Non-religious family at religious school?

[reabies]

We are applying for schools for September. Our closest is a CofE school, and we looked around it today and really liked it. But we are not religious.

I attended CofE schools til 18, my family is religious and Christianity was just part of our lives, we went to church etc, but I decided by about 10/11 that I didn't believe, and haven't had anything to do with the church or religion really since.

Rather naively I guess, I was taken by surprise just how much religion and Christianity we saw on our short visit to this school.

And it's not that I'm against it really, I think teaching children to be kind, honest, empathetic etc is great. But we as a family do not believe in God, and I'm not sure how we would balance that with a very religious ethos at school.

Anyone have any experience of this and how have you found it? The school was really really lovely, kids seemed happy and supported, great facilities and nice staff. Am I overthinking the religion factor? The Head said only about 2-5 kids per year attend through the religious admission factors, so there might be a big mix of Christian/non Christian kids anyway.

Well, it's going to be very religious and strongly focused on Christian beliefs. So it's not going to be a balanced education. Your child may reject that later on, but they are young and malleable and you will need to support them as they will almost certainly say they definitely believe in God and all that comes with it as that is what they are hearing day in day out.

Yes, that's kind of my big worry, that my kid starts believing in something I don't, and that it causes..friction? I don't mean that I would ever be aggro about him believing something we don't, but I mean that it might be confusing for him to be immersed in something all day at school and then find out we don't buy into it at home.

Both of my children when to a CofE Junior school, it was our catchment school. They attended the local church frequently and attended act worship daily in the hall or classroom. The school was partly funded by the church. However, as it was the catchment school I suspect at least 50% of the 90 children in each year where either not religious or of other religions. The school never thrust their views upon the children and other religions were taught also. What they did teach was respect, kindness and a sense of family within school. I'm C of E but my husband is not religious at all and we both loved the school. Both of my children are now older (12 and 17) and neither of them are religious but they loved the school and they are respectful of all religious beliefs.

Ours went to a non c of e infants, and the associated c of e junior school (was weird that the infants wasn’t “cofe” but the junior part was!). There wasn’t much difference in the religion amount actually - both had “open the book” assemblies from local church, both had some Easter / harvest / Xmas type things in the church. The junior school had more around the school that was “Our Christian Values” whereas the infant school just had near identical bog standard “Values”.

Tbh as the religion ramped up a little in the junior school, our children turned against it a bit more. Not violently or anything 😁 but they started questioning a bit more and not just taking it as read. We’re not a religious household at all, though we’re always polite about it and would say “yes that’s what grandma x and auntie and uncle y believe too” and that sort of thing.

Basically, even in non c of e schools there can be tons of Christian religion involved. Some c of e schools will be very overtly religious, some less so. There’s a lot of crossover. And if most of the local children all go to that one school, the families will be a mix of all and none religions. Ours had plenty of Muslim kids too for instance.

if you aren't educated about Christianity then you are missing out a big chunk of our cultural history even if you are non religious. You say "we as a family do not believe in God" but you don't determine what your child will or won't end up believing, thats their personal choice . As a parent you should be instilling curiosity and an ability for your child to be able to discuss potentially difficult subjects that people may have very different beliefs about....our family contains 1 atheist, 1 believer parent and 1 atheist ,1 believer child! Religion and CofE primary religious education is, in the main, very mild and pretty much was once par for the course of most schools in England when I was growing up. For countries to have religious tolerance then they need to have an understanding of all the religions that make up that country.

It is extremely common for children from non-Christian families to attend C of E schools. I am not religious but I think it gives a great sense of structure and values to children, as well as an understanding of our culture which is obviously heavily shaped by Christianity. One of my children attended a completely secular school and it felt quite superficial and bland in comparison to the c of e school the others attended. It felt like the secular school were having to ‘make up’ values out of nowhere. They ended up ‘worshipping’ contemporary political figures like Barak Obama.

My kids would occasionally come home and say things like ‘god made the world in 7 days’ and we’d have a discussion about stories and metaphor, which was really interesting. The religious education (if done well) encourages them to be mini-philosophers.