Religion in state schools

Sel The wedding and all but one of the funerals I have attended this past year have been entirely secular - not a single hymn nor a prayer at any of them.

I just felt that the assemblies we had taught me a set of values that I still try to adhere to. Some of my happiest memories of school are of nativity plays and Easter plays [we had a real donkey one year]. Never felt I was being indoctrinated in any way, but then I've never found the Church of England [or whatever it's called now] to be that sort of religion anyway. And, as those choir programmes that were on recently show, singing in a group is good for people. I don't feel that the Church of England has 'rules' other than teaching people to be nice to each other [or maybe any other stuff went over my head].

On an intellectual level I agree, schools should be free of religion. On an emotional level though I agree with seasider, I loved the hymns and the assembly at my old school. My children all attended schools with a Christian ethos hence hymns for them too. Very useful for weddings and funerals.

I went to a Church of England school where we had an assembly every day mainly to convey school messages. We had one prayer and a hymn and I enjoyed singing the hymns which I can still remember today. Girls of other faiths could opt out but to be honest not many of them did because it was so low key. I can't personally see a problem in fact I am disappointed that younger DS went to a school that never had a proper Nativity play just some modern version about a camel or penguin or similar!

What a good idea penstemmon. Children would then not be separated by religion during school hours. The so-called free schools are only making this situation worse. I wish you were Minister of Education too!

Agree with absent religion should be banned from all schools. The only thing that should be taught is the Psychology of religion. How and why religions are formed, how they are past on from one generation to the next, why people choose to join a religion. Once the pupils understand the theory of religion, they are then free to make up their own minds, before then it is just indoctrination.

I agree that there should not be faith schools. If all schools closed on a Friday afternoon at 1:00p.m the churches /mosques /temples/ synagogues/ meeting housesb/ secular clu etc could all run a faith schools. Job done and teachers get their Planning, Preparation & Assessment time then and it reduces costs for schools as they do not need to provide cover staff!

Wish I was minister of Education!

There was a report last week that half the schools in the country were in breach of this law. The law has evolved into an ass.

I think it is certainly time that church and state were separated in the UK and the Church of England was disestablished. I don't think children should be compelled to attend a "broadly Christian" act of worship at school and I don't think a bunch of men in frocks should automatically have rights about making laws. It is entirely up to parents if they want to raise their children within a particular faith and schools should teach religions in the same way as they teach history or biology.