Jakov wrote:Sent, but my MP is a damned Catholic who loves faith schools so I'm not optimistic.

James is married to Emma. They have four children and live in Mortimer with several dogs, a couple of Alpaca and an elderly pony. Away from politics, his interests include his family, music, computers, cooking and skiing and his ambition is one day to breed Irish Wolfhounds.

> Dear ****,

Thank you for your email. I appreciate your concerns about the impact of the Academies Programme on the current education system. Parental choice is one of the driving forces behind our policies which is why my colleague Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, announced the introduction of the Free Schools Programme, which will see the creation of thousands of new places and would allow good new schools to open in precisely those areas where parents are currently being denied a proper choice.

I feel that parents should be free to raise their children within a religious tradition, and they should also be free to choose a school which reflects that belief. Whilst I believe that we do need to work towards creating a more integrated society, we must do so whilst recognising parents' legitimate freedom to decide upon the type of education their children receive.

I would like to assure you that the legislation will not lead to religious discrimination against pupils through school admissions. Any outstanding school which currently admits pupils, or a portion of pupils based on faith will be able to retain those arrangements. There will be no difference from the current admissions policy. Likewise, any school which currently has a religious designation will be able to retain it.

All new Academies will also be subject to the curriculum requirements for independent schools prescribed under Section 157 of the Education Act and they will be subject to external inspections in the normal way. Religious discrimination is an issue that the Government takes very seriously and I will continue to follow this issue closely.

Yours sincerely,

James Arbuthnot

Dear Mr Arbuthnot

Thank you for your timely reply.

I too believe that parents should have the choice to raise/indoctrinate their children in the faith of their choice. However this faith choice should not be available at mainstream schools. If they are religious enough to want to practice their faith then it should be in their own time at their place of worship, funded by their followers and not anywhere near children being raised as rational freethinkers.

Where will my parental choice be when the local school becomes a religious based academy? It's bad enough now that I have to send my children to a CofE school because there is nowhere locally that is completely secular. And now the government is keen that the national curriculum can be freely altered to match a particular faith's dogma?

This is the 21st century, I want my children to be educated in the 21st century and not have to listen to 1st century myths being spouted as fact during their impressionable time at school. Seriously have you read the bible? I don't want my children living in fear that if they're not good or worship god they'll be punished in hell forever, that' just sick. It's something that I used to get quite worried about at my CofE school despite being raised at home without a religion. I did enjoy RE, learning about religion, cultures and their history and I want my children to learn the same, but the gods of various brands being taught as a 'fact' needs to stay in places of worship. School has to be neutral ground where you learn without destructive dogma.

There is a huge community of humanist/atheist parents. Church attendance has been in decline for many, many years. Some people will plod along with the crowd because of 'cultural heritage', 'tradition' and the odd belief that only religion can provide good moral guidance. Others are getting pretty damn fed up with being swept aside because we find it perfectly rational to live without a religion and want the same for our children. I wish more people had the balls to deal with reality and I don't want their insecurities or odd practices making their way into my childrens' lives.

Religious worship should stay in places of worship not in places of education.

Yours sincerely,

pennypitstop wrote:The reply from my MP:

> Dear ****,

Thank you for your email. I appreciate your concerns about the impact of the Academies Programme on the current education system. Parental choice is one of the driving forces behind our policies which is why my colleague Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, announced the introduction of the Free Schools Programme, which will see the creation of thousands of new places and would allow good new schools to open in precisely those areas where parents are currently being denied a proper choice.

I feel that parents should be free to raise their children within a religious tradition, and they should also be free to choose a school which reflects that belief. Whilst I believe that we do need to work towards creating a more integrated society, we must do so whilst recognising parents' legitimate freedom to decide upon the type of education their children receive.

I would like to assure you that the legislation will not lead to religious discrimination against pupils through school admissions. Any outstanding school which currently admits pupils, or a portion of pupils based on faith will be able to retain those arrangements. There will be no difference from the current admissions policy. Likewise, any school which currently has a religious designation will be able to retain it.

All new Academies will also be subject to the curriculum requirements for independent schools prescribed under Section 157 of the Education Act and they will be subject to external inspections in the normal way. Religious discrimination is an issue that the Government takes very seriously and I will continue to follow this issue closely.

Yours sincerely,

James Arbuthnot

A mixure of emotions...... eventually......
So....

Dear Mr Arbuthnot

Thank you for your timely reply.

I too believe that parents should have the choice to raise/indoctrinate their children in the faith of their choice. However this faith choice should not be available at mainstream schools. If they are religious enough to want to practice their faith then it should be in their own time at their place of worship, funded by their followers and not anywhere near children being raised as rational freethinkers.

Where will my parental choice be when the local school becomes a religious based academy? It's bad enough now that I have to send my children to a CofE school because there is nowhere locally that is completely secular. And now the government is keen that the national curriculum can be freely altered to match a particular faith's dogma?

This is the 21st century, I want my children to be educated in the 21st century and not have to listen to 1st century myths being spouted as fact during their impressionable time at school. Seriously have you read the bible? I don't want my children living in fear that if they're not good or worship god they'll be punished in hell forever, that' just sick. It's something that I used to get quite worried about at my CofE school despite being raised at home without a religion. I did enjoy RE, learning about religion, cultures and their history and I want my children to learn the same, but the gods of various brands being taught as a 'fact' needs to stay in places of worship. School has to be neutral ground where you learn without destructive dogma.

There is a huge community of humanist/atheist parents. Church attendance has been in decline for many, many years. Some people will plod along with the crowd because of 'cultural heritage', 'tradition' and the odd belief that only religion can provide good moral guidance. Others are getting pretty damn fed up with being swept aside because we find it perfectly rational to live without a religion and want the same for our children. I wish more people had the balls to deal with reality and I don't want their insecurities or odd practices making their way into my childrens' lives.

Religious worship should stay in places of worship not in places of education.

Yours sincerely,

Thank you for your email of 22 July. I appreciate hearing your views on this subject which are of course shared by many.

I hope that increasing freedoms of choice will allow all to feel confident about the content and quality of their children’s education.

Yours sincerely

James Arbuthnot

pennypitstop wrote:

Thank you for your email of 22 July. I appreciate hearing your views on this subject which are of course shared by many.

I hope that increasing freedoms of choice will allow all to feel confident about the content and quality of their children’s education.

Yours sincerely

James Arbuthnot

Juliuseizure wrote:If there were atheist academies it would publicise the theist/atheist debate, and there can be only one winner in open dialogue

I don't like the idea of privatising basic education however I think it's worth it in exchage for a decent number of atheist academies. FIGHT!

j.mills wrote:All this bollocks about "choice" is code for government failure to guarantee excellence, government worship of the private sector running things, and government collusion in propping up religion.

But 'atheist academies' are absolutely not the answer: that just validates the existence of the faith schools and vindicates clergy claims that atheism is another, and therefore at best 'equal', "belief". There is no reason why religites should expect schools to reflect their affliction, any more than hospitals or police stations do. "999, what service do you require?" "Sharia police please." Eff off. Education does not exist to serve religion, but to serve individual growing citizens. It should be secular all the way! This is cryingly obvious, but I've yet to hear a politician with the guts to say it.

Ubjon wrote:

Juliuseizure wrote:If there were atheist academies it would publicise the theist/atheist debate, and there can be only one winner in open dialogue

I don't like the idea of privatising basic education however I think it's worth it in exchage for a decent number of atheist academies. FIGHT!

I can see the theist parents raging that the only school they can send there kids too insists of teaching kids about reality in a Godless environment.

Thank you for a reply. I was hoping for slightly more than a cursory two paragraph generic brush off though.

Please can you detail the ' increasing freedoms of choice' you claim the academies bill will provide for this community given its rural nature and one that has a huge scientific demographic. *

Yours sincerely

Penny

pennypitstop wrote:

Thank you for a reply. I was hoping for slightly more than a cursory two paragraph generic brush off though.

Please can you detail the ' increasing freedoms of choice' you claim the academies bill will provide for this community given its rural nature and one that has a huge scientific demographic. *

Yours sincerely

Penny

* Insert 'YOU TWAT!' here