Coursera
November 7, 2012 by Mark Embleton
Filed under Atheism
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Catholic School Told It’s Admission Policy Unfair
A complaint about the admissions policy of a Catholic school in South Croydon has been partially upheld.
They key point of the complaint is that as an oversubscribed school it had a points system for admissions that put an emphasis on early baptism and activity within the church as oppososed to geographical location (i.e. how close they live) of potential applicants.
This ruling will have a knock on effect on the selection policies of other so-called “faith” schools.
Best bet get rid of the “faith” element of all state schools and let’s make all schools truly community schools serving the local populations.
Schoolboy Made to “Eat His Sins!”
An evangelical church running a session in a state funded (although admittedly CofE) school, made children write an apology for their “sins” on a piece of paper and then swallow it.
This is unacceptable and the response from the church was a textbook non-apology!
Council Pays Out Over School Religion Row
Full story from the Herald Scotland.
An atheist living on a Scottish island has been awarded £1000 compensation from his local council after a protracted wrangle over religious education at his eight-year-old son’s primary school.
Apparently he was concerend over religious elements in lessons, so he decided to withdraw his son from the RE lessons and the school tried to dissude him from doing so stating that his son would have to be withdrawn from other school activities.
He won an out of court settlement and has donated it straight back to the school. How about that for principles!
Creationism and ID have No Place in Biology GCSEs
Many people will have noticed that a question on the Biology GCSE paper from 2009 recently surfaced which apparently gave equal weight to Natural Selection, Lamarkianism, Intelligent Design and Creationism.
This is something that the exam board, AQA, were heavily criticized for at the time; however they have confirmed that the 2010 paper did not contain such such a question. They have also stated that “the subject team has confirmed that future exam papers will not contain any questions on creationism or intelligent design.”
It’s great that the exam board realized their mistake and corrected it (something that we encourage!), but it shows just how careful and vigilant we have to be to protect children from misleading and disproven “theories” from the science curricula!
Extract from the New Humanist blog
Scientists win a Place for Evolution in Primary Schools
From the GuardianUK
Scientists win a Place for Evolution in Primary Schools
The government is ready to put evolution in the primary curriculum for the first time after years of lobbying by senior scientists.
The schools minister, Diana Johnson, has confirmed the plans will be included in a blueprint for a new curriculum to be published in the next few weeks.
It follows a letter signed by scientists and science educators calling on the government to make the change after draft versions of the new curriculum failed to mention evolution explicitly.