Ethics trial

Isabelle brought up the St James Ethics Centre trial of an ethics alternative to Special Religious Education (otherwise known as scripture) at the P&C tonight.

There seemed to be a bit of support for the programme, so I thought I might throw a few links up here.

First, a personal experience via a friend of mine, published in a local paper.

This is the St James Ethics Centre's page on the programme.

There is also a Facebook page.

ETA: These are some links to speeches given by the Greens' Lee Rhiannon and John Kaye.

That last one has a lot of information about how to be active in campaigning for this to become a choice for all our kids.

For mine, I'd like to say that this programme is designed only to encourage children to think about ethical issues in a non-threatening environment - much the same way that religious instruction is designed. It does not offer opinions on right and wrong, it merely encourages kids to think things through and consider what decisions they might make. It is not a formal ethics course, it isn't a philosophy course that kids doing SRE miss out on, it's just an alternative environment to consider moral questions for children for which the religious options offered at their school are not appropriate.

Finally, if you support this, I'd urge you to get involved. There are a lot of people campaigning hard to stop this becoming a mainstream option. We need to ensure that all voices are heard.