Articles by Dave

The NZ Ministry of Education has finally released their “guidelines for religious instruction”. But will anyone listen? If the board of trustees wasn’t concerned with imposing religion on a secular school before, why should they be now?

Wellsford School has changed their religious instruction programme to opt-in. Another small victory on the path to truly secular schools where children of all religious backgrounds can feel included and welcome!

Religious groups target children who are younger, even though there is nothing stopping evangelicals targeting high school children. It is access to primary school children that they seek. David Whitehead, a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience explains why.

Beachlands School is reviewing it’s religious instruction policy but has provided a biased, promotional account of what it is to parents. Aside from the misleading nature of what they say, they seem to be completely oblivious to the question of the hypocrisy of promoting a religion within a secular state school!

The Khandallah School Board of Trustees has released feedback regarding the submissions on their clubs policy, which were mostly about religious instruction. There seems to be a strong level of denial among some board members!

The Churches Education Commission is on the defensive and is re-branding to “Launchpad”. They have a new CEO and new initiatives planned for 2019. Will media attention on their actions hold them in check even while legislation allows them to get away with so much? Will the court case enable change to legislation that goes far enough?

The Ministry of Education have asked for submissions on the draft guidelines for religious instruction. Here is my submission.

Teachers are right in the firing line on the religious instruction debate. No matter what they say, they will upset someone. This article attempts to explain the position they are in.

Red Beach School have finally agreed to end religious instruction after more than 8 years of complaints against their “values classes”, which included defending a high court case costing them tens of thousands in legal fees to defend their bias for Christian religious evangelism.