Religious Education in State Schools

I just found out that after a three year break, the Christian Churches in our town have been asked to provide Religious Ed for our primary school. It made me think about religious ed in state schools.

When Amber started school 10 years ago, I asked other parents if we had religious ed in our school and they said no. I also asked a staff member and they said yes. So I decided to offer Baha’i classes to the school, if Amber had to do religious ed, I would rather she learnt about our religion than someone else’s. I did basic training, and put a letter in the school newsletter inviting parents to send their kids to Baha’i classes as an alternative to Christian ones. The first year I had two students, Amber and a boy a year older than her. Over the next few years the numbers gradually increased, until I had half of Amber’s year six class, and less from the younger groups. Still about on third of the school were doing Baha’i classes. The school council decided to cancel religious ed, which was very convenient to me, as I really didn’t have time for the classes when Possum was born. Still Amber learnt a lot about the Baha’i faith and I am looking forward to the opportunity to refresh Techno Boy’s memory and start teaching Lily in a formal situation.

The primary school enrolment form has a tick box on it for opting out of religious ed, but I don’t think many people tick it. Last year I found out it doesn’t matter whether you opt in our out, the year six/seven class had scripture and Techno Boy attended even though I had opted him out. We were not informed that the students were doing RE, I only found out when he brought some work home, and I asked him about the class. I opted him out after that, and pointed out that I had opted him out on his enrolment form. His teacher apologised, but I suspect that most students just do it, unless they know they aren’t meant to.