Memorandum submitted by Mr Ian Abbott
(ST 27)
My wife and I are atheists. We do not believe
in a God or Gods.
We would much rather that society adopted the
attitude that humankind's problems are best solved by humankind
rather than superstitiously resorting to blaming or imploring
some deity.
We maintain that all religions are socially
divisive and, on balance, do more harm than good.
On becoming parents we were determined that,
as far as possible, our daughter would not be compelled to endure
the Christian indoctrination we had both experienced.
Sadly, the most likely place for Laura to be
exposed to superstitious indoctrination was through the education
system.
We chose her infant/junior school on the basis
that it was not the "`faith based'" one of the two available.
Nevertheless, we were surprised at how difficult it was to protect
Laura from religious influences.
From the outset, Laura was "taught"
to pray, told that there was a God watching everything she did,
and that many natural phenomena were explained by God. (Did you
know that when the wind blew strongly it was because God was angry?
We didn't!)
We once received a letter requesting our permission
to teach Laura something as fundamental as sex education. No one
ever asked our permission to teach her their superstitions!
We found we constantly had to undo lessons at
home. And that caused problems. Imagine a five-year-old being
told she must pay attention to her teachers and then "`But
your teacher isn't right about that; or that; or that. They are
just things that some people believe.'"
We had similar experiences when she joined Brownies
and also when participating in the village Gala.
All these experiences reinforced our conviction
"`if avoiding religious indoctrination is this difficult
now; how much more difficult would it be if she went to a `faith
based school?'"
The more we learnt about our local CofE School
the more we knew that our daughter could not attend there. We
heard stories of six-hour Easter prayer vigils. Daily, hour-long,
collective-worship-assemblies. Plans for a "prayer room".
A head-teacher who was also a CofE Reverend.
Ideally, we would have chosen an entirely secular
education but that is not possible under the English education
system. Religious Education is still compulsory and at least 50%
must be Christian based. But, at least, we could avoid a school
whose "whole ethos is founded on Christian values".
Given our philosophical convictions, it was
clear that the nearest high school, St Aidan's CofE School, was
not an appropriate school for our daughter. We obtained a place
for her at the nearest LEA School, Hodgson High School, eight
miles away.
Reasoning that as local children of other faiths
were assisted with transport costs to avoid a CofE School (St
Aidan's), and avoid their nearest LEA school (Hodgson) to travel
even further to attend a Catholic School (Cardinal Allen, Fleetwood);
also, that other children (from Fleetwood) were assisted with
travel costs to avoid a Catholic School (Cardinal Allen), and
avoid two nearer LEA schools (Fleetwood High and Hodgson) to travel
even further to attend a CofE school (St Aidan's); we confidently
applied for assistance with home-to-school transport.
We were refused, and repeatedly refused, despite
frequent appeals and arguments.
The LEA would never explain why they interpreted
the provisions allowable under the Education Act 1996 in such
a religiously bias way. They simply, continually, reiterated "under
S.509 `a local education authority shall have regard . . . to
any wish of his parents for him to be provided with education
at a school or institution I which the religious education provided
is that of the religion or denomination to which his parent adheres'".
Even though that was precisely what we were
seeking, a secular education (or as near to a secular education
that we could get), Lancashire LEA would not budge.
It is only through continued pressure, supported
by the National Secular Society, and adverse media attention,
that the LEA is now arguing some sort of "special case"
and has attempted to resolve the issue with a "one-off"
payment representing just one years transport costs.
May 2004
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