And that, in two sentences describes how f**ked up the English school system is.

To be honest I'm not surprised and I was going to make the point after I read Mintballs post but before I read yours - as a society conversing with pre-school children what is the most common story that we feed them ?

Its christmas and easter, two of the three biggest dates in a young childs calendar, and we tell them even in very brief terms about the birth and death of a person who we might not even believe in ourselves, we do it to "educate" them and probably partly because we don't want them starting school believing that christmas is just about santa and easter is about a bunny.

Its hardly surprising then that the idea of a god making a world and everything in it is a passable reason for being here when a six year old hears it, after all it ties in with what its parents told it about xmas and easter.

Your right.
I had a similar conversation with a Muslim friend of mine, just before Christmas. He asked why if I don't believe in God, do I celebrate Christmas? I didn't really have a reasonable answer other than, for the Children.
I ended up telling him I celebrate the winter solstice rather than the birth of Christ and some other rubbish, but it did make me think.

Actually this "quote" has appeared in several guises; usually the version used has been selected to support whatever point the user wishes to make. The generally accepted version is "Give me the boy until he is seven, and I will show you the man."

I guess any parent or dedicated teacher could say the same thing.

We could start by ditching the requirement for "collective worship of a broadly Christian nature" and legislating that any publicly-funded school does not require any form of religious adherence for entry and does not promote or encourage any form of religious following/assembly. It seems to have worked pretty well in France & the US.

Many schools have had little difficulty in ditching domestic science, sports etc, it shouldn't be too difficult to ditch religion, apart from all-embracing humanity lessons, if they felt there was a requirement.

Why didn't you tell the truth?

I'm not sure TBH, a bit embarrassed I suppose. Other than for the kids, I don't know why I, (as a none believer) celebrate Christmas. I celebrated it before I had children & I'll go on celebrating it when they've grown up. As for why? I just will!

Well if he's talking about Christmas as in the birth of Jesus then to celebrate it you'd have to do things like go to church.

If all you do to celebrate is enjoy to much food and wine with family and friends while a bigger version, designed by coca cola, of the tooth fairy drops a few presents off in return of children been well behaved (what a bribe!) at some random date then your hardly running to be the new pope.

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

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.

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.

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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

Which school did you go to?!

Science and Religious Education are distinct subjects and are taught as distinct subjects all the way through the education system. Within the National Curriculum, Science is a core subject which means students have to study it from day one of Year 1 and they are frequently tested on it. RE is unique in its standing in that it is neither a core subject nor a broad curriculum subject. It has to be taught but there are two broad headings under which schools have a fairly free licence: faith practice and faith traditions. All primary schools have to teach about Christianity plus at least one other faith; most teach about two others (usually Judaism and Islam). I don't know what the situation is in the secondary sector as I'm a primary school teacher. But this applies as much to a state school as to a state funded faith school (including Muslim and Jewish state funded schools) and so everybody is exposed to the two broad areas of RE teaching entirely separately from anything taught about science.

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.

Whereas all religious types are shining beacons of rationality I suppose?


As pointed out earlier, a large chunk of that good reputation is simply down to selective admission standards. Fill a school with smarter and better behaved pupils and you'll get better results. Simples.

It's also worth noting that the aim of education is not to raise standards regardless of potential negative consequences. The fudging of the Science curriculum that regularly occurs in faith schools is too high a price to pay IMO.

Religion should have no role in state-funded education. Period.

Five different ones.

Three primary schools (of which one was a faith school) and two girls' grammar schools (of which one had a deep religious connection – hence my parents sending me there after I'd passed my 11 plus. That was an exam that we all had to take in the olden days).

How about you, chucklette?



Indeed they are. Well done. They're not proper nouns, however.



Well done again. There is, however, evidence from the past 15-20 years that, in some situations, the lines between the two subjects have been blurred – mostly by evangelical creationist findamentalists. This is quite openly on record.



'Two and two are four; four and four are eight ...'

Sorry – did you have a point?



Ah. That's obviously the problem. I'm too decrepit to remember such complex situations. We did basic Christian stuff at my primary schools – yes, all three of them – and at my first grammar school, for the first two years, followed by stuff that was more about ethics.



So how much teaching about other religions do you think that that state-funded Jewish school in Hackney, which I mentioned earlier in this thread, gets in order to balance the 50% of time that its pupils spend studying the Torah and other fairy tales, at the cost of the taxpayer?



Oh, I must have imagined my own upbringing, that of my sister and the programme with Dawkins that I mentioned earlier.

What a jolly little fantasist I am.

Now, for the sake of information, are we correct in assuming that you are not, yourself, a defensive religious nutjob? Because – presumably on the basis of some fantasy or other – you don't half come across as defensive.