Memorandum submitted by Mr Ian Abbott
(ST 28)
— 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 are now arguing some sort of "special case"
and have attempted to resolve the issue with a "one-off"
payment representing just one years transport costs.
Mr Ian Abbott
May 2004
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