Has anyone withdrawn their child from collective worship?

Hades said:
My daughter recently had a religious studies test. When she told me she came bottom of the class I was so proud of her :)
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What an odd thing to be proud of.

Whether my son grows up to be religious or not, I'd be pretty concerned if he failed at such an easy subject.
 
danoliver1 said:
Question: Does God exist? Answer: No. Well done you passed. :p
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Shrug. My memory of RS is that it was a fairly interesting academic subject, and it certainly isn't a subject to help "brainwash" people (people do get so dramatic) when I did it.

I used my intelligence to ace the subject, and had the 'nous' to treat it for what it is: a study of various religions and their backgrounds, and it didn't affect my decisions on religion. It's useful background into different religions, which billions of people follow, how can it not be a useful subject for helping turn teenagers into more rounded and worldly people with a little understanding of what makes a significant portion of the rest of the planet tick? What you personally believe is pretty irrelevant.
 
I used to be dead against the teaching of RE but when you think about it its a useful tool for teaching about other cultures.

I am against schools forcing kids to follow a certain faith though.
 
I'm pretty sure I was only taught about Christianity and it was more like a Christianity history lesson than a study of various religions! :p

Then again my RE teacher was a History teacher... The exam was 100% Christianity too. I think I got a B. :p
 
platypus said:
What an odd thing to be proud of.

Whether my son grows up to be religious or not, I'd be pretty concerned if he failed at such an easy subject.
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Agree'd. I will also add that failing such a simple subject shows stupidity or disinterest in education rather than reflect anything to do with personal beliefs.

If grades did reflect beliefs, kids who ace their history exams on the rise of the the NSDAP and their policies would be sent to the school therapist for a discussion on why Nazi's arent cool :p
 
I showed zero interest in RE my dad spoke to the teachers so I was able to do my home work for other subjects during the lesson.
I do remember it was about teaching about different religious beliefs not about forcing it on you. But I still had no interest in it. If peeps want to believe in a big guy sitting on a cloud so be it, I'm having nothing to do with it.
 
RE was somewhat interesting as I recall when I was a pupil at Central Foundation boys school at Old Street; albeit the teacher was clearly from a Christian denomination so the material was presented from that bias. However, when I was moved from London to Chelmsford at 14 and then attended Rainsford; it was treated as a complete and utter doss lesson.
 
RE in the last several decades is not aimed to convert anyone. It is more about teaching different religions to teach you what other people believe as well as different viewpoints in controversial subjects. I remember that my RE included discussions on abortion, human rights, animal rights and marriage and their different viewpoints due to different religious beliefs. The fact that religion plays such a prominent role in shaping someones own personal morals, it is somewhat useful or important to understand how other people in society may view things differently to you and though religion is less prominent now, the mixing with other cultures is more so.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
I remember that my RE included discussions on abortion, human rights, animal rights and marriage and their different viewpoints due to different religious beliefs.
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That's interesting; if you exclude the religious slant, those types of subjects were taught during Social Science, both in London and Essex during my formative years.
 
platypus said:
What an odd thing to be proud of.

Whether my son grows up to be religious or not, I'd be pretty concerned if he failed at such an easy subject.
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I guess the reason it doesn't bother me whether she passes religious studies is I feel there are more important things to spend her revision time on. Given a choice between, say, maths or chemistry and RS then I would advise her to lean her time towards a real subject like maths and chemistry.

I am actually agnostic on whether a god exists. I am open to persuasion. But I certainly don't believe in the man-made religious stories of any current religion. So to me it's a poor use of revision time to spend it on a made up subject. I wouldn't feel that way if they looked at spiritual matters such as "does a god exist", etc, rather than simply learning whatever a person wrote down in a Bible, Koran etc.

She spends several hours every night on revision and is currently top of the class in some of the sciences. If she had spare time then I agree that spending some of it getting an easy pass on a made up subject would be useful. But I feel that with limited time she should spend it on the more difficult subjects which will benefit her in life.

As I said, I am agnostic on religion but against state taught learning of made up man made stories.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
RE in the last several decades is not aimed to convert anyone. It is more about teaching different religions to teach you what other people believe as well as different viewpoints in controversial subjects. I remember that my RE included discussions on abortion, human rights, animal rights and marriage and their different viewpoints due to different religious beliefs. The fact that religion plays such a prominent role in shaping someones own personal morals, it is somewhat useful or important to understand how other people in society may view things differently to you and though religion is less prominent now, the mixing with other cultures is more so.
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Agreed.

I wasn't a huge fan of RE, but it taught me a little bit about Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddists etc and different cultures.

I think we had 'PSME' which taught about Abortion, sex ed etc.
 
One one hand, I wouldn't want my kids subjected to such rubbish, but on the other hand I would quite like them to see what a load of rubbish it is for themselves. Unfortunately kids are highly impressionable at that age though and I wouldn't want it to go the wrong way...
 
VincentHanna said:
Agreed.

I wasn't a huge fan of RE, but it taught me a little bit about Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddists etc and different cultures.

I think we had 'PSME' which taught about Abortion, sex ed etc.
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Same. I mentioned it earlier in the thread. RE wasnt just about learning about any religion in particular but also you took away other skills from the lessons. Analysis. Critical thinking. Debating skills. Interpretation of texts.
You learn about history and culture. To take away nothing from it other than the bare bones of a religious dogma is stupidity.
 
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My kid goes to international school. 44 different nationalities in school (apparently), enormous cultural education, she is proud she can swear in 17 different languages, and no re in the school at all (banned here). couldn't be happier.
 
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