Open Book

[HettySunshine]

Please could someone give me some more info about this.

My daughter started in reception in September and I was chatting to another mum at a school social event who said she is the person who goes round the local schools doing Open Book which she said is about getting children interested in Christianity. She said that there is songs and something that sounds a bit like Christian affirmations.

I'm not entirely comfortable about my daughter being exposed to this if it's not side by side with equal exposure to other faiths and beliefs but I thought I'd see if I could get some other opinions before I did anything further.

I'm going to do some online research as well but I'd value some of your firsthand opinions too.

Sorry, just had a look online and I think it's called Open the Book.

We have this in the school where I work. They come in occasionally to do routine assemblies. We're a C of E school. If yours is too, you should expect this sort of thing. The children should also be exposed to other religions, but this will usually be to a far lesser degree. My kids were both quite into the Christian thing in KS1 but it didn't last.

Meant to say, ours are taken by the local vicar and some people from the church congregation.

We have Open the Book at our C of E primary. They are also introduced as 'Storytellers' and the kids (and the staff!) seem to really enjoy it. The people involved all have a great enthusiasm for the performance. I recall one from last year where they were recreating Jesus curing the lame. The elderly lady that was 'cured' took great pleasure in bellowing "I can walk!!" every minute or so throughout the rest of the performance with a massive grin on her face. The children were howling!

In my experience of this as a parent and a member of staff, the majority of children see this as 'stories' in the same way they do the Panto that visits.

They really are just a bunch of stories - no different to any other story (Disney anyone?)

Kids aren't expected to believe

My DS's school have these. The local vicar comes in and just tells stories. They're my DS's favourite type of assembly. It's a c of e school.

Is it open book or open door? Open Door come to my school about once a year. It's a Christian based assembly but just usually something like a puppet show telling a Bible story. It's not indoctrination. We have had then visit in a previous non-CofE school too.

Even non-faith schools are legally expected to hold a daily act of worship which is "broadly Christian in nature".

You have the right to ask that your child doesn’t attend these assemblies.
However in England at least even secular schools are required to have daily Christian worship.

We had 'Open the Book' at our local primary, too. Run by the local lady vicar. I wasn't happy about it, as it's a non-denominational school - but I didn't say anything because I felt it worth the children learning about some of the Christian stories. It turns out they all found the sessions pretty boring, so it didn't do anything from a conversion point of view.

It's not a C of E school. We partly chose it because it is non-faith.

Even non faith schools still have to have a Christian assembly, in England anyway.

IME Open the Book involves a small group of local churchgoers, often elderly, re-enacting stories from the bible (based on the Children's Storyteller's Bible if you want to check them out) in a straightforward 'this is a story from the Bible' way - stories like Noah's Ark, David and Goliath, the Nativity etc.

Unless the group comes from a highly evangelical church, it tends to be non-evangelical and intended to 'tell a well-known story' rather than convert. For a child from a non-religious family, it would serve as a fairly basic introduction to 'stories that are contained within the Christian Bible which are part of our cultural heritage' [not entirely dissimilar to someone acting out well-known traditional tales, tbh] without being indoctrination in any form, and could easily be balanced at home by stories from different religious traditions and none.

Bible version used as a source for most of the stories used:

Lion Storyteller's Bible

Their Code of Practice is interesting

here

especially because it explicitly mentions simply reading the story, and also being respectful and mindful of those of other faiths and with none.

Speaking as a primary teacher - you're well within your rights to ask for your child not to attend. We have something similar at our school and there are two or three kids in each class that sit out and they just read or finish work with a TA

We have Open the Book too. The children enjoy it in the way that children generally enjoy hearing stories.

Circular 1/94 says worship in schools (all schools,not just church schools) must be broadly Christian and the 1988 ERA states that all children must take part in an act of collective worship every day (guess what my dissertation was on )

You can remove your child from collective worship.

Our group always say "if you want to join in with the prayer, please do so" The children love the stories, the props the group make are fantastic and the members of the group are kind, friendly people who love interacting with the children. If you don't want your child to listen however, you can withdraw them from assembly.

Thank you so much for all the information, it's really helpful. I'll have a chat with my dh.

People from our local Churches go in to schools and do 'Open the Book'. They usually only manage about once a term. The do a bit of drama and tell a story from the bible. The dc love having people from outside come in. Schools like it as it is a different perspective and doesn't cost them anything (the local churches all do it voluntarily). In my very multicultural City, you'll find that schools also have visitors from all kinds of backgrounds too - it will depend on the make up of the population around your school to a greater extent though, I'm aware not everyone is lucky enough to have just a rich resource on their doorstep as we do.
As others have said - the children enjoy the storytelling and the novelty of having visitors rather than the same face at the front of assembly each day.
Not sure quite what you think is going to happen to your dc. None of mine suddenly wanted to join a new religion when they visited a Gudwara, or Mosque, or heard the story of Diwali, or Passover. Tehy just were interested in stories that were important to lots of people in the world. You know, how most people - dc in particular - are interested in the rest of the world around them.

That's my point Backforgood I want my dc to have equal exposure to all faiths and belief systems equally. I don't think I ever suggested I didn't?

What I said I my op, which I assume you read before commenting, was 'I'm not entirely comfortable about my daughter being exposed to this if it's not side by side with equal exposure to other faiths and beliefs'.

You won't get EQUAL exposure to all faiths as there has to be a daily act of broadly Christian worship. However over their primary school life, the children will be taught about the main principles and features of a wide range of faiths, usually Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism and possibly a couple of others depending on the local area.

Reinforcing what spaniel says: in any primary school (whether faith or non-faith) there are two sources of input about religion.

One is the daily assembly, which by law has to be 'a daily act of broadly Christian worship'. The 'Christian' element may be stronger or weaker (and IME this isn't wholly correlated with the religious or otherwise nature of the school - the most 'Christian' school I have ever taught in, in terms of assembly, was in fact a standard village community school) but a school which gave exactly equal exposure to all faiths and none in assembly would be breaking the law.

The other is the statutory RE syllabus, taught in RE lessons. Most agreed curricula are, roughly, 50-70% Christian / Christian values / Christian festivals etc, 30-50% other faiths and 'big questions'.

That would mean that, even in a non-faith school, the predominant faith all children will be taught about / exposed to, is Christianity - as in day to day life many of the celebrations, festivals etc they will encounter are at least nominally Christian (though originally pinched from other belief systems - Christmas / Yule; Easter / Oestre etc).

However, in RE at least, they will be taught about other world faiths. IME humanism, paganism, and the ideas of agnoticism and atheism are usually less well covered at primary.

The school will be telling storied from all the major world religion - and probably some fables etc too which aren't based in any religion. Whether you live where there are groups from other world faiths that volunteer to come in and give the children a different experience, I don't know. It does happen in some schools, other schools might not be lucky enough to get those offers, but generally schools will take what they are offered in terms of additional resources. Seems bizarre to try to stop something the children enjoy because they aren't getting as much experience of other faiths.

People come in from the local church to act out Bible stories and get the children involved too. Our school also visited the local church and had the children offering their sins to Jesus and asking for forgiveness. Which as it isn’t a specifically religious school, I found a bit much.