'Why has God made the ducklings yellow"

[legoworlds]

Dc has been suddenly asking a lot of God questions - why did God make things that way and not another way, etc...

I'd just quickly say he shouldn't confuse the Christian (religion they are studying now) story with how we learn about the world around us - we can look it up in his science book instead, etc.
But he is clearly quite confused.

From what I gather in RE classes they talk about how God created everything, etc. I said this is what some people believe.
But I haven't actually said to him our family does not believe in gods/ follow a religion. If I did that would he then go back to school and tell everyone gods are not real... Will that cause offence?
He is only six so I wouldn't expect him to be tactful about it just yet.

I was brought up in a different country and we didn't have RE. I learned about various religions in history lessons after the age of ten. It was all taught in the context of historical events, differences in the world, economical and sociological reasons for religion to take the forms it did, etc, etc.

My six year old is not going to a religious school, and I am so puzzled by the fact they are taught so much about religious beliefs at such an impressionable age. I don't think at his age he has enough base knowledge to draw his own conclusions and he takes everything at face value.

Anyway, just wondering how non religious families tackle the extra confusion.

Sadly ‘religious education ‘ is pretty much Sunday school in primary schools. They’ll be taught things that conflict with both history and science. That the Christian god is fact, and will be primarily what they teach. They’ll touch briefly on a handful of other religions taught very differently to how Christianity is taught.

There are no non-religious schools in this country, all schools must do daily worship of a broadly Christian nature (except a handful of others that have a different religion). So all schools are religious and Religious Education may as well be called Religious Indoctrination.

I don’t know if you can even opt out of RE & daily worship now, but if you did your child would feel resentful about being left out. The only real option if you don’t want this is home education. I wish the government would make non-church schools secular. Or at least remove requirement for them to have daily Christian worship.

I agree that you should say “some people beige god created XYZ” but I don’t necessarily thing your should add the “we don’t”. I dont believe in indoctrinating children to any particular faith system including atheism and want my children to make their own decision. Religion doesn’t preclude science though. It’s not one or the other, it can be both. God can be creator and ducklings can be yellow because of science at the same time.

My kids primary school is not a religious school and I’ve just checked the school website - there is no mention of having to do worship every morning?! I’m pretty sure it’s non religious. It’s definitely not a Church of England school. The only thing vaguely related is references to values and ethos and on the RE curriculum is stuff like ‘why do Christian’s say god is a father’ and ‘how might a Christian use a bible’

I agree! The teacher shouldn't be teaching fiction as fact - whether they believe or not, it's indoctrination at its worst

It's the law that they have to do this, regardless of whether they are a religious school or not. Some schools abide by the law reasonably fully, some make a token effort towards it, sone ignore it, but you can't always tell as an outsider which approach any given school will take.
https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/03/schools-call-for-end-to-archaic-daily-worship-following-uk-census-results

In my experience problems can arise where an agnostic school leadership who knows they legally have to do this, and perhaps has a lot of very Christian parents and children due to local demographics, but neither knows nor cares anything about the subject, decides to outsource it to outside volunteers, but I don't know how common that problem is.

It is indeed the law, regardless of whether or not a school is a church school. You can google it.
Some schools seem to ignore that requirement depending on head and sometimes individual teacher. Not sure whether or not anything would come of not fulfilling that legal requirement, but it is technically a legal requirement.
In theory, there should be no non-religious schools not having daily worship. I disagree with this, and think the way your child’s school is doing is is the right way, even if against law.

(Username change fail)
Right assuming that they take this approach for all major world religions, not just learning about what Christian’s do…

The religious aspect of primary school is really just like being immersed in alittle story for part of the day, and a little set of words and routines. It absolutely doesn't interfere with the teaching of fact. Children can surf and thrive on the boundaries between imagination, story, play, fact. It's what they do, regardless of whether or not religion is in the picture.

It is just an extra toy in their pocket. I can remember my younger son pondering out loud about a claim in his school assembly that Jesus was the light of the world. "It must mean that he has a torch", he said.

Unless you are Thomas Gradgrind, why wouldn't you want children's learning to be enriched and interwoven with counterfactual imaginative riffs and fancies?

Re the God questions, I would just say stuff like "The story is that ...". It's a little bit daft to imagine that will cause offence at school! The majority of pupils will probably come from families that are either non-believing or benignly indifferent to faith.

I had no idea that 'all schools must do daily worship of a broadly Christian nature (except a handful of others that have a different religion).!!' Is that just primary schools?

I suppose that's what singing hymns is about. When I was at school we sang hymns that were child friendly and basically about loving and respecting one another, whatever our colour or creed (The ink is black, the page is white), or about a friendly benign god creating nature and life (Morning has broken).
As an atheist, frankly we could do with more of those types of hymns right now. Christian values are quite solid whatever your religion and are about social cohesion, which seems to be disappearing nowadays.

At my son's non-religious school they were taught about different religions and their festivals. It was really well-rounded and respectful of different faiths.
There was rumours of a fundamentalist Christian group doing assemblies though, not sure what happened with that, I think some people did complain and it stopped.

We say to DC that everyone has a right to choose what to believe but as a family, their father and I don't have a religion, but we believe in helping people and doing good deeds. They're at a very diverse school so all major (and some smaller) religions are represented. We've also spoken the KS1 age DC about the war in Gaza and explained simply how religion is related

I think it's fine to be open and honest about your own beliefs, OP, as long as you teach your ds to be respectful towards different beliefs that he might encounter.

I wish that non-religious schools were allowed to be just that, but that's a whole other issue!!

WTF am I reading this wrongly?! You're ok with children being told fairy tales as factual?!??

I used to go with "some people who don't understand science believe that God did xyz. However science gives us the facts that xyz happens because of abc"

The fact that uk primary schools spend more time teaching religion than science is baffling.

No it applies to secondary too.

A lot of secondary schools ignore the law and just have RE, often looking at world religion and philosophy.

Parents have a right to withdraw their child from both the collective worship and RE but few do. Jehovah's Witness parents are quite well informed about this.

I think on a thread like this a while ago someone said their primary head had encouraged parents to opt out to the point all children were opted out of daily worship.

Its a bit tricky in our house as their dad ( we are divorced) takes them to church on a Sunday. I am careful not to be anti-religion. However that sort of question gets the scientific answer. Ducklings are yellow as it makes them harder to see in the long grass. They became that way through natural selection.

It’s actually a really good launching off point to lots of interesting conversations. I have a some people believe in god/ religion and we respect everyone’s beliefs kind of philosophy. In the olden days people used god to explain everything. Then we had philosophers and scientists and learnt more about the universe.

Most people who believe in (a Christian) god don’t believe in a literal interpretation of the bible. It’s ok to say it’s a story/ parable/ metaphor for a wider belief.

Also really surprised that your DS is being taught this in state school RE lessons! Ours are definitely comparative religion - they did Islam last year (Y1), and Judaism/Sikhism this year. I heard a lot about halal food last year, unfortunately his takeaway was that it was weird and yucky so I had to counteract that (I’m sure that wasn’t how the teacher taught it, but it was how the kids interpreted it).

The worst indoctrination actually came from the PE teacher! Who at one point told them about heaven and hell in great detail. DS came back parroting that, and again I had to say “Christians believe that, we aren’t Christian, we don’t believe it”.

Is it a c of e school? This is the problem with them . Everything is about god !

This. Children live stories about how things came to be the way they are and most religious teaching is things like 'here's an item religious people use for this festival' type thing.

I'm. An atheist but I think Christian principles are good ones and at the heart of our national culture, history and heritage - it's important children learn about Christian stories, along with elements of other religions.

I tell my DC no one knows for sure whether there's a god, thy can decide for themselves. It's fine.

It's absolutely fine to say that you don't believe in God and that some people do-but even most of them believe in evolution not Creationism.
And if he is being taught this at a state school he shouldn't be. Talk to his teacher and get the facts of what happened. If necessary then go to the Head.

Get him a kids illustrated story book or creation myths from around the world. Then tell him the Abrahamic creation story is one of the ways people tried to explain how everything came to be, and that there are many many other stories that do the same job.

I have the opposite with my son (8). I believe in God and he doesn't. I was never going to force any beliefs on him and let him make his own choices. They learn about all religions at school and I think it is good to get an understanding of other's beliefs. I went to catholic schools and I didn't have a clue about other religions on leaving school!

Very much this.

Just break it down for him, look it up in science books and try and interest him in the wonder of creation.

They probably aren’t telling him that God chose yellow for ducklings, that’s just what his mind is focusing on, but it does indicate that a open minded chat with the school would be a good idea, to check that fundamentalist Christianity hasn’t some how crept in via an individual teacher

It's just a school. It isn't a Christian fundamentalist training camp (if any event exist).

He'll make his own mind up and its ridiculous to think he'll be indoctrinated.

If he did end up believing in the Christian faith I'm also struggling to understand why that's a problem? What harm would it do him?

I don't think they teach it as a fact.
I guess it's easier when you're little to miss the 'some people believe in this' bit, and if you hear 'God' every week you tend to accept it as the norm at that age?

I wouldn't be so sure about them not teaching it as a fact. I would want to check that out at school tbh. There should be no question of it undermining the teacher, because if it's not a faith school, the teacher shouldn't be presenting religious views as fact or as their own belief, so there shouldn't be anything to undermine. Don't hesitate to tell your child 'Some people believe X but I don't'.

I would be surprised if it’s not taught in a way that says ‘ some Christian’s believe’ because not only should it be clear that it’s a Christian belief but not all Christian’s believe the same thing. I am
not religious at all but have led RE in several primary schools over the years. It is a germ way vehicle for critical thinking, and it’s incredibly important that children learn facts about different religions. They will cover at least one different religion but it’s very early in the year so probably have
not done so yet. If it’s a local authority school they will have to follow the local agreed syllabus which will be context driven depending on your local area. Academies don’t have to do this.

It should never be taught as fact, but in my experience it isn’t , children just don’t necessarily have the grasp of language to be clear, my own children could sound quite religious in their recounts at this age, but they were just really expressing their learning and trying to make sense of things. I would just repeat ‘ yes some Christian’s believe that’, they have not grown up to be religious.