Q. A new child has recently joined our setting, whose parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses. They do not want their child learning about religious festivals or celebrating birthdays, even though this is part of our setting’s curriculum and culture. How should we address this?
Sharon Curtis, manager, Ellesmere Children’s Centre and CEO, Emosi
‘We’ve had this situation for many years. The stance that we take here is we’re multi-faith. We work from a premise of recognising and being respectful of different cultures, different religions, values and ways of being.
‘We once had an experience of a Jehovah’s Witnesses parent complaining that we were playing Christmas music in the setting. We include things like a Christmas tree and non-religious Christmas songs, such as jingle-bells. The parent didn’t like it, but I had a chat with them and explained our premise. We didn’t change the music.
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