Tracey’s Story

My husband and I, being of Christian backgrounds but non-practising, we were happy to allow our first child to attend SRE classes each week. Within a few years he was asking us to excuse him, as he said that they did exactly the same worksheets every year. That is, my nearly eight-year-old son was being taught the same classes that he was given as a five year old, and the school had absolutely no recourse over this state of affairs. When my daughter started school four years later, she decided to ‘opt out’, and was told by her Year One teacher to take one sheet of paper, sit in a Year Six classroom and amuse herself.

Add to this the situation of some of our non-Australian school attendees, who pay full fees for the privilege of having their children effectively do and learn nothing for up to an hour each week, almost forty hours a year!

best wishes for the secular ethics classes!
Tracey Baglin