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.

In Australia priests who are put into a counsellor role in schools are not required to complete a child protection course, nor are they subject to the same rules (eg they can have one on ones with the door closed) is this the case in the UK?

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 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.

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 [iBible[/i-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.

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.



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.



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.



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.



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



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 [ionly[/i factor in the selection process.



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



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.



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 [isay[/i 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.

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.

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."

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).

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.

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.



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 .

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.



I would have told him that we evolved from a common ancestor with [iapes[/i (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.

'"

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