A positive experience of removing children from prayers at school...

[Pantone363]

My atheist DC attend a non faith school but obviously the school are still bound by law to hold daily acts of worship.

When they first attended they went to all assembly's and stayed for prayers although as far as I know didn't take part. As they got older they asked to be removed from the Reverends weekly visit and then the next year from prayers altogether.

At the start of each term I ask them if they still want to be removed and let the teachers know accordingly. Although they've never requested to go back.

I just wanted to post in case anyone was out there worried about removing their children from assembly as it might single them out, but since our DC started leaving 4 other atheist children from 2 different families have also joined them. Together with the 4 JW children and 3 brethren kids thats 13 children from a rather small 160 child school. And they LOVE it. They play games in the classroom and discuss their own religious thoughts during the reverends visit and by the time they get back to their rooms the other kids are finished anyway.

Anyway I just wanted to say if you were considering it, maybe ask the school if there are any other children already leaving assembly, you may start a trend!

[raisah]

Thanks for sharing your experience, it is something I have been thinking about for a while as my ds is about to start school soon. We are from a muslim family with various levels of observancy & are keen for our dc to mix with dc from other backgrounds. I went to school and wasnt removed from daily worship, I just stayed silent during the 'Jesus son of God' bits!

I am keen for my dc to know about Islam & the role of Jesus within it but my worry is that they will be receiving mixed messages at school. Jesus in Islam is regarded as a very important prophet mainly due to his virgin birth and his second coming is expected. However, we dont believe in the concept of trinity, rather that He is regarded as a messenger of God. Obviously, these are big differences for little minds to understand and I think I may remove him from daily worship until he is more familiar with Islam. I like the way you gave your dc a choice whether to attend or not and I may adopt a similat approach.

[Pantone363]

Good luck, our school was very accommodating

[ILoveAFullFridge]

I help in a fairly large primary, where only one child in the whole of the infants section is removed from religious activities. During assembly I read with her and any other children who need extra reading. We chat, and she loves telling me about all sorts of things. It's clear she does not feel excluded at all, and her teachers are completely neutral about it.

I don't remove my dc from assemblies in general, only from overt worship. Next week I will take one of my dc to soft play instead of the church harvest festival. The others are in a different school, and there harvest festivals are in the school hall - same sings, but no worship. Never had any issues with doing this.

[ZingWantsCake]

raisah

I read your post with interest.
Our children are removed for the exact same reason from all RE lessons that are covering non-Christian faiths (Judaism is basically the Old Testament so they take part of that). I want them to be well-founded in our religion before being exposed to other ones.

they are the only ones in their schools and no-one understands our reasons.