards Advisory Committee on Religious Education) and try to campaign for the 'worship' bit to be removed and for philosphies such as Humanism to be taught alongside the other faiths. Too many people still believe that you can't have decent morals and values without religion (which makes me worry about some peoples morals and values if they feel they need to think big brother is watching to follow them!)

I'm not a rabid Christian, or even a believer. But I don't see the harm in a bit of together time at the start of the day with some traditional music.

Agggggggggggggg"!!!!!!!!!!! Neither do I!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

But why does it have to be Christian, and therefore not inclusive?

It's only Catholics who depict the dying Jesus on the cross. Plain crosses are much more common.

In any case I have never seen a single non-faith school with even a plain cross hung around the place, let along crosses festooned with the dying and bleeding Jesus.

Seeker, because Britain is nominally at least a Christian country!

We're going round in circles here aren't we :)

Lokova I do think you are giving this whole thing too much head space. There is nothing whatseoever oppressive about mainstream, 'vanilla' Christianity in school assembly.

Have you considered that forcing your own views on him is no different from what you say is oppression? Why not let him make up his own mind like most people do anyway? You tell him what you think, he hears what he hears at school. I'll bet he only sings these songs because he likes the tunes in any case - it's no different from my 2 year old who still occasionally sings Jingle Bells in March! As he gets older he'll make up his own mind.

Sorry I meant to say that I have experienced a more sinister brainwashing aspect of Chritianity which involves a speaker repeatedly telling people they are going to hell. This group of people did manage to brainwash others and I would not want my children to have this inflicted upon them.

I can assure you that what you find in primary schools is absolutely nothing like this.

So if Christian assemblies are so vanilla and bland and nobody takes any notice of them and they don't promote Christianity and all the rest, why do the Christians just say to the non-Christian "oh, OK, then, let's get rid of them"?

The traditional songs were modern once - what's wrong with newer songs, they are just reflecting the current musical culture?!

Once upon a time "All things bright and beautiful" was very cutting edge...

Who says get rid of them? I may be out of touch with this discussion admittedly but really the op has two choices

1 leave it and let her ds make up his own mind
2 ask for him to be withdrawn from assembly

or possibly, move schools? But even then there is no guarantee there would be no christian undertone there either.

I am just so baffled that people think it's OK to say "Not a Christian? Well, either pretend to be one or miss out an an important part of school life" Do people really think that's OK? On any level?

"I can assure you that what you find in primary schools is absolutely nothing like this."

The trouble is that with the current system, if the head teacher has any evangelical leanings or preferences for the more 'less vanilla' style of preaching / worship, then they can quite legally introduce this content into school assemblies. The parents wouldn't even necessarily realise, since they don't often go to assembly.