Easter at school

More so because this is a state-funded school, it is her catchment school, she has no choice but to go there - it is a CofE school and it makes me furious that church is allowed to impinge on state in this way. I object very strongly to state-funded church schools.

This is what horrifies me, that a child is forced by the state to attend a Church school, that has to be wrong. Where I live there is a very good CofE school, and parents try all sorts of wheezes to qualify their children for admittance. It takes a proportion of Church going children and a proportion of non Church going children. It's always over subscribed, and takes children from all faiths and none. I know two Jewish children that attend and one Sikh boy.

I was another reading the papers from a very young age and listening to the news on the radio when i was under school age.

When we lived in Singapore in the mid 1950s, when I was about 9 the local paper was running a series of articles on the full horrors of the Japanese POW camps, my parents did their best to hide it from me, but without any success, if I wanted to read something, I read it. I knew about what had happened in Singapore and Malaya only 10 years previously and I wanted to know the details, terrible though they were.

There is a real difference between a minister or teacher, quite frankly wallowing in telling children horrible details of an event and straight forward news of awful things happening in the world at the moment or in recent years.

Even very young children can understand that people are sometimes nasty and it is better to talk to them and explain things in words they understand than try and hide it from them and have them pick things up in fragments and sentences, and end up terrified and too scared to ask an adult because they know it is being hidden from them and dare not ask questions.

Here's an idea:

"Christians follow the stories in the bible. One of these tells of a good man, Jesus, who was killed by some very bad people. The story says that he came back from the dead, and this story is a way of showing that good can win over evil and that we should always try and be the good person. This is one of the reasons we have a celebration at Easter, the other being that for centuries Easter has been a happy time of new life and spring flowers" - or similar. What's wrong with that? - in a state school.

If individual parents want their children to have the full religious bit then by all means take them to church - thankfully we have freedom of religion in this country and they are able to do so.

I think that is an excellent approach Luckygirl. It contains all that is necessary for young children to know and leaves the way open for an eventual deeper understanding. It is far better than avoiding the issue altogether.

With a little more detail I think but very simple like Luckygirl says. I used to begin by saying what a what a Christian is. I’d usually say it was a person who likes to go to church. All our children visited the local church for Harvest and Christingle so they were familiar with a church. Then continue the story something like Luckygirl suggests. We also had a few pictures but not of the actual crucifixion. The bit about new life, Spring, would be taught alongside.

I'm a great believer that primary school children should be protected from the horrors of the world and these things should only be taught at secondary schools, by which time they are old enough to take on board the more gruesome things in life. Jesus died on a cross but no need to go into details about nails etc. at that age., and try to skip that and focus on the miracle of the resurrection which is much more the point.
Nails and suffering can be taught later on to help them understand the sacrifice that was made.

Chestnut

I'm a great believer that primary school children should be protected from the horrors of the world and these things should only be taught at secondary schools, by which time they are old enough to take on board the more gruesome things in life. Jesus died on a cross but no need to go into details about nails etc. at that age., and try to skip that and focus on the miracle of the resurrection which is much more the point.
Nails and suffering can be taught later on to help them understand the sacrifice that was made.

Given that many primary children have their own smart phones (whether they should or not, and at what age, is a whole other topic) - I'd be willing to bet that a fair percentage of them have already seen a good few 'horrors' and more besides!

luckygirl pretty much what I did say in assemblies. The curriculum in state schools includes teaching about all major faiths as information. Several parents over the years objected to children visiting synagogues, temples or mosques as part of the RE curriculum... we visited a local church too.

Interesting OP. I went to a catholic school and Easter played a big part in the religious calendar, as it did for me at home because my parents were very catholic. On the run up to Easter we seemed to be permanently in church Maundy Thursday mass, Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, maybe there was something on Saturday and then of course Easter Sunday Mass. The Stations of the Cross deals stage by stage the agony Christ suffered before he was actually crucified which we knew to be a long an agonising death. In retrospect I do think young children should be spared such frightening details. At my school it wasn't only the crucifixion we were also subjected to gruesome deaths suffered by martyrs, one I particularly remember was a woman who was pressed to death by heavy stones in York, Tudor times, these were often related to us by nuns who seemed to relish imparting how agonising their suffering was, they left a feeling of anxiety, being of a young age and where it was almost suggested that this is what you must do "die for your faith" if necessary, my inner thoughts were "just convert to whatever" So yes I would have been more than happy to have an adult step up with a "thank you that's enough"

I think I went through a stage of deliberating whether to send my own children to a catholic school or not but I think my husband persuaded me that young children don't need to have the life frightened out of them, so we opted for a CofE school. I thought they got the balance right in the way they taught religion insomuch as not dwelling on the frightening and gruesome. Although my children did go to a holiday club attached to a church, can't remember which denomination, although they really loved it, kept them very well occupied with both sporty and arty activities, perfect for mine one liked sports and the other was very into art. I do remember one of my boys, aged about 5, unbeknown to me until he came home had been learning about the crucifixion, it was the Easter holidays, when he told me "Jesus had a crown of thorns put on his head, he found it quite unpleasant " an understatement if ever there was one.

"Jesus had a crown of thorns put on his head, he found it quite unpleasant shock" This is the desensitization I was talking about.

If, as a principle, we do not dwell on the detailed gruesomeness of many of life's ills and tragedies for primary school children, then that principle should apply to religion too.