I suppose I should ask you if I may write an essay on why religious school students should do better than secular school students. Yes, I really am going to write an essay on that. Sorry if this seems rude. I have a weird viewpoint.

Hey Lucy,

I totally agree with you. I think it is useless. At my school you need to do religios education or philosophy to get your A Levels, although we are no confessional school at all. But we're taught a lot of trash in RE, in Protestant lesson we do have teachers that remind to Barbie dolls and want you to compare Matrix with Jesus' life and it is even worse to have such a teacher in English aswell. The Catholics had a teacher that puished in French or history all Protestant, Islamic or nonconfessional children. And one of the philosophy teachers always looks at your work with the eyes of a German techer, no wonder, she is a German teacher. That is hard. Most teachers don't want to tell you in such subjects anything that is useful. There is one excetion and I can't attend her lessons at all. This is rubbish!

Best Wishes,

Dea Salus

I completely and utterly agree with you. I am a proud atheist and I go to a Catholic school- i have experienced these masses and prayers etc... they are an absolute pain and often take me away from classes I adore.

Have you ever heard of Richard Dawkins? He expresses much the same views as you.

Magic

Dear Lucy Labrador, After reading you essay on religious schools vs non religious school, it really mde me think.

I really loved this article and I hope i see more great things from you.

I enjoyed reading this; it's well written and well organized. I often have a difficult time organizing my thoughts and getting them on to the page while keeping them coherent in relation to my point.

I attend school a private, all-girls, Catholic prep school. I'm not Catholic myself, and I identify myself as Agnostic. Four years have passed since I was first accepted, and I have grown to love my school all the more. Though I do agree with you that time spent with one's faith should not interfere with time spent in the classroom, there are several advantages to religious schools.

Religious schools oftentimes have generous benefactors that are of the same religion. The money collected from these benefactors can open up a new world of opportunities for students who otherwise would not have had them. Students grow personally in religious schools, as the schools ensure that their students are able to experience all aspects of life. These include extra curricular activities, athletics, music, theater, science, technology, all of course with academic excellence being each school's core.

Students cannot grow or achieve excellence without a strong foundation that anchors them. At many Christian schools, there are core values that are believed to be echoed in the Gospel values. I thing that for a lot of girls, the spiritual opportunities at our school allow them to become compassionate and independent young women.

Also, contrary to popular belief, our curriculum is extremely rigorous and difficult. Most Christian schools only have mass on special holidays. Our masses last forty minutes, and they are held at the beginning of school, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, the end of school, and others that I cannot recall because I'm not exactly religious.

Nice essay; just wanted to add my two cents!

Yup...I think the reason why my school has high results is because the teachers help you, there's revision clubs...or they look at results from primary school and take smart people...and yup, I can't understand the logic behind having mass when we have GCSE Maths next week...and I've noticed it now, my school has a 'habit' of ignoring the students with fail grades. They stick up the percentage of grades outside the school gates...but have 'missed out' the Fs and Ds.