Its entirely unimportant to your broader case – I agree that vouchers are the way forward – but a friend claims in absolute earnest that he came to his pro-life views on abortion thanks to a science lesson when he was 12. As such, I’d be curious as to whether it was a Christian assembly that converted your daughter. Children pick up their values for all sorts of batty reasons.

Great to hear that the liberal left are up for Swedish education vouchers. If you can just convince some left-wing MPs they’ll be in place in no time!

I don’t remember any religious instruction at my school. I remember being taught about religions. I remember that the Hindu god of war had the same name as my sister, and that jonah probably smelt bad. But that’s about it.

Of course my religious path was set fair when the church of england rejected me at the age of six months. I was not allowed a christening because my parents didn’t attend church. I’m quite looking forward to joining the queue for my chats with Ghandi and voltaire in hell.

anyway – the schools I know don’t bother much with religious instruction or worship nowadays anyway. Changing the rules might tidy that up a bit. But in practice schools make the choice based on their head’s preference.

I left high school 12 years ago. For each of the five years I was there (I went to a sixth form college), I had 1 assembly a week, with the religious becoming less and less prominent each year such that by the final year it turned into us just meeting to hear various announcements. We didn’t have a daily act of worship by any stretch.

Are there any other bits of education policy that can be hacked for the purposes of creating schools free from faith pushing? Could the National Secular Society apply to set up a “faith” school, say? What if an academy benefactor wanted a secular ethos for his/her school?

Jono:

There does tend to be less emphasis on the collective worship thing as you move through secondary school, I guess because the church figures that if they haven’t got kids into the local congregation by then, then its not worth pursuing.

At primary level, things are very different, not least because schools lose points on their Ofsted scores if they’re found to be skimping on the religious content.

Matt:

Sadly, no, the NSS couldn’t set up its own ‘faith’ school on that basis.

A secular academy benefactor would be an interesting proposition, however, given the sponsorship element involved. It would certainly be interesting to see how the government would react if someone did come forward with the £2 million to sponsor an academy on condition of setting up a secular academy.

I hope some Liberal Conspiracy posters are looking at the fascinating discussion that’s been going on for about two weeks now on Stephen Law’s philosophy blog [stephenlaw.blogspot.com] concerning teaching in Islamic schools. The main postings are between Stephen and Ibrahim Lawson, the headmaster of an Islamic school, but there is a wealth of interesting and relevant comment on the several threads. It is all highly relevant to Unity’s post.

My daughter (four) came home and told me about God creating bunnies the other day. I didn’t even have the choice of a NOMINALLY non-faith school. I would LOVE to see education secularised.

Where do I sign up to make it happen?

Totally agree with what you say, Unity (especially about The Pogues ), but I’m surprised to hear that your daughter still believes in Santa Claus at seven. My son saw through that one at four, the tooth fairy slightly earlier the same year. My daughter was a bit older, but at six now, it would be bear weird (as the kids say round here) if she still thought some guy was going to come down the chimney with a Nintendo DS in a week and a half’s time.

It’s a mistake to belive that you can teach kids to think for themselves, subconciously you (and me as a parent) are always communicating “think like me”. Their social environment is also full of stimuli over which you have no control. The best approximation of neutrality is de mystification, for example when asked the inevitable, I told my son that Jesus was “A famous carpenter”.

How would a secular education system accomodate a multi-faith society ? Inevitably someone would be disadvantaged, through either having to attend a faith school, or, possibly worse, having to attend the wrong faith school. Diversity can, at least theoretically, be accomodated in high density London and other big cities, but what if you were “the only (insert religion of choice) family in the village” ?

I agree with the voucher idea BTW, but it will never happen under this government, too de-centralised, too empowering, too little state control, and what would all the numptys at the LEAs do all day without admissions policies to fiddle with ?

It really gave me pause for thought to read this article, I don’t have kids but obviously think about this kind of situation should I have any in the future. I think one thing that is important is to differentiate between “not influencing” your child’s belief development, and fully informing your child’s development. The only way you can guarantee that your kid will grow up believing in what they truly want to if you provide the counter argument and wider information to things that they may get taught or told in their formative years…as unsavoury as those counter arguments may be to your own personal beliefs.

The key to a truly secular and well functioning society comes from parents and understanding, and it is more that reason than logistics that I say that diversity wherever you are is unlikely to happen any time soon.

“Inevitably someone would be disadvantaged, through either having to attend a faith school, or, possibly worse, having to attend the wrong faith school.”

Matt, that’s what happens now, to vast swathes of non-religious and/or non-Christian children, my own included.

“How would a secular education system accomodate a multi-faith society?”

In a secular education system, there wouldn’t BE any faith schools in state education, religion would be taught in terms of “lots of people believe X, lots of other people belive Y” and if people want to indoctrinate their little dears into religion, they can do it at Sunday School (or Saturday, or Thursday night, or whatever)

11. Do you not think that will appear to faith groups to be extreme marginalisation of their beliefs? I’m not suggesting you and others want to abandon all Christian influence and faith schools a the drop of the hat…but Christians get flummoxed by an urban legend about Christmas maybe possibly being cancelled in one store in one town, how do you think they’ll react to being told (quite reasonably I might add) “do it on your own time?”

We can all say, who cares what they say, but that would be ignorant to the influence of people who actually would be reacting badly to such suggestions and the delicacy of handling such a change.

And with that they may feel marginalised, how do we stop them from feeling that practising their religion is taboo and (worse still) that “recruiting” becomes something much more subtle and potentially dangerous (just see how extremists use fears of marginalisation to their benefit now)?

Jennie – I can’t see that working. Faith goes far beyond the mecahnics of teaching/practicing a religion, just look at the fuss over creationsim in the US, or teaching the holocaust in muslim schools here. How long before the usual suspect pressure groups started complaining about “non -religious” teaching which conflicted with their beliefs. Even at a more pragmatic level, certain religious practices have to be accomodated somehow, prayer rooms, special diets, uniforms, observance of religious holidays etc etc. Religion and education are culturally too close to be easily de-coupled, if denied the opportunity to practice their religion, or if marginalised, most orthodox people would withdraw their kids from secular education, invoke the HRA and then get state funding to set up a faith school anyway. The government know this which is why they “invented” faith schools, despite the fact that faith schools were the only schools long before the state started meddling in education.
What no one ever seems to want to discuss is the far more fundamental question of how on earth you can have a secular state education system when the head of state and the head of the Cof E are one and the same.

I hardly think that the monarchy being head of state in pretty much nothing but name and the head of the CofE has any bearing on the discussion about secular society let alone secular education.

So you don’t think it creates any kind of problem, even in terms of sybolism, in separating church and state ? How can you have a secular society (Whatever that actually means) in anything other than a republic ?

What no one ever seems to want to discuss is the far more fundamental question of how on earth you can have a secular state education system when the head of state and the head of the Cof E are one and the same.

Declare a republic and disestablish the Church of England. Next question?

Seriously, the point I’m alluding to in raising the issue of vouchers – and which Matt has noticed in reverse – is that under a voucher-based system, laws that privilege Christianity in education (i.e. mandatory act of worship) and religion generally (mandatory RE) become unsustainable. You cannot equitably have a situation in which parents who espouse a particular religion can use their vouchers to go off and form a ‘faith’ school while those who espouse a secular philosophy cannot. Removing the legal provisions which require state-funded schools to provide religious education and a daily act of worship is a necessary concomitant of moving from a centrally controlled state education system to a devolved voucher-based system.

A voucher system is a means by which it is possible to decouple religion and education, at least for those parents who wish to do that for their children.

As for Lee’s comment about ‘marginalising’ religion – yes that is how some would interpret any move towards secular education in whatever form. It is, however, rather an odd view to take of a proposition that suggest only that if a parent wishes their child to receive religious instruction and participate in acts for worship then they should obtain that from a church.

Oh it’s not my view, I’m just hypothesising the the overflow such propositions would bring. I agree completely that the school system should be secular, perhaps with designated classes once a week or similar where parents can choose to put them into classes to learn about one specific religion or a broader range from a younger age, but don’t really see the feasibility in people completely removing religion from schools for the reasons I stated above.

The question I have about just how wonderous the voucher system is, is again one of the geography, and whether there are even options for some people to take the benefits they offer…and secondly if there are enough “good” schools that don’t by choice, if not state mandated, put an emphasis on christianity?

I’d be much more pro-voucher system if I didn’t have very grave concerns about the standards of British schools from corner to corner.

Oh, and 15. I think much like Christmas some things are more iconic and for show than they are for the original reasons they were formed. To state that we can’t be secular while our “head of state” is head of the CofE is to firstly somehow accept that the Queen has any real influence over society other than in the “wise parent” sense, which she clearly does not have.

If our head of state is just a show of the ways of the past then why can’t we view her positions otherwise in the same light?

Unity,

Good article and I thoroughly agree. Kids are at school for less than 1200 hours per year

Unity,

Good article and I thoroughly agree. Kids are at school for less than 1200 hours per year, which is around 15 -20% of their waking lives. That’s little enough time for education without taking a tenth of it (even in non-faith based schools) for religion.

My own child is an atheist and I have sometimes wondered if I really made enough of an effort to allow her to develop her own views, but as she is also an admirer of the French post-modernists I guess I didn’t exactly brain-wash her to my way of thinking.

If we replaced ‘opt-out’ with ‘opt-in’ we might see a difference;

Dear parent/carer,

On such- a-date some students will take part in a gathering which will declare that Jesus is the King of Kings, wants us for a sun-beam and is meek and mild but can still burn us in hell if we don’t love him enough.

If this is how you want your child to be taught, please sign the reply slip below.

It seems some of the more ardent non-churchgoers here are confusing secularism with anti-theism, again.

I always found the idea of a ‘faith school’ somewhat tautological, as it is an act of affirmative belief to attend classes in the hope or supposition that you might learn something from the time spent there anyway.

The religious nature of any institution is secondary to this and it is prejudicial to try to affect otherwise, but for anyone who doesn’t espouse any religion to discourage the inextricable (but secularised) links between faith and education this will remain a permanent antagonism.

The old description of the CofE as “Christian in nature, catholic in practice” remains a good fit for a secular democratic culture, as seen in the victory over litergical dogma and convention for female priesthood, as well as marriage for the clergy, so by understanding the established practice within England as secular, democratic and personal rather than as “Christian” (or Islamic, or Jewish, for example) we arrive at a more accurate and inclusive description of the true situation.

That the CofE has begun fighting a rearguard action to consolidate its position in society from the percieved combination of threats from immigrant culture, declining church attendances and a sceptical public consistently electing neglectful, if not overtly biased governments (one way or the other) has meant our national church has changed to become a repository of overt proclamation, which is starting to challenge its private and secular basis and undermining its continued existence.
While the threats have been permanent and unchanging since before the CofE was established it is the changed political environment of the past generation that has lead to the requirement to reaffirm whatever faith we have in our systems, whether that refers to God, Government or the 3.30 at Goodwood.

The collapse of faith in our educational system has anyway lead many people to treat schools as a kind of extended daycare centre after they themselves became parents. So it is no surprise really that a movement has grown to reestablish the link between schooling and education by going back to the first principles of society, which were developed out of religion originally.

Secularism neutralises conflict by internalising belief and rising above the fray with calls for more and better evidence, whereas the practice of externalising belief by selecting specific cases to use as precedent causes conflict when contact with dissent cannot be avoided.

If we left it to people who took no account of faith or spirit we would have exchanged the dark satanic mills of the past for the halogen treadmill hutches we see rising in every business park across the land…oh!

Unity: “Seriously, the point I’m alluding to in raising the issue of vouchers – and which Matt has noticed in reverse – is that under a voucher-based system, laws that privilege Christianity in education (i.e. mandatory act of worship) and religion generally (mandatory RE) become unsustainable”.

I don’t accept that christianity is in any sense privelidged in education but leaving that aside, laws that privelidge any faith would become unnecessary under a voucher system. Vouchers would enable a market in education and the market will (so the theory goes) provide an education based on whatever faith/ideology the majority of parents want. It won’t solve the problem though. Given economies of scale, schools below a certain size wouldn’t be viable, ao if you happen to live in a predomiantely muslim/christian/jewish/whatever catchement area, your local schools could still be faith schools whether they are called that or not. You still would not have a guranteed choice of a secular school (although in my book secular = state and isn’t “ideology free”).

And you really think you can disestablish the church of England and set up a republic just like that, i.e without the minor distractions of a civil war/revolution ? What if the Army refused to accept they had “the people” as their new C in C ?

And you really think you can disestablish the church of England and set up a republic just like that, i.e without the minor distractions of a civil war/revolution ?

You really must try to develop a sense of humour, Matt…

…no, tell you what – let’s try and answer your question seriously.

Over the last, what, 40 years the nature of the relationship between the British people and the monarchy has changed substantially. It is much less deferential but, more to the point, our overall view of the monarchy is much more akin to that which prevailed at the time of the English Civil War in the sense that many, if not a majority, view the monarchy not as having an intrinsic institutional value but as having a value predicated on the character and performance of the incumbent monarch – this being argument that sent Charles I to the block.

Republican sentiment is low because public perception of the present monarch is good – change the monarch and that can change and change rapidly.

In the past the institution of the monarchy has survived under even the poorest monarch but the future is, I would venture, much less certain such that the next occasion that the vagaries of heredity throws up a John, Richard II or George IV could well be the last.