Private tuition alongside schooling

[anotherdad]

Evolution by natural selection is a topic that some very religious schools don't cover properly. They still consider it a theory, which as every good scientist knows, is pretty much how most things are described until there's an absolute proof, but evolution by natural selection is so overwhelming evident that to try and deny its existence is akin to flat earth advocacy.

[piggys]

It's not just evolution though - it's a lot of other stuff as well.

[anotherdad]

I can well believe it.

[Surferfish]

Well they didn't officially 'refuse'; they deliberately spent too long on other parts of the syllabus so that two weeks before study leave they issued the above advice.

There is all kinds of mad stuff that religious schools do (not to knock religion per se) including redacting parts of GCSE text books. If you do a google search on "school redacted GCSE textbook" you can see this is happening right now in London and elsewhere. And then people wonder why all the Y11s at those schools are being tutored

I did google it, although to be fair the results did all seem to refer to the same Jewish girl's school in London, so hopefully its just a one-off isolated case rather than being more widespread? Is this the same school that didn't teach the Oscar Wilde or was that a different one?

Still shocking though, even if it is just the one school, and I can't understand how they are able to get away with it, particularly as it sounds as if this school is in part state funded.

[anotherdad]

Slightly off (my own) topic but I couldn't help remembering the religious school that made the news a couple of years ago. Ofsted visited and among a host of other interesting observations, noted that the school's sole female governor sat in a room adjacent to the rest of the governing body and made her points by shouting through the doorway. And this happened during the Ofsted visit!

[Tinkers]

I know of a CofE primary (not local to me) that whilst excepting they can’t teach creationism, refuse to teach evolution theory.

They also refuse to teach the S bit of SRE and children leave without even been taught about how their bodies will change, let alone anything more. Given some of them are already entering adolescence I really think it’s quite wrong. Most parents don’t even realise so don’t think they actually need to step in.

It’s a rural area, so most parents don’t even have a choice of another primary, the next nearest one is also a CofE School with the same ethos (think run by the same people).

[Surferfish]

Evolution by natural selection is a topic that some very religious schools don't cover properly. They still consider it a theory, which as every good scientist knows, is pretty much how most things are described until there's an absolute proof, but evolution by natural selection is so overwhelming evident that to try and deny its existence is akin to flat earth advocacy.

Yes, the problem is partly due to misunderstanding of the word 'theory', people (perhaps in some cases deliberately) taking its colloquial meaning of 'hypothesis' rather than its proper scientific meaning.

As you say for all intents and purposes evolution by natural selection is a fact and the most important fact in biology at that, so not teaching it properly in schools shouldn't be an option IMO.

[yoyo123]

Changes in the body and Evolution are part of the Science Curriculum (year 5 &6 respectively) , a core subject so should be taught. However, so many faith schools are becoming Academy trusts that they can probably get away with it.

[piggys]

It's not the same school surferfish. There are lots of other schools doing this - it is mainly the ultra orthodox Jewish and Islamic schools but clearly there are Christian schools with their own educational agenda as well.

[bridge]

Evolution by natural selection is a topic that some very religious schools don't cover properly. They still consider it a theory, which as every good scientist knows, is pretty much how most things are described until there's an absolute proof, but evolution by natural selection is so overwhelming evident that to try and deny its existence is akin to flat earth advocacy.

Not wanting to stray too far from the thread topic; however, I did see a documentry once with Richard Dawkins where he was at a religious school asking why they didn't teach Evolution the reply he got was that it was just a theory not fact. Richard didn't challenge that, he just nodded. I'll try to find it: I'm sure it's on youtube.

I never knew natural selection led to evolution but will try and read about it.