>A former SNP minister says children should be allowed to opt out of religious assemblies at school if they want to.
>Emma Roddick, who is the youngest MSP in the Scottish Parliament, said children should have their own religious views “respected”. She said children should be allowed to withdraw from religious observance events at school without parental consent.
>Under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, all state-funded schools are required to provide regular “religious observance”, with the majority of schools following Christianity.
>Parents have the right to withdraw their child from these events under this law. But there is no equivalent for children to opt out themselves, or to opt in if their parents have withdrawn them.
I agree with this, no child should be forced to attend religious events or to have worship forced upon them.
Freedom of religion is great. That also means freedom _from_ religion.
Seems reasonable
Good. There’s far too much suffering and injustice for a god to exist.
As long as it’s all religions and not just our religion then yeah fully agree.
This will anger that mad Norwegian from earlier this morning.
The nutjobs who like imposing upon everyone else aren’t going to like this one bit.
Quite right too!
While I think having RE classes that explain religious beliefs of all kinds and the cultures they belong to is a good thing for education, the way that Christianity is just sort of imposed upon us by default is less than appropriate.
I’m 20, just under 3 years since I left catholic school. Honestly, if they allowed this, there’d be a much lower rate of pupils such as myself who by the end of their schooling, really resent Christianity and are agonistc or atheist. I think if I was in a non denominational school, i’d still be catholic. Either way, the right to follow freedom of religion should apply to catholic schools.
Religious schools would hate this. Most of the kids would opt out if given the choice and then its like “Guess we just aren’t doing religious assembly anymore”
This is the absolute bare minimum and not good enough. It should be banned from state schools.
Kids who opt out as their parents have asked them too often feel left out. No place for religion in schools.
Also there should be no private schools in general.
Done.
If you want to teach kids religion, do it in your own time.
Would keep the left and the right happy. Win, win.
And by right. I mean the right wing population who are like durrr Islam, not the right wing conservative politicians who I’m sure would love more religion in school.
I went to a Catholic primary school and there were kids who opted out of mass etc. and that was in the late 90s
I was in P7 when we stopped being forced to say a prayer at the start of the school day, 31 years ago. My son had to ask us to opt him out of religious observance a few years ago. Were getting there, albeit very slowly. We also need to work on getting rid of the backwards blasphemy laws.
Religion should have no place in schools and forcing children into a religion should be illegal. In fact, make religion only accessible in 18+ spaces, no under age people allowed in churches, mosques etc
I dig it, they forced religion on us and I would have rejected it if given a choice.
Personally I’d just ban it outright in state schooling but maybe that’s too controversial.
We already do this, if they are learning about religions my kids are left in class. If there are any events, typically Easter or Christmas, then any kids whose parents request it stay back while the rest of the kids go to the church across the road and get the full Christian thing.
The school doesn’t care and respect the families wishes already, this is a non thing.
As a kid I refused to say the Lord’s Prayer. Head teacher went ape at me. My mother was called to the school. My mother told them I did not need to if I didn’t want to. That was the end of it.
I don’t think religion has any place in today’s schooling in thr context of assemblies and singing about God.
I do think children need to learn about religions and it’s great do this through celebrating and learning about ALL religions.
I’m mid 30s and i distinctly remember 3 kids that didn’t attend assembly becuase it was all church of Scotland stuff, then at Easter we would walk to the church for a special schools Easter service. Like thats weird is it not?
I don’t think the attendance of church to LEARN about religion is bad, it’s the putting the religion on rhe children that is un needed and in that way excluding children who are not CoS.
Makes sense, looking back on it I’m baffled by how much mad church shit there was in Primary School.
Mainly used it as a time for slowing picking away at the holes in the gym mats, keeping my eyes open during prayers to see if anything cool happened, and purposely mispronouncing the “art” in “Who art in heaven” as “arn’t” to really stick it to the whole thing
Sounds good.
I believe there’s a certain Chalmers quote that would fit pretty well here.
Great. Can we stop publicly funding religious schools now?
I think it should be opt-in actually. Start with a baseline of not feeding incorrect information to impressionable children but allow it on a case by case basis where absolutely necessary.
We shouldn’t be having school religious events in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong I loved belting out those hymns at christmas but it was a bit fucked that we basically got made to do it.
Well done Emma, proud to know her. Fantastic stuff.
This is hardly a real issue. Scottish schools aren’t exactly zealously imposing and promoting religion. Are there any cases at all of children being forced to attend school religious events against their will?
Good idea. Can we get rid of religious schools while they’re at it
28 comments
>A former SNP minister says children should be allowed to opt out of religious assemblies at school if they want to.
>Emma Roddick, who is the youngest MSP in the Scottish Parliament, said children should have their own religious views “respected”. She said children should be allowed to withdraw from religious observance events at school without parental consent.
>Under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, all state-funded schools are required to provide regular “religious observance”, with the majority of schools following Christianity.
>Parents have the right to withdraw their child from these events under this law. But there is no equivalent for children to opt out themselves, or to opt in if their parents have withdrawn them.
I agree with this, no child should be forced to attend religious events or to have worship forced upon them.
Freedom of religion is great. That also means freedom _from_ religion.
Seems reasonable
Good. There’s far too much suffering and injustice for a god to exist.
As long as it’s all religions and not just our religion then yeah fully agree.
This will anger that mad Norwegian from earlier this morning.
The nutjobs who like imposing upon everyone else aren’t going to like this one bit.
Quite right too!
While I think having RE classes that explain religious beliefs of all kinds and the cultures they belong to is a good thing for education, the way that Christianity is just sort of imposed upon us by default is less than appropriate.
I’m 20, just under 3 years since I left catholic school. Honestly, if they allowed this, there’d be a much lower rate of pupils such as myself who by the end of their schooling, really resent Christianity and are agonistc or atheist. I think if I was in a non denominational school, i’d still be catholic. Either way, the right to follow freedom of religion should apply to catholic schools.
Religious schools would hate this. Most of the kids would opt out if given the choice and then its like “Guess we just aren’t doing religious assembly anymore”
This is the absolute bare minimum and not good enough. It should be banned from state schools.
Kids who opt out as their parents have asked them too often feel left out. No place for religion in schools.
Also there should be no private schools in general.
Done.
If you want to teach kids religion, do it in your own time.
Would keep the left and the right happy. Win, win.
And by right. I mean the right wing population who are like durrr Islam, not the right wing conservative politicians who I’m sure would love more religion in school.
I went to a Catholic primary school and there were kids who opted out of mass etc. and that was in the late 90s
I was in P7 when we stopped being forced to say a prayer at the start of the school day, 31 years ago. My son had to ask us to opt him out of religious observance a few years ago. Were getting there, albeit very slowly. We also need to work on getting rid of the backwards blasphemy laws.
Religion should have no place in schools and forcing children into a religion should be illegal. In fact, make religion only accessible in 18+ spaces, no under age people allowed in churches, mosques etc
I dig it, they forced religion on us and I would have rejected it if given a choice.
Personally I’d just ban it outright in state schooling but maybe that’s too controversial.
We already do this, if they are learning about religions my kids are left in class. If there are any events, typically Easter or Christmas, then any kids whose parents request it stay back while the rest of the kids go to the church across the road and get the full Christian thing.
The school doesn’t care and respect the families wishes already, this is a non thing.
As a kid I refused to say the Lord’s Prayer. Head teacher went ape at me. My mother was called to the school. My mother told them I did not need to if I didn’t want to. That was the end of it.
I don’t think religion has any place in today’s schooling in thr context of assemblies and singing about God.
I do think children need to learn about religions and it’s great do this through celebrating and learning about ALL religions.
I’m mid 30s and i distinctly remember 3 kids that didn’t attend assembly becuase it was all church of Scotland stuff, then at Easter we would walk to the church for a special schools Easter service. Like thats weird is it not?
I don’t think the attendance of church to LEARN about religion is bad, it’s the putting the religion on rhe children that is un needed and in that way excluding children who are not CoS.
Makes sense, looking back on it I’m baffled by how much mad church shit there was in Primary School.
Mainly used it as a time for slowing picking away at the holes in the gym mats, keeping my eyes open during prayers to see if anything cool happened, and purposely mispronouncing the “art” in “Who art in heaven” as “arn’t” to really stick it to the whole thing
Sounds good.
I believe there’s a certain Chalmers quote that would fit pretty well here.
Great. Can we stop publicly funding religious schools now?
I think it should be opt-in actually. Start with a baseline of not feeding incorrect information to impressionable children but allow it on a case by case basis where absolutely necessary.
We shouldn’t be having school religious events in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong I loved belting out those hymns at christmas but it was a bit fucked that we basically got made to do it.
Well done Emma, proud to know her. Fantastic stuff.
This is hardly a real issue. Scottish schools aren’t exactly zealously imposing and promoting religion. Are there any cases at all of children being forced to attend school religious events against their will?
Good idea. Can we get rid of religious schools while they’re at it
Comments are closed.