Re: Prevent The Church Hijacking Our Schools : Tue Jan 10, 2012 12:13 am  

What is people's experience of "RE"? Mine was that it was taught by teachers from other disciplines who often took the p*ss out of the subject whilst teaching it. If anything, it would have been detrimental to developing faith. A friend of mine who was religious wanted to take it as an O Level but was told by the school that RE wasn't a 'real' subject and was treated as an O Level in the same way as woodwork - i.e. a second-class qualification.

My dad regularly taught RE at another school (despite being a science teacher and an atheist), and I still remember him marking books and reading in one the story of Jonah and the whale written by a kid, which ended with the comment that my father had told them it was nonsense because whales couldn't actually swallow a person whole and keep them alive in their stomach.

Re: Prevent The Church Hijacking Our Schools : Tue Jan 10, 2012 12:52 am  

I honestly don't recall ever having a lesson on the subject at secondary school.

I do recall my primary school days of signing hyms and listening to stories from the bible, although we were unable to discuss it.

I've asked my parents why they never took me out of assembly, their both atheists although they (well my Mum) lied about it , and was told they didn't want me to be picked on for been different like the 2 JW children where.

Re: Prevent The Church Hijacking Our Schools : Tue Jan 10, 2012 8:37 am  

BrisbaneRhino wrote:

What is people's experience of "RE"? Mine was that it was taught by teachers from other disciplines who often took the p*ss out of the subject whilst teaching it. If anything, it would have been detrimental to developing faith. A friend of mine who was religious wanted to take it as an O Level but was told by the school that RE wasn't a 'real' subject and was treated as an O Level in the same way as woodwork - i.e. a second-class qualification.

My dad regularly taught RE at another school (despite being a science teacher and an atheist), and I still remember him marking books and reading in one the story of Jonah and the whale written by a kid, which ended with the comment that my father had told them it was nonsense because whales couldn't actually swallow a person whole and keep them alive in their stomach.

I don't really remember much about it at primary school – more really about going to services once a week when I was at my first primary, a CofE school, and assemblies at my third school, which was not a church school, but where the headmaster was a strongly religious person who led strongly religious assemblies, as well as grace before lunch etc.

In my first grammar school, which was strongly linked to a religious community (Moravian) RE lessons were specifically Bible-based for the first two to three years. They were taught by, first, a former clergyman and, after he died suddenly, a lay clergyman. Assemblies were a traditional, Christian affair.

Later, we explored more at ethical issues, such as capital punishment and euthanasia. At my second grammar school, it was taught by a Quaker and was much more concentrated on ethics – essentially because this bore some relation to the O level exam that we had to take. This wasn't a church school, but assemblies were also expected to have a traditional basis; when the school's Christian group was to take an assembly, there was a fight with the head to sing a modern hymn, which she initially decried as 'a pop song'. The school also had strong links with the local priory.

As an only slight aside, we had eff all in the way of sex education (birds and bees, plus the basic biology of human reproduction), which was fun, since I wasn't getting any at home either, beyond my mother checking whether I understood what periods were and that they would happen to me at some point, and my father's dinner time rants about the sinfulness of sex. It was as simple as nobody being around to say that puberty brought mental changes as well as physical ones – and they were normal and not remotely sinful.

And indeed, sex education is another point I'd raise about faith schools.

Re: Prevent The Church Hijacking Our Schools : Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:33 am  

SaintsFan wrote:

Secularists do come across as a bunch of defensive nutjobs sometimes, as indeed they do in the Guardian article you cited.

They have every reason to be defensive, given the disproportionate degree of influence religion already has in the running of our country. This influence will only increase if the proposed changes are adopted.

SaintsFan wrote:

Christian faith schools (I can't speak for Jewish or Muslim or indeed any other faith schools) generally have an extremely good reputation academically, both at primary and secondary level. That should be reason enough to allow them more freedom to operate. Surely the aim is to raise standards? The schools which offer best practice should therefore be encouraged. I'm entirely in favour of the government's proposals on that point alone.

As has already been pointed out (I would have thought it was pretty obvious anyway), any school that is able to select which pupils it takes will obtain better results than those without such a privilege. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that there's not a single shred of evidence to support the view that the improved exam results in faith schools are as a consequence of the religious flavour of the education rather than the selection policy.

SaintsFan wrote:

Secondly, some of the claims in this thread are slightly erroneous. For example, when a faith school is state funded (and there are Muslim and Jewish government funded faith schools as well as Christian) they are obliged to teach the National Curriculum OR a curriculum that is of the same breadth and standard as the National Curriculum as confirmed by OFSTED. Obviously this does not apply to private schools.

Academies have a great deal of freedom in the curricula they teach. I linked to a lecture given by the head of 'science' at one of these academies earlier in the thread, and what he was teaching was anything other than scientific. If the church becomes the biggest provider of state education (as is planned), they will be in a far stronger position to push forward this sort of agenda.

SaintsFan wrote:

Incidentally, a lot of Anglican and Catholic schools are part funded by the respective churches and therefore they are entitled to have some say over which children get priority.

Not academies. They are state funded, but independently controlled. Some academies have a sponsor, who is required to put up an initial figure, but that figure is peanuts and, once it's paid, the sponsor doesn't have to cough up another penny. It's all paid for by the state.

SaintsFan wrote:

ALL schools make such choices, whether that be by the rather daft lottery system invoked by the previous government or by some other means. No one school can educate everybody and of course the best schools, whether faith or secular, will attract the highest number of applicants. But not all those applicants can be accommodated and so some form of discrimination has to be applied.

But that discrimination shouldn't be based on who attends what church, or who is likely to bump that school's exam results up.

SaintsFan wrote:

Thirdly, a school is a place of employment in the same way as an office or factory is and is subject to the same employment laws as any other place of employment. The furthest a school will push so far as the faith background of a teacher is concerned is in asking for references from their local clergyman and requesting specific disclosure about their personal faith.

Why should a person need a reference from a clergyman in order to show that they can teach children effectively? Or to disclose their faith (or lack thereof)? Their ability to do the job should be the only factor in the selection process.

SaintsFan wrote:

However, I have yet to meet a teacher who wants to teach in such a specific faith environment when they have no background in that faith.

If faith academies become the majority, they might not have a choice.

SaintsFan wrote:

Most (Christian) faith schools simply ask an applicant whether they have sympathy for the ethos of the school and in that the faith schools are no different from non-faith schools. To teach effectively in any school a teacher must have sympathy with that school's ethos.

But that's where it falls down. If the church becomes the largest provider of secondary education, teachers will either have to lie about their faith, or face having only a limited number of schools to which they may apply for work. In a time where the overwhelming majority of the British public do not attend church regularly, this is intolerable.

SaintsFan wrote:

Finally, the academies that have come into being since the coalition came into power have diverse reasons for being and I think that is very refreshing. For example, there is one in London which only targets children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Presumably that sits happy in the mind of the OPer? But throw faith into the mix and suddenly the monsters are coming to get us! It's all a bit paranoid.

It's not about monsters, you dimwit. It's to do with the curriculum (particularly science) being subverted by a minority group, and lack of equality in both staff and pupil selection. Would you be happy if the majority of schools in this country were run by the Muslim faith? Or Scientologists, perhaps?

As my opening link made clear, there are only 3.6% of British people who say that they attend a church once a month. The actual figure could be quite a lot less. Even if it's not, should the unfounded beliefs of less than 4% of the population have such a great influence on the education of the remaining 96%? And all paid for by the taxpayer? If churches want to fund their own schools for the indoctrination of children, that's one thing, but expecting the government to fund the project whilst they run it for their own ends is preposterous.

Re: Prevent The Church Hijacking Our Schools : Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:35 am  

BrisbaneRhino wrote:

What is people's experience of "RE"? Mine was that it was taught by teachers from other disciplines who often took the p*ss out of the subject whilst teaching it. If anything, it would have been detrimental to developing faith. A friend of mine who was religious wanted to take it as an O Level but was told by the school that RE wasn't a 'real' subject and was treated as an O Level in the same way as woodwork - i.e. a second-class qualification.

My dad regularly taught RE at another school (despite being a science teacher and an atheist), and I still remember him marking books and reading in one the story of Jonah and the whale written by a kid, which ended with the comment that my father had told them it was nonsense because whales couldn't actually swallow a person whole and keep them alive in their stomach.

I don't have a problem with RE if it's taught from a cultural and historical perspective. The Bible as a piece of literature is very interesting (and I'm sure other religious texts are too). It's when it's taught as fact or scientific theory that I must object.

Re: Prevent The Church Hijacking Our Schools : Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:42 am  

cod'ead wrote:

We could start by ditching the requirement for "collective worship of a broadly Christian nature"

I couldn't agree more. We have two schools in our village, one CoE and one (supposedly) secular. I applied to the secular school for my son even though we were outside of the catchment area. I was very pleased when he got a place as this school also has a better OFSTED report than the faith school. I was rather less pleased when, after two weeks there, he sat down at the table and said,

"Dear God, thank you for this food."

Re: Prevent The Church Hijacking Our Schools : Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:45 am  

SaintsFan wrote:

Oh, and I can assure you that youngsters are perfectly capable of distinguishing between science and faith. I've enjoyed a couple of fascinating discussions on both with Year 1. Don't underestimate the capacity of children.

That depends entirely on how they're taught. My son believed the nativity was true until I pointed out to him that it was just a nice story someone had made up, like his TV programmes. If many more academies spring up and have the power to set their own 'science' curricula, those lines will become very blurred indeed (as they already are in some faith academies).

Re: Prevent The Church Hijacking Our Schools : Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:48 am  

Mintball wrote:

There was a brief series on TV a couple of years ago with Richard Dawkins looking at evolution.

If I remember the details correctly, he went into schools (obviously with permission) to talk to pupils, but found a substantial reluctance among pupils to 'believe' evolution over ideas of divine creation, even after he'd done things like take them on field trips to hunt for fossils.

Now I cannot recall whether the school in question was a faith school or not, or whether this was simply a case of a group of young people whose home unbringing had created that situation, but it raises the issue of just how easy or likely it is for children to simply 'throw off' such beliefs because they decide/want to.

And if, as we already know has been the case, the lines between science and religious studies are quite deliberately blurred, then do people really simply think that youngsters will be able to sort the one from the other?

Exactly. I read about the programme you mention in The God Delusion, and Dawkins was horrified at just how unwilling the children were to believe the evidence he had presented them with.

Re: Prevent The Church Hijacking Our Schools : Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:01 am  

Little Robin Redhead wrote:

Both my boys attend a RC primary school, my husband is Athiest & I'm CofE on paper.

WTF is CofE on paper? Do you believe in God? If you don't, whatever it says 'on paper', you're an atheist. If you do, then you need to have a look at the evidence a little closer.

This is part of the problem. When people are asked to put down their religion on any sort of official form/survey/census, they often put the religion they were brought up in, or put 'Christian' because they're British and we are a 'Christian country'. If everyone who thought it was nonsense put 'atheist', the true picture would become a lot clearer.

Little Robin Redhead wrote:

As I said earlier the boys attend the best available school in my area.

I don't applaud this attitude one little bit. I'm not picking on you personally, as loads of people have said it, but I can't stand the hypocrisy of it. It's like people who get married in church despite never attending any other time. It's rubbish.

Thankfully, the non-faith school in my village is better than the faith school, but if it wasn't, I would have worked harder alongside the teachers to ensure that my son knew everything he needed to know before starting secondary school.

Little Robin Redhead wrote:

A few weeks ago my oldest Son, 6 asked, "Where did all the people come from?"
Bearing in mind his age and his school I told him how some people like Father Dominic believe that God created the Earth & everything in it, but other people like Scientists believe that we evolved from Monkeys.

I would have told him that we evolved from a common ancestor with apes (not monkeys), and that, whilst some people don't believe that to be the case, the evidence does not support their position. In simpler terms, obviously.

Little Robin Redhead wrote:

He thought about it for a while and asked which theory I believed, (Evolution, of course). Then declared that my belief was silly and how of course God made everyone & everything!
Given his age I'm not overly worried, but I do get your point.

[/quote]

As someone has already pointed out, it's always a cause for concern when children believe something that is so demonstrably incorrect. It's never too early to teach your child that reason and evidence will always trump blind faith.

Re: Prevent The Church Hijacking Our Schools : Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:03 am  

Sorry for flooding the thread, everyone, but I had a bit of catching up to do.