lavendersparkle | (no subject)

Let me tell you a story. A new head teacher arrives at a school and changes the way the school does assemblies. Some parents are annoyed at the change and complain. A bit later the head teacher resigns for reasons unrelated to assemblies. Usually this sort of a thing might fill a few columns of a local newspaper next to a description of a local fete. However, if the story involved Muslims, suddenly it's national news. It seems somewhat reminiscent of the school pantomime rescheduled due to rehearsal schedule clashing with some children's days off scandal last December.

School assemblies in England are a bit odd anyway. Officially assemblies are supposed to be a "daily act of worship" either involving the whole school or divided by year group. Neither I nor any of my friends experienced anything quite like this at any of the schools we attended. For a start, it wasn't daily. For most of my school career I'd be required to attend about two a week. Secondly, the only time my secondary school assemblies approached collective acts of of worship were the Christmas and Easter assemblies which the school Christian Union were allowed to be in charge of. The rest of the time there mainly consisted of the head teacher reading out school sporting results and any other announcements, briefly preceded by a 'thought for the day' style anecdote, the moral of which was invariably "and that's why you need to do well in your exams/don't do drugs/don't bully each other". Generally the whole enterprise was seen as a colossal waste of time by staff and students alike. They seem to usually be a pointless remnant of a bygone era but any attempt to officially abolish them would be accusations of causing the moral decline of the nation, so instead we keep them on the statute books but do them in the most half arsed way possible. Compared to that, surely allowing some of the children to engage in a collective act of worship which is relevant to their family's faith is a vast improvement.

It reminds me of an idea I had for multi-faith schools, the aim of which would be to have the things people like about faith schools without the segregation. You'd have a few faiths club together, say Jews, Muslims and Catholics, and the children would have most of their classes and play time together, but separate into their respective faiths for worship and religious education. The school would take into account the needs of the faiths of its different pupils, so, for example, the canteen would be kosher and halal and the school would shut down for all of the holy days of the religions it was made up with. I think this is a modern, mature approach to integration. It accepts that we can work together and interact in most things but that we are different in some ways and it's OK for us the be separate for those things. A bold statement that people shouldn't have to pretend to be secular Christians to feel at home here. That's the kind of school I'd like to send my children to.

Threaded | Flat

My Junior School assemblies were pretty much a daily act of worship.

I'd love the kind of school you describe. The closest thing I've come across to it is King David School in Birmingham, a Jewish school where half the pupils are Muslim, so they get their own prayer room, Muslim teachers during Ramadan and are wished Eid Mubarak in assembly. It would be great to go even further than that.

Edited 2009-02-10 20:31 (UTC)

I don't remember my school assemblies being boring. We had secular assemblies on Monday and Friday, with a talk by one of the more senior boys, and religious assemblies on Wednesday, which I never attended, having Jewish assembly instead. (We had about three Jews per year of 130-plus.)

One year, in the run-up to Rosh Hashana, they had one of the senior boys give a talk about Rosh Hashana in the Monday/Friday assembly. I got there late, which meant I didn't get a seat, and was stuck behind the First World War memorial organ, which meant I didn't see the shofar sitting beside him on the table, and was caught absolutely by surprise when he sounded it at the end. The sound, unexpected as well as in that unfamiliar environment, absolutely electrified me—the effect the shofar is supposed to have, but, really, the only time in my life it's had that effect for me.

I think schools have no place giving acts of worship. If you want an act of worship you are, naturally, free to attend any relevant place-of-religion. I am entirely against faith schools and faith *in* schools. I think that faith schools (of any faith) put the faith of the parents above the free will of the student - and that doesn't just go for kids who choose atheism, it goes just as much for the child of Christian parents who has decided to convert to Islam and yet who is sent to the Christian assembly.

Children who agree with their parents' faith are presumably provided ample opportunity *by their parents* to engage with that faith. I think school needs to be a place where children aren't forced to engage with any faith, but where they can engage to their chosen degree with any faith - that does mean providing a kosher alternative at lunch (and a vegan alternative, and so forth), it does mean allowing faith required items of clothing to fall within the uniform code, it does mean allowing students (and staff) to take days off when needed by their faith, it does mean providing a room for students to pray in during the school day, it does mean scheduling exams so they don't fall on anyone's holy days or during fasting periods (it should be easy enough to ask the students in order to find out what range of days are available for the student body you actually have in front of you). But I think that it quite definitely doesn't mean putting the students in the position of having to attend a daily act of worship.

I think a weekly assembly is useful - to distribute notices and hand out awards and so forth. Good for community spirit. I think that such gatherings should contain no statements of any faith (or explicit statements of lack-of-faith) as a matter of routine (perhaps faith groups could be allowed to present pieces about their holy days at appropriate times of year) in order that the *whole* school community be able to engage equally them.

Shouldn't religious education, if not worship, be broad? There is more reason to learn about religious practice and belief than you practice it yourself

Your idea of a school sounds brilliant.