4 year old taught creationism as fact

[bulbhead]

Hi all,

My partner's child is 4 and has just come back from her reception class telling me that an (emphatically male) God created the world. She has also been taught how to pray.

When asked if she was taught that some people believe this or taught that it's really what happened, she's sure that she was taught it as fact.

I'm extremely angry about this - we send her off to school to be taught real things (at this stage literally just letters and numbers...) so having creationism taught alongside them, with the apparent same factual tone, is maddening.

This is not a Church of England school, it's an English state primary. Could anyone please tell me if this is common and whether I'm able to effectively complain to the school about it?

Thanks!

@FairFriday

Isn’t creationism what they teach in some of the southern states ie dinosaurs aren’t real (the devil out the bones on the ground to trick people) and the world is only a few hundred of years old?

Technically, the term creationism covers any belief that the universe was created through divine intervention. However, the term is most commonly used to refer to "young earth creationism", which holds that the earth and all living organisms were created in their current form less than 10,000 years ago.

Those who believe in this form of creationism generally accept that dinosaurs were real. Some believe they were wiped out in the flood. Some believe they were taken on board Noah's Ark but died out subsequently. Some believe that dinosaurs still exist and mount expeditions to try and find them, believing (wrongly) that discovery of living dinosaurs would disprove evolution.

DD cycled home from school in P1 singing

"God loves meeeeee! God made the world!"

Me: (FUCK!) "Well, SOME people think that"

Next morning in the play ground I discovered one of her friends wanted to be a Buddhist and another wanted to be a "honda" because they get cool red spots on their foreheads (like x friend's Mum, who is Hindu and DD was referring to her wedding pictures).

Totally agree that 4/5 year olds are not to be relied on and can get the wrong end of the stick very quickly. Do not go in with your big boots on.

Ask any teacher what the children tell them about you, their home and family. Your hair will turn white 😂

A parent went steaming in to complain to the headteacher of a local church primary school that his Reception child was going to be making a witch's broomstick for Halloween and he wanted all the teaching related to the occult stopped.

The HT said she was sure there had been a misunderstanding and he was livid at her for 'calling his daughter a liar'. She had faithfully reported what the teacher had told them and had even described the broomstick being made of those paper art straws painted brown and how they were going to use them to make spells.

The teacher was nonplussed but eventually they brought the child in and asked her gently what the class were making the next day. She repeated the witch's broomstick story. How did she know? She had seen one hidden in the teacher's bag, but the teacher 'hadn't told everyone yet'.

The teacher pulled out the prototype brown painted art straw hedgehog from her bag, made as a stimulus for the class's ongoing Autumn topic.

The child wasn't lying as such. She was 4, and very interested in witches...