Religious symbols in our schools

Subject: Religious symbols in our schools Fri 09 Nov 2007, 19:31

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/7081573.stm

This story was in the Telegrapth the other day and was on the Wright Stuff. Personally I feel no religious symbols should be allowed so as cases of hypocrisy dont surface which only serves in stoking up differences.

And although I sympathise with Sarika, her parents put her in that school and they knew its code of conduct, its not a new rule but one that has existed for many years.

Subject: Re: Religious symbols in our schools Tue 13 Nov 2007, 16:07

I'm curious if this will mean more and more religious schools cropping up, even though we should be encouraging awareness and acceptance of other religions.

Most schools teach R.E. and about the various symbols for each religion, and beliefs... having these kinds of restrictions in place while trying to teach understanding seems a bit daft to me.

Subject: Re: Religious symbols in our schools Tue 13 Nov 2007, 20:39

I disagree. I went to a Catholic school and was taught more about other religions, and about being respectful and inclusive with regards to them, than most of my friends in non denominational schools.

My school also got better exam results than the whole region.

Number of posts : 637 Registration date : 2006-03-01

drewboy wrote:: I disagree. I went to a Catholic school and was taught more about other religions, and about being respectful and inclusive with regards to them, than most of my friends in non denominational schools.

My school also got better exam results than the whole region.

I do not think it is necessarily about denominations of faith in schools but rather how the school approaches RE. Drew's catholic school obviously had a more liberal and understanding approach to RE than my kids catholic school which only skirts around other religions and concentrates almost holy (see what I did there tongue

) on catholicism. Anything my kids have learnt about other religions has been off me.

Not a result of the schools catholic standpoint per se, but rather their implementation of it.

Subject: Re: Religious symbols in our schools Wed 14 Nov 2007, 02:46

I went to catholic school a couple of years ago. (ok so I left 23 years ago)

anyway...we did do loads on other religions, in fact my school routinely took the O Level 2 years early at 14 (that's an old qualification - the O Level) and then spent 2 years do RE at A Level syllabus, most of which centred around debate (or perhaps we were just unruly and argumentative, who knows..)

Number of posts : 1075 Registration date : 2006-12-20

I was taught nothing of other religions at my school. It was Christianity or nothing, baby!