In this thread, Illuminatiprimus said:
I’d really, really like to know about that, so here’s the thread.
Just a ‘me too’ post, as I too would like to hear more of that case.
YAY! I get to be a legitimate expert in something! THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY…
I mean, ahem.
Okay, well, what would you like to know specifically? Or shall I just spiel? I think the main areas of interest are probably:
What is the government’s position on the teaching of creationism in schools?
What does the government ACTUALLY do rather than says it does about the teaching of creationism in schools?
What about the faith school sector?
What about Academies? Are they and their “used car salesman” sponsors really doing what everyone claims they are?
What do we know about the creationism movement in the UK and the impact it’s having in schools?
Any of those good?
How about those two?
Also, has “intelligent design” made its way over there, with the same creationist folks claiming that the two ideas have nothing to do with each other?
It has had minimal impact here. This is a much more secular society, and if our politicians have religious views, we expect them to keep them to themselves and not come bothering us with them.
Yes, one of the reasons Tony Blair only converted to Catholocism after he resigned.
1.What is the government’s position on the teaching of creationism in schools?
Creationism isn’t actually a policy area per se, rather an issue the recurs every so often and I have the fun job of dealing with it. The government’s position is actually quite clear with no real wiggle room. Creationism is a belief, evolution is a theory, hence creationism can not be explored in the context of science. Ever. Since the introduction of the new Secondary Curriculum (which encourages creating links between subject areas to improve subject depth and enrichment) there have been some queries as to whether this means that creationism can be discussed in science and the answer is a big fat NO. The DCSF has created guidance that sets out our official position but in short it’s pretty much as I say.
There have been some sticking points in the last few years or so, one of which was a reference in one of the exam syllabuses (the science OCR) to creationism that essentially said creationism could be mentioned as an alternative belief when discussing fossils (i.e. the theory of evolution says this about fossils, but some also believe this) but this was considered a step too far and the reference was eventually removed. This actually happened before my time so I’m not familiar with the details, but my god have we not been able to forget this.
Note that all this applies to state schools - independent schools can pretty much teach whatever they want (and some exist for that very reason).
Obviously creationism can (and arguably should) be discussed in the context of religious studies. I did in fact receive a letter from a local authority SACRE who shall remain nameless who basically said that the classification of a scientific theory as “fact” and a religious conviction as “belief” was divisive and not reflective of the real nature of truth blah blah blah and that they’d produced guidance for their own local schools that showed them how to create links between science and RE in a way that didn’t contravene the DCSF guidance that should be propagated to all other LAs. I sent a polite response asking for a copy of their guidance which I promptly filed in the circular cabinet once I’d read it.
2.What do we know about the creationism movement in the UK and the impact it’s having in schools?
Well, if there is a creationism movement in the UK (and I’m sure there is) I’m personally not aware of it. Furthermore if it’s trying to influence policy into making creationism in science acceptable it’s really not working. Parliament is massively hostile to the prospect of this happening and without parliamentary support it’s never going to happen. There was a Channel 4 Dispatches programme on the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the UK which I had to watch because it contained a section on schools. Obviously it was edited to look impartial but be hostile in the way it left the viewer to draw conclusions (the people on it were presented as complete fucking nutters and the most eloquent person in it asked the camera to stop rolling when she got backed into a verbal corner on several occasions). There was also a More4News story that covered specifically the teaching of creationism in schools and claimed there were five state schools that an undercover reporter “exposed” as teaching creationism in science. This was referenced in a parliamentary debate and my director was instructed to look into this further (guess who gets to do that?).
However on the flip side we have our good friends at the British Humanist Association who are always pushing for the removal of any religion in schools which currently is a bit of a losing battle given that the Church officially owns a third of schools. Again this is where the bizarre state of the UK with regard to religion is made apparent - we don’t have an official separation of Church and state yet we are an extremely secular society and government policy is pretty much all always designed without reference to religion in it. Anyway, the BHA has a very active public representative who forever sends letters to me and my colleagues in the policy team that deal with the teaching of RE and PSHE, sponsors the asking of Parliamentary Questions and so forth that make us continually aware of his presence. Personally I think that’s a great thing as I agree with the sentiments of the BHA, althogh of course as an official I couldn’t possibly comment. 
Yes but it’s seen as simply another form of creationism and is specifically referenced in the guidance I linked to. Big no no.
I have no dog in this fight, but you make it sound like you and your team have quite a lot of power over who is allowed to teach what, considering that you are unelected officials.
We’re just implementing the wishes of Ministers, who are elected. And in terms of power I don’t have any, all powers are implemented through legislation.
That bit about throwing a letter in the bin, though. That seemed like it was your decision to ignore it. I realise that it was probably nonsense, I’m just a little uncomfortable with officials making that kind of decision.
Didn’t he say they’d call him a nutter?
Would you have preferred if I stuck it in my drawer and let it collect dust for the next few years? What else was I supposed to do with it? I’d already written to them saying “Share it with others if you want, knock yourselves out”. I just wasn’t prepared to use Departmental funds to circulate it further.
If what you’re worried about is whether we get to decide which issues we respond to and which we don’t, the answer is we don’t. All letters have to be responded to and as I said I’d already done that for the SACRE in question. What I don’t have to do is actually carry out some of the batshit recommendations that the pubic at large have for government (thankfully). I’m still recovering from the time when I received a letter listing about 30 things that should be made illegal including spitting in public, children being able to associate in groups of more than three and, you guessed it, bringing back national service.
I think his way of putting it was if you start expressing religious views in public people start to think you’re a bit nutty. Which is largely true in this country, although probably because the ones who do express religion belief tend to do it in an extremely aggressive (walking around town calling people damned and preaching RIGHT IN THEIR FACES!!!) or in ways that run counter to what the rest of society really want (Muslims who want the sale of alcohol banned - like that’s ever going to happen). In a way it’s a comment on how religion is expressed in this country, not the view of it.
That said people in general were extremely nervous of the prospect of a head of government using religious conviction to influence policy - hence why he waited until after he left office to announce his conversion.
That would have made for an interesting time in boot camps. 
Well quite - one camp per three children? Can you say economies of scale? 
Maybe this is a little off-topic but…
I’m curious about how your nation has an “official” religion, and what that means in practice as far as governmental operation.
I also wonder how it is that a number of European nations have state-sponsored religions, yet seem to operate in a more secular manner than the US government. I’d like to hear any ideas you have about this.
Well it’s pretty much an anachronism fused to the monarchy - as long as we have a monarch (who is also the Supreme Head of the Church) we’ll have an official religion.
In practical terms we have so much legislation (both domestic and EU) that categorically state the equivalence of all faiths (or none) that Christianity being our official religion doesn’t have as great an impact on government or policy as you might expect.
After the last reform of the House of Lords the house was split in to Lords Spiritual (Bishops of the Church of England) and Lords Temporal who are mostly life peers appointed by the government in power. The Lords Spiritual currently make up 26 of the 617 total Lords so their influence on legislation individually is pretty negligible (although of course they can help drive movements across other parties, usually the Conservatives).
Whilst you could argue the legal system of the UK is based on Christianity (it certainly grew from that) since our inclusion in the EU a lot of the more antiquated and religion-specific legislation is slowly being repealed or replaced as it has become incompatible with superseding legislation like the Human Rights Act or the Equality Act 2006. For example the law against blasphemy was repealed earlier this year.
Does that answer the question or would you like to know more?
I think it’s a bit like the way some countries have lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), but the countries where they’re kept right in the population centres have fewer incidents where people are eaten. Something to do with the cages, I expect.