Last year the Blasphemy law was repealed. The next thing to go should be the Act of Worship from the 1944 Education Act. While it might have been all well and good to have a Christian assembly at school back in 1944, with one and all singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” and then later in the 1970s singing “Kum Ba Yah“, times have changed.
When those of a different faith were a small minority it excluded a few individuals from the key mass meeting within school; Jehovah’s witnesses at my own junior school spring to mind. Now it appears the 1944 Education Act has been being used to force a kind of religious segregation within a school, just when it is essential that those of differing faiths, and none, ought to be learning they can get on. In any case, most so-called Christians in this country are actually non-believers.
No more ghettos in schools. Out with religion. Let’s have secular assemblies that celebrate the acheivements of pupils and foster a sense of community and shared common values.
If you want your kids to sing songs about God, do it on your own time.