Did you guys notice that your schools, either primary or secondary, pushed a particular religion? If so, do you think that it was appropriate, and were the schools advertised as religious or not?
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I know when I was at school, even though the schools were supposedly secular and welcoming to students of different religions, there was a decisive slant towards Christianity. There were a lot of hymns in primary school, and mandatory assemblies and lectures until I went to college that were aimed at telling students how great the Christian version of God is. I never considered until years later that they never got a non-Christian religious person in to have their say.
I understand that Christianity is the national religion, and that everyone living in Britain should have a decent understanding of it. But given how much power teachers have over young children, a lot of it felt like it went beyond education and into a sales pitch.
Not that it made much of a difference, since I became an atheist after I saw the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami on the news and stayed that way. But its kind of uncomfortable looking back on it.
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Other than singing hymns and songs in assembly sometimes and doing the Lords prayer–not too much.
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I enjoyed the singing–actually I don’t think they were all hymns, just songs and some had a religious theme like Golden Cockerel. Others were just songs, like on the Farmer’s Apple tree.
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We did usually do the Lord’s Prayer after assembley. Which I still remember, despite not having said it since first school.
My primary school was pretty much next door to the village church and was a C of E school. We sang various hymns in school assembly and did the Lord’s Prayer I think both at the start and end of the day.
We would do a carol service every Christmas in the church, every kid from the school would be there and we’d all have to stand at the front singing carols in front of everyone, not at the same time but in our classes. I think we also did harvest festival and probably Easter services as well in the church.
Sometimes the rector would come to the school and do assembly, basically giving us a sermon.
I went to Catholic schools. Unsurprisingly, they weren’t very secular.
However, from what I gather, we got more comprehensive sex education than the kids who went to the local non-religious schools.
not at all. i’ve never been to a secular school. out of the 9 i went to. all church of england.
Our primary school followed the typical Christian traditions – hymn and prayer in assembly, and we said grace before dinner. RE class taught almost exclusively Christian theology, and did so as fact. I think the only exceptions were a couple of lessons where we learned about Chanukah and Diwali.
Secondary school, on the other hand, was pretty much entirely secular. No prayers or hymns, and RE covered a lot more variety and from a more external perspective. The only thing I recall where religion was in any way promoted is that the school would allow the Gideon’s organization to present once a year, and they’d distribute copies of the New Testament and Psalms.
This was mostly in the 90s. My own religious journey saw me technically being Christian until about 11, insomuch as I accepted what I was taught, not that I gave it much thought. As soon as I did start to think about it, I decided the Bible was not reliable, and quickly lost that belief, but probably continued to believe there was a god of some kind for another year or two. After that I still believed in the existence of a human soul until around the age of 16.
My primary school was a church school where we would learn about moral stories from the bible, go to church and sing hymns.
My secondary school was a typical state school and was not religious. In RE lessons we learnt about all major religions takes on things equally.