http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35244444

Perhaps children ought not to fast !

What next ?

No, it’s not pandering, it’s a sensible change to help students.

You dislike Islam enough to deny children the opportunity to be at their best when taking exams?

What next ?

School terms scheduled to accommodate major religious festivals?

1 in 12 children in our schools are Muslim, it seems sensible and appropriate to have exams when they are more alert and likely to get a better result. As it’s a movable festival, this isn’t going to be a permanent thing, just something we’ll need to pay attention to occasionally .

how/why is that pandering?

We live in a multi cultural society, get over it.

No it’s not it’s a sensible approach to an issue which effects thousands. Moving the date has no real effect on the exams.

Pandering? Stop being dramatic.

School terms scheduled to accommodate major religious festivals?

😀 Spot on!

Our (supposedly) secular schooling is currently heavily timetabled around Christianity.

What’s wrong with also trying to accommodate other major religions?

blimey ufg, you do post a lot of this sort of guff 😆

Seems very sensible and reasonable to me. It would appear it will have a positive benefit to Muslim students and no negative effects to others. So no, not pandering, just sensible.

We have holidays for the two major Christian events (which are mainly just for eating more crap), so there is clearly a precedent to be followed, this one is just about not eating in the day.

The kids knock off half way through the afternoon anyway, so it’s not as if people are that fussed about them being in school…

Iirc, the Islamic faith allows people to ignore or postpone the Ramadan fast in certain circumstances, I would have thought that this could be an option?

We have holidays for the two major Christian events (which are mainly just for eating more crap), so there is clearly a precedent to be followed, this one is just about not eating in the day.

Because we are a Christian country !

If they can’t do exams are they safe to drive a car , safe to administer medicine etc?
The sooner they tie it in with sunrise at mecca the better. Currently it’s bloody stupid. One of our staff had the nurse taking her blood faint due to fasting .

You’d have an argument if the change was at the detriment to non-Muslim students but it’s not, so it’s a no brainier really.

unfitgeezer – Member
Because we are a Christian country !

But we’re not, we’re an irreligous country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_Kingdom

Can. Of. Worms.

I couldn’t do it. Good luck to ya. See ya around yeh?!

Beep beep.

beep beep

this did make me wonder.

if you adhere to the daylight fasting bit for ramadan, why dont you just use the daylight hours for mecca, or equivalent.

muslims at the top of scotland must really suffer.
those muslims who have refugeed to sweden will soon move south
there is no muslim father christmas as the constant daylight at his house in the north pole caused him to starve.

What next ?

Exclusion of cartoon chatacters with any relation to food as well.

That’s ramadanbananamanandpopeyepandemonium.

But we’re not, we’re an irreligous country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_Kingdom

Our head of state is head of CofE, so we are a christian country, I would accept that. But I think it’s more a technicality, very few actually follow religion as you pointed out. Certainly I don’t remember anyone knocking off works a few works ago stating they are looking forward to getting some proper church time in

From 2011 census:

Slightly OT but what to Muslims living the far north of Europe do when daylight can be 20 hours of the day in the summer?

Lose weight..

Our (supposedly) secular schooling is currently heavily timetabled around Christianity.

We don’t have secular schooling. Each school is required by law to undertake a daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian nature, and a huge number of our schools are run by the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches.

That’s all the oldies ticking the Christian box on the census and they don’t go to school anyway, most of them don’t even bother going to church, out major religious festival is celebrated by gorging on food, booze and TV, and has nothing to do with any gods

Each school is required by law to undertake a daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian nature, and a huge number of our schools are run by the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches.

That really is depressing

And it would be even fewer if it wasn’t for all those damn immigrants 😆
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/03/church-attendance-propped-immigrants-study

Yes, it is pandering. In the Muslim countries I have visited (i.e. the Gulf nations) the old, ill and children don’t have to and generally don’t observe Ramadan (i’m sure there are exceptions as there always are). There are a number of alleviations to Ramadan too, such as travel (though I think this means traveling across deserts on camels rather than a first class seat on an airplane whcih some interpret it as). It seems UK muslims are taking a more hardline/severe interpretation than those in alot of the ME countries. In this country any parents denying their kids food and starving them should be considered as child abuse in my opnion – religion is not an excuse. We are a multicultural country, but that is a whole other debate.

Not really our entire society is built on christian history and values. It important that you understand it. No one is making you believe in a god of any kind.

dragon as you probably well know that is actually a BS statistic – based on affilliation or identification rather than belief or practice. It can identify people who are “culturally” affiliated but don’t actually believe anything. And the figure had dropped from 71% to 59% of the previous 10 years.

ufg really?! Compared to the confusing moving clusterf*** of Easter and its poorly timed Bank Holidays? I’m happy to see some accommodation of Ramadan.

In this country any parents denying their kids food and starving them should be considered as child abuse in my opinion – religion is not an excuse

^^This.

We don’t have secular schooling. Each school is required by law to undertake a daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian nature, and a huge number of our schools are run by the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches.

and what a stupid idea that is. I’d vote for truly secular schooling. It would solve a lot of problems, including indoctrination prayers after school plays and dodgy hardline Islamist faith schools that may or may not be exaggerated/exist.

Sounds like commonsense, tbh.

From 2011 census:

That very nicely demonstrates how the wording of a survey question can influence the result. The British Social Attitudes survey got quite different results:

The Census asked: “What is your religion?”

The BSA Survey asked: “Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?”

We don’t have secular schooling.

Indeed – but we should have (IMO).

(Speaking as an atheist dad regularly listening to his 5 year old spouting Christian doctrine about God creating the world and man as an absolute fact – and rather disregarding our various trips to museums to look at dinosaur bones 🙁 )

We don’t have secular schooling. Each school is required by law to undertake a daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian nature, and a huge number of our schools are run by the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches.

and what a stupid idea that is. I’d vote for truly secular schooling. It would solve a lot of problems, including indoctrination prayers after school plays and dodgy hardline Islamist faith schools that may or may not be exaggerated.

[/quote]

It’ll be difficult getting rid of it any time soon, what with the head of state being the head of the church, the ‘requirement’ for the PM to be a member of the CofE, and Bishops getting automatic seats in the Lords.

unfitgeezer – Member

Because we are a Christian country !

Is the year 1716? 😆

Because we are a Christian country !

Then forgive.

dont think its great children are made to fast, but no issues with changing timetables if they have to

While the question may have something to do with the differences, the sample size varied vastly, a complete UK census Vs less than 3000 people.

if you adhere to the daylight fasting bit for ramadan, why dont you just use the daylight hours for mecca, or equivalent.

Because they have to di it based on where they are

Yes that is correct the christians bulit this world to the extent that th ehead of stae [ who used to be personally annointed by god] is the head of the state church and all kids have to worship at least once a week but honestly they are not trying to make you worship their god

As for entirely built that just overstatement CHristianity is without doubt one of the primary movers but it did not build our entire society for that has to ignore science , art, literature, the influence of the greeks with democracy and political /moral philosophy and the age of enlightenment,