Opting out of RE - real experiences please

[Redspottygranola]

DS1 has just started year 1 of a CofE primary. It is the only school we are in catchment for and all the other local schools are oversubscribed so there is no chance we can move him (or DS2 and DD when they are old enough). The school is excellent except that it is way more religious than I thought it would be. DH and I are atheists although DH doesn't get anywhere near as bothered as me about the brain washing. They thank god before lunch and say lots of prayers at assembly- their RE content is around how good Christians can please god rather than exploring other cultures and beliefs. DS1 is sponging it all up hook line and sinker and it's really starting to grate on me. Am considering opting him out of the worshipping and RE but would like to hear other parents' experiences. No god botherers please.

The way schools approach those (outdated) requirements vary hugely though spaniel - RE can consist of a teacher saying "and this is what Catholics believe. Aren't they silly!" (real quote from my school days), or it can involve challenging kids to consider real problems such as poverty & inequality (different teacher), & understanding different views.

Obviously I'd prefer the latter, but with a 5 year old, it's hard to tell. I luckily have the choice of avoiding the local religious school, but would certainly want to remove my child from overt proselytizing until he was old enough to be able to stand up for himself to adults in a position of trust.

As a Catholic with a daughter at Catholic primary school I do agree that to have no other options than faith schools, however observant, is not on. My daughter (yr 3) is very into God at the moment. I'm willing to bet that by the time she leaves primary she'll have grown out of it! And then, having given her the grounding that I believe in, she'll be free to make her own choice and that is her decision, not one I would interfere in in any way.

Whether you choose to withdraw or not I think you do your child a disservice not to let him hear all sides and decide for himself. At that age even if he comes home saying prayers he hasn't signed his soul over in blood just yet!

On the basis he's been back at school a week or so I think you're overreacting.

Religion underpins many current affairs and much literature and art. Avoiding all religious education may be not such an issue at 5 but it would as he grows up and studies eng lit, the crusades, the Middle East, the pilgrim fathers, the holocaust to name a few historical events.

The Church of England is such a non-threatening institution in terms of its dogma and beliefs. Frankly I'm not sure a belief in God is required to be a C of E vicar!

Well, the clue is in the name of type of school: Church of England. You knew RE was psrtvof the curriculum. Faith is practice within the school. You knew all of this and now you want to pulk the "We're not religious" card. Put your child in a non denominational school. God was good enough when you wanted to get your kid onto school and tick all the right boxes. Now your child is there, you want things on your terms. Sorry OP, you should move schools if it's that important to you.

horsewalks
Have you read the thread?

In much of the country there are no non denominational schools.
Many village and small town schools are CofE and that is what you are stuck with for miles and miles and miles around.

City dwellers really should get out more.

A friend of mine has withdrawn two of her dc from RE at secondary level with no issue AFAIK. One dc was very dyslexic, and both she and the dc felt that they'd be better placed spending the time in the library working on other subjects, I think in the other case the dc themselves wanted to opt out.

Obviously not quite the same at primary, but thinking back to my own primary days there were always a few dc opted out. In that case it was because they were of a different non-Christian religion and it was a CofE primary (rural area, no other options). Even back then no-one thought much of it and they just had a reading book in a quiet area. IIRC they didn't go the weekly RE lessons led by a vicar but did join in with xmas plays etc.

So I wouldn't worry overly, if you're generally a supportive parent and don't make a big deal of it I can't see it's a major issue.

As a teacher in Ireland I have no problem with parents withdrawing children from RE, but it generally means they sit in the room and do independent work. If the parents wanted them physically withdrawn they'd have to come supervise them for a half hour a day, so it may be worth checking out what exactly would be provided in your childs school.

I am an atheist, from a very religious family, and have taught RE in a rural C of E school and in an in-town non-denominational school.

IME the balance of the RE curriculum tends to play out over time - so there is not an equal balance of all faiths in every term, or every lesson, or even every year, but over the primary school years there IS a good balance of faiths.

There is, in all RE curricuula that I have used, more apparently 'Christianity based' topics than any of the other faiths, but many of those 'Christianity based' topics are of a 'general moral / ethical' type. For example, the one about 'looking after creation' is is, in our curriculum, started off with a look at the JudeoChristian Creation story, a comparison with the Muslim version, a general look at what humans have done to the world, and then a look at responses from people of a variety of faiths and none, looking at Eco and world problems and those who work to solve them (comparing, for example, the work of Christian Aid with similar but atheist charities, and discussing any differences in approach we find).

If you as the school for a full statement of the RE curriculum, perhaps even at quite a detailed level, it may give you a better idea of whether you feel there is 'balance' or not.

As an atheist, I use the formula 'Christians believe...', as I also use the formula 'Jews believe' etc, but I also discuss how, as a country with a long Christian history, many 'Christian' ideas / festivals / values / approaches have become part of our national life and 'how we do things' (e.g. holiday dates) even though not everyone would say that they are a believing Christian.

I enjoy teaching RE, and my pupils seem to enjoy leaning about it. I have never had a child opt out of RE, though I have had pupils of other faiths opt out of assembly.

Am I missing something here? Why would atheists put their child to a C of E school?

Belinda
Because where they live there is no other school perhaps ????

OP I'm sorry that this thread has descended into a bun fight. I can't offer any advice about sitting out of RE but I do totally sympathise with not wanting religion to be forced down your DC's throat. It is appalling that in this country people are often forced to send their kids to religious schools because they are often the only schools available, when we know (from surveys) that religion plays no role in most peoples' lives. If it helps though I went to a CofE school (think daily prayers, thanking God before lunch, and at senior school visits from a local Reverend who told us that if we didn't believe in God we would never be capable of loving another human ) and despite this, once I got old enough I rejected the whole thing and have been resolutely atheist since then!

I find it hard to understand all the faith schools stuff as there are none where I live. Any schools I've been in where parents objected to the religious content, kids sat in an area reading books when whole-school assemblies were on. In another when the whole school were practising for a Christmas show, the parents came up to school and supervised the group of children or they stayed at home

I work in a CofE school and we have a few children that are not allowed to be involved in our church services and assemblies etc..but I can honestly say they are not brain washed at all with being taught about religions in school.
From my point of view these children feel 'different' when they cannot join in with what are a lot of the time fun activities, and it's often a struggle for the school to accommodate somewhere or someone to be available for them.
On the flip side my son is not at a C of E school but they still have prayers...he talks about God and Jesus all the time at home! We aren't believers but allow him to just be! He will either grow up still believing, he will change his mind or he will explore other beliefs..

Curiouser
I went to CofE schools till I was 18 - grace before school lunch, the whole shebang.
It means I'm a very well informed (christened and confirmed) atheist.

It is also why I'm not that stressed about RE in UK schools because statistically it produces more Atheists per head of population than any other education system in the world

We were lucky when moving into our semi-rural area that we could discount the villages with CoE schools and still have a choice of where to live. Not everyone is that lucky. Some areas have no non-dom schools. Some people don't get to choose their house or can't afford to choose. Our non-dom school presents everything as 'some people believe', but how religious the school is, particularly in terms of collective worship, often depends on the head, even in non-dom schools.

Agreed, Pico - the non-dom school I now teach in has more 'Christianity' in its assemblies (Open the Book etc) than the C of E school in which I taught where the head was the wife of a vicar!

Belinda, yes, I think you are missing something. Paying attention while reading the OP for a start .....

I did read the OP but I thought you had to at least pretend to be of the faith to get a place at these schools. On many enrolment forms it asks for the applicant's religion. I would have thought that if the OP put atheist down, they're very lucky to have a place at this school at all.

Belinda i think it's very clear the OP had no choice. In many areas the c of e school is the only school and in others it will be yourclosest school and/or the only one you'll get a place at based on distance. Many c of e schools allocate 50% or more of their places on distance and sometimes it's 100% of the places. This is what makes the Christian worship at assembly so inappropriate.

But Christian worship at assembly is the law in all schools, whether c of e or not ( unless the school has been granted exemption) so whether the school has 100% exemption for admission or none at all, the collective worship would be the same. Which is why parents have the right of withdrawal.

Yes it collective worship is the law but that's only very loosely interpreted in many schools. So that means no prayers or hymns.

Many village schools are CoE. And the ones in surrounding villages. It either isn't possible to get a place at a non religious school or it isn't possible to do the commute.

On many enrolment forms it asks for the applicant's religion
And huge swathes of the country have no such forms in advance of admission.

I did put atheist as my religion
No 4 year old has a religion so I left that bit blank.

Late on I became a governor at said CofE School

I think some of the difficulty with this thread arises from putting together 'acts of worship in a school' and 'RE curriculum' for they are most definitely not the same thing.

IMO, OP can and should opt her child out of any acts of worship that conflict with her family's belief system.

But stay with the RE curriculum. Which is about all faiths, unless the school is unusually bad. Even if you are not an adherent, your DC will be growing up in a world where they will encounter people of all sorts of beliefs. And it will help understanding if they know something about at least the mainstream ones.

Most church schools I know follow the curriculum written by the local SACRE. The SACRE for my county comprises followers of the Islamic, Jewish , Hindu, Cof E, Roman Catholic, methodist and atheist persuasions, It's aim is to provide a broad, balanced religious education. In the main, it succeeds.