School wants proof my child is a catholic

Kildrought

I have genuinely never heard of a person in Ireland (obviously exclusing Muslims, etc), who have had a child and not had that child christened, or made a decision to bring a child up with no religious guidance whatsoever

Well here's another one that you've met this week - say hi!

kippy

I don't see TDs as my personal agents to subvert the laws of the state when called upon in exchange for votes. They are legislators who should enact laws for the greater good.

There are exceptional cases where I might ask for personal help from a TD but in this case the worst that is going to happen is that I have an inconvenient commute every morning and have to pay the costs of a private primary school.

We would all be better off if the TDs spent their time fixing the system rather than bending it to fit the often selfish individual needs of their electorate.

Ah come on,
Why post here bitching about the pros and cons of the policies of our national schools, making remarks about the running of these schools then step back and say that you wont go to your local representative to ask that he/she assist in this case?
Do you vote? If so you should ask the person that you voted for to assist.
Like it or like it not, TD's try as best they can to look after the people that vote for them. Thats reality-if you cant use that reality to help make your life easier due to some pretty stubborn views then I have no sympathy for your plight. You would rather lie and scheme to get you child into this school than ask for assistance....

The US education system has it problems for sure. I would love to know though what evidence you have to say it is worse in religious/racial intolerance than in Ireland? Reading sensational headlines maybe? When I went to school in Ireland in my first primary school we had a couple of Vietnamese kids. There were constantly harassed both physically and verbally. In my second primary school and in secondary school we had some English kids who received the same treatment. I myself was harassed on occasion because my father is English. Anyone that is different from the majority generally becomes a target in a school setting. This is the same in Ireland or the US. I have no evidence to say either school system is more or less tolerant of differences so I can't make a bold statement like that without something concrete to back it up.

THat was your experience of school, I had none similiar and in fact found a lot of acceptance of kids of different nationalities/religions in the schools I attended.
I make the bold statement as it is my personal opinion, I should have stated that on the post, I have nothing but personal experience of living in US society to back it up.
Kippy

redman

Kildrought wrote:

Well here's another one that you've met this week - say hi!

And heres another , hello!

Darragh29

redman wrote:

And heres another , hello!

Don't have an issue with anyone who is non-religious. Just stating my opinion that any of my friends, relations, friends friends, friends relations, neighbours, friends neighbours, neighbours friends, who have had children, have had them christened.

thaedydal wrote:

You are a Catholic!

When did I ever say that!?!?!

Kernel32

kippy wrote:

THat was your experience of school, I had none similiar and in fact found a lot of acceptance of kids of different nationalities/religions in the schools I attended.
I make the bold statement as it is my personal opinion, I should have stated that on the post, I have nothing but personal experience of living in US society to back it up.
Kippy

If that was your personal opinion then fair enough. We can all swap personal experiences and anecdotes all day. I'm not sure why you criticised others for not mentioning your personal opinion though.

Nevyn

Darragh29 wrote:

When did I ever say that!?!?!

Well that you are at least chirstain if you had your child christened as you would have to make the vows on thier behalf at thier christening.

FatherTed

kippy wrote:

I'd just like to add,
There are a few people on here outlining the US system.
There is no way, I would want our education system and schools being modeled on the US system-there are lots of problems with the US system which many people fail to mention and religious/racial intolerance is far worse in the US than it is here, which is strange considering the amount of work done to ensure that is not the case.

Thats funny, last April we were in Ireland and my 7 year old Asian born daughter kept asking me why some people were staring at her. I didnt believe her at first but then I saw it happen myself. Definitely an uneasy feeling. Doesnt happen here in the US.

kippy

Thats funny, last April we were in Ireland and my 7 year old Asian born daughter kept asking me why some people were staring at her. I didnt believe her at first but then I saw it happen myself. Definitely an uneasy feeling. Doesnt happen here in the US.

Doesnt happen much here in fairness.
Racial and ethnic tensions are far worse in the US than they are here in my opinion, as is violence associated with them and the segration of various races.
I dont think thats a problem in Ireland at the moment.
As I said, thats just my opinion and I have nothing to back it up but I do not want to see the Irish education model itself on the US system for various reasons.

mike65

My sisters' daughter is not christened and proberly never will be at this rate (3 years of Satanic life and counting). Not up to speed but schooling could be interesting next Autumn.

Mike.

Nevyn

mike65 you may want to start looking at what schools are in your area and what thier enrollment policies are and their waiting lists if you don't have her on one already.

mike65

I think my sister might be pissed off if I tried to enroll her daughter but I take your point! She and her partner must be looking into the situation seriously at this stage.

Mike.

eiretamicha

I don't want to take this post too off topic, but considering the current situation of public schooling in Ireland, I can't help but wonder why more people aren't choosing to homeschool their children? Growing up in America (where both parents have to work to live even remotely comfortably), I'll be the first one to point out that homeschooling is definitely much more difficult financially than simply sending your child to a public school...but honestly, in Ireland, non-Catholics/non-Christians don't seem to have much other choice.

I will be homeschooling my future children when we move back to Ireland, but this has less to do with religion and more to do with my strong beliefs against the modern education system. Anyway, I was hoping to be able to meet more homeschooling parents when we move back...but I can't seem to find any Irish homeschooling resources. I didn't realize it was because there just weren't many homeschoolers in Ireland. I guess I assumed too much, probably because I knew so many homeschooled children when I was of school-age.

OP: just curious...have you given any thought to homeschooling at all? This could be the answer you've been looking for. And before you immediately dismiss it, why not do a little research on it? One does not have to be a teacher or be of above average intelligence in order to homeschool their children. Many normal, everyday moms and dads do it everyday...and absolutley love it!

Whatever you do decide...I wish you luck!

Nevyn

There is a very good program for home shooling in america and a home schooling network for parents there is not here.

OTK

eiretamicha wrote:

I'll be the first one to point out that homeschooling is definitely much more difficult financially than simply sending your child to a public school...but honestly, in Ireland, non-Catholics/non-Christians don't seem to have much other choice.

Well it seems there is a constitutional right to teach your children at home and a national support group
http://www.henireland.org/
I will look into it without dismissing it out of hand.

eiretamicha

Thaedydal wrote:

There is a very good program for home shooling in america and a home schooling network for parents there is not here.

Hmm...that's strange, I've never heard of any homeschooling programs or networks in my area. All the homeschooled children and homeschooling parents that I've ever met have been solitary, with the occasional exception of a few groups of parents and children meeting for playgroups.

In my opinion, it is definitely not necessary to be part of a program or network in order to homeschool your children. I am planning on using Waldorf and unschooling methods with my future babes, and would not be following any set program (one of the main reasons for my dislike of the moden education system). I was just hoping, when we move back to Ireland, to find some homeschoolers out there to meet up with once or twice a week for playgroups/socialization.

eiretamicha

OTK wrote:

Well it seems there is a constitutional right to teach your children at home and a national support group
http://www.henireland.org/
I will look into it without dismissing it out of hand.

Hey, thanks for the link!!

Nevyn

Well that site is brand spanking new not set up a month

eiretamicha

Thaedydal wrote:

Well that site is brand spanking new not set up a month

Yeah, I figured it must be new because when I was looking for Irish homeschooling resources a few months back, I never found anything. I'm excited now, they've even got a Yahoo! group!

deisemum

I know someone who home educates her son and because it's one to one it takes less time than the regular school hours. He also meets up with other home educated children.

mackerski

I'm picking up a lot of smugness on this thread from what I like to call the "it never done me any harm" brigade. I suppose nobody should be surprised that a special interest group such as a church would seek to advance its own interests and those of its members once given the power to do so. The big question is why the government lets them do so.

The OP (who, to be fair, hasn't been overly diplomatic in certain areas) has caught a lot of unfair flak. If anyone seriously can't understand why non-catholics end up using catholic schools, then their catholic schooling can't have been up to all that much after all.

Some facts:

The status quo is unfair to non-catholics, and most unfair of all to non-religious. There are those on this thread who appear to suggest that it is reasonable for catholics to expect their religious preference to pervade their child's schooling, yet not reasonable for non-catholics to expect the reverse. In a country where the state isn't going to pay for both religious and secular schools, a clear solution is for the state to fund schools that provide core educational requirements while allowing whatever framework can provide access to more specific parental wishes - that might be a religion, but it could just as easily be chess, a sport or a foreign language. This can provide plenty of religion to those that want it (at least as much as I got in my RC primary school), while not requiring any child to feel left out.

Naturally, given the demographic changes in Ireland, there is some urgency to address this. The obvious step is for the government to cease funding new catholic schools - the stats already quoted and the real-life experiences show that they are over-represented already - and to favour secular (and I do mean secular) schools until they have caught up with the demand for them.

The only people with cause for complaint in a world where churches don't run schools is those who actually want non-conforming parents to either pull contortions to get their kids educated or put up with letting their darlings get softly indoctrinated. Such an attitude could be described by many adjectives, but "Christian" isn't one of them.

Dermot

fly_agaric

mackerski wrote:

The OP (who, to be fair, hasn't been overly diplomatic in certain areas)

That's the understatement of the decade! (edited...)

luckat

It seems to me (and I'm not trying to push this view on anyone else, but it's my view) that religion is a personal thing, and doesn't belong in school.

If the State is funding schools, surely the schools should be non-sectarian and non-religious.

If parents want to send their children to religious classes - for instance, Sunday school or a madrassa or Religious Knowledge class - that should be a personal matter, outside of the State-funded and -run system.

But then I was listening to the rows about politicians receiving money recently, and Pat Kenny said: "We'll be going over to the Dail in a minute; they're just saying the prayer they start proceedings with."

I boggled.

Blush_01

Just a question, to the OP - you live right beside the school, and so are definitely in the catchment area. Your partner said your child was of a specific religion, not with any even vaguely malicious intent, but rather to grease the wheel, so to speak. So how do you know you are being discriminated against on the basis of religion, or lack thereof? Have you tried to explain the situation to the school (who probably wouldn't care about the lack of religion, but might have a problem with dishonesty, although they could probably see the reasoning behind it) rather than automatically becoming annoyed when the request for a baptismal cert (which I'd guess is pretty normal procedure for baptised kids in church-owned schools where they are going to receive further sacrements and where the school will be expected to teach them their role in the ceremony and the greater significance of the entire thing) and immediately considering yourself discriminated against? Could it not be entirely possible that the whole baptismal cert wouldn't have come into the question without the school's prior belief that the child in question would require specific religious tutelage for specific ceremonies later in their time in the school and THAT is the reason it was asked for, rather than the child's birth cert?

Sorry, I'm less frustrated looking at this now than I have been before. I think that your anger about the situation is probably a little extreme, although I somewhat get your personal distaste for the status quo. But I would also ask this - religion is now a junior cycle subject, examinable for the junior cert, to the best of my knowledge. Is that also wrong?

Caryatnid

OTK wrote:

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the state paying for sectarian discriminatory schools run by a paedophile club, how am i going to get my kid into the school?

What about the rights and wrongs of you deliberately sending your child to a sectarian discriminatory school run by a paedophile club? If you do not want to expose your child to such horrors, do not send him there.

Surely OP, if you believe your above statement, your child's safety is priority number one, and you would not dream of sending him to such a school, and will do anything to get him into another school, not run by a paedophile club.

In which case, what's the problem in the first place?

turbot

I've got an idea:

Step 1) Find a good graphic designer

Step 2) Make up a new religion with "catholic in the title". It's probably more effective if it's a bit obscure. Maybe "Sempre Fi Catholic". (Sempre Fi is a marine term). As part of your religion, choose a foreign place where one of the churches is based; maybe somewhere unusual, though not so much as to arouse curiosity.

Step 3) Officially baptise your child, into this new religion, in the bath, using a ceremony you made up.

Step 4) Ask your graphic designer to create an interesting certificate, using vellum paper (that you should be able to buy off ebay). Be a bit elaborate. Get some interesting caligraphy done referencing this obscure foreign church. Possibly the less readable the whole thing is, the better.

Present the certificate!

Problem solved, at least in terms of getting into the school, and since you made up your religion, it's not fraud, it's innovation.

Next you want to insulate your childs mind from the sociological programming. This may be achievable by telling him it's all a trick designed to take his power away... and making sure that MTV, and Sky TV are readily available.

Optional advanced steps:

Step 5) Watch a bunch of preachers on american TV, especially overly enthusiastic, slightly obnoxious ones.

Step 6) Present the certificate & apply what you learned from these preachers, in a rather overbearing manner. It's fairly easy to sound like you're a believer based upon what you've seen in your life.

Step 7) Say as part of your particular faith, that your child will be doing his first holy communinion, etc, outside of the school.

May the force be with you.

Victor

Ayla wrote:

What he didn't know, however, was that the church actually holds the deeds to the school buildings and that the state obstansively rents the buildings.

The school isn't rented by the state. The state pays the teacher's salaries and a per capita amount.

But what got him even more (and this has been the whole crux of my irritation with this situation) is that the educational system in this country makes it ok to discriminate against a 4-5 year old child based on the religious decisions of his/her parents. It puts the priority with the religion of the child so that kids of the "right" religion will be allowed into class, but those of the "wrong" religion may have to wait another 1-2 years before entering the classroom!

Its not like that, there is no guarantee that they will get a space in 1-2 years.

And in many cases, it's wait that 1-2 years or force your child to commute to a school that's further away or not as good of a school.

Ultimately, some child has to do this in an oversubscribed system. The rest get the school bus.

The church should not play a part in the mainstream, state-sponsored educational system.

It doesn't.

There is a state-sponsored educational system (VECs and model schools [edit]All the remaining model schools appear to be Church of Ireland[/edit]).

There is a mainstream educational system.

There is no mainstream, state-sponsored educational system.

Ayla wrote:

If our children are divided at the age of 4-5 based on their religion, can't you see that religious tolerance will be harder to teach the older they become?

There were two Iraqi kids in my brother's class in the early 1980s (Christian Brothers national school). I don't know what religion they were, if any. But it didn't make any difference to us as kids, they were just two more kids to play with. A hand poll in fifth year (Christian Brothers secondary school) indicated 25% weren't Catholic. Tolerance of religion wasn't a problem. However "those bloody English" and soccer were (several All-Ireland medal holders on the staff).

If the Catholics get to go to the "good" schools that are government funded, but the non-Catholics have to go to other schools that have bake sales to pay their teachers, don't you think this would cause religious-based rifts as time goes on?

This is exactly why the system became what it is, to protect the minority religions, not the majority one. To allow minority religions develop their religions and not be culturally subsumed.

Ayla wrote:

It's the religious spin that can happen with some other subjects. For instance, Catholics generally don't believe in (and thus wouldn't teach) evolution (science class).

Now what has you believing that?

Ayla wrote:

Education in the States is completely non-denominational (to the extent that we can't say "under God" in our daily Pledge of Allegiance). While that may be a bit extreme, it also places value in the fact that Americans practice a variety of religions and no one should be above the others.

So, religion in school is bad, but politics in school is OK?

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

Thaedydal wrote:

dubgirl I don't think it is a bad thing considering what has happened to children in the curches care the and changes in our socitey to question the role that both churches play in the education system and in schools.

Paedophiles are attracted to any position of power. It just so happens that to date, many have been involved in religion and sport.

Thaedydal wrote:

Which mean that if parents are having to drive an hour or more to get thier children to school as there is no place for them in a school in thier locality, even if thier sibling is in alocal school or the case in Julianstown where junior infants are having to go to school from 2pm to 6pm then the state is still providing a minimum education.

Actually, I think 2-6pm schooling (or some variant thereof) has its uses.

Kernel32 wrote:

In Ireland there are 3077 primary schools.

3292 listed on the link.

3028 are Catholic.

Seems so

49 are multi/inter-denominational.

Indeed.

The rest are unknown or of other religions.

The "Other / Unknown" category seems to either be hospital related / special schools (4) or school with no students (11) - presumably schools that are being set up.

This breaks downs to 98.4% of all primary schools are Catholic.

No. 3028/3292=91.9%

1.5% are non-religious.

No. 4/3292 = 0.12%. That means 99.88% are religious, be it denominational or inter-/multi-denominational.

The rest are unknown or of other religions.

That’s 249 non-Catholic, non-Other / Unknown 249/3292 = 7.6%

The irony of innumeracy on an education thread. /me spell checks

I would be amazed if those 1.5% of schools were spread out so well that everyone has access to them.

Well, its 7.6%, but if parents of a minority denomination want their children educated in a school of their denomination, then they entitled to avail of the school bus service.

Moonbeam wrote:

What does a priest or bishop know better then anybody else about educating kids?

Perhaps not a lot, however, they do have a system in place.

luckat

Not to get dragged off the original subject, but the American 'pledge of alliegance' is a relatively recent thing, and God only sneaked into it in 1954:

http://history.vineyard.net/pledge.htm

But to get back to the original question - and without pouring judgment on high on the original poster - let's see what can be done.

I think the first thing the OP needs to do is get on the same page with the spouse. You need to be at one on this, for the child's sake and the family's sake.

When you've decided that, you need to work out what to say to the school - and honestly, starting out by telling fibs isn't necessarily going to be a good start for their child.

The school (secretary?) has asked for a baptismal cert. Perhaps the couple need to say "Actually, we're not Catholics. Sorry if we gave that impression - we're awful at filling out forms."

Then the school *may* say "In that case, your child is destined to burn in Hell and can't be schooled here." On the other hand, it may also say "Grand, then. She'll be here on the 19th to start school, so?"

If your child is refused because of religion, you will then have to think about where to send her. But the baptismal cert may be simply a formality.

This is not in any way advice, just my own take on it.

Victor

Thaedydal wrote:

Which school is this, as I have never heard of them as there is mention of them on the oasis web site that there are 9 'model' school as far as I aware they are for special needs children.

My understanding was they were "model" school used to set examples. [edit]They were originally teacher training schools http://www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/Nat_Schools/natschs.html[/edit]

9 primary schools owned and run by the dept of education in the whole of the country, does anyone see this as the problem ?

This page might be out of date http://www.oasis.gov.ie/education/primary_education/ownership_of_schools.html?search=model+schools

Only 4 of the schools listed have the name "model" in the title. All are CoI. The Dublin model school seems to be listed as "NATIONAL COORDINATOR CENTRE / CENTRAL INFS SCHOOL / CENTRAL SENIOR MXD N S". The Cork model school closed about 10 years ago and was merged with a local Christian Brother's School (the one I went to).

Thaedydal wrote:

I can not take my children aside when thier class is having RE and teach them myself in the school as the school is on church ground and it breaks church law to preach or instruct anyone in ways that are not the churches.

Question. Aren't pupils entitled to / required a certain number of hours of education per week?

Kernel32 wrote:

When I went to school in Ireland in my first primary school we had a couple of Vietnamese kids. There were constantly harassed both physically and verbally.

My experience as a pupil and an adult has been that it's the fat / short-sighted / quiet types that get trouble here.

mackerski wrote:

I'm picking up a lot of smugness on this thread from what I like to call the "it never done me any harm" brigade. I suppose nobody should be surprised that a special interest group such as a church would seek to advance its own interests and those of its members once given the power to do so. The big question is why the government lets them do so.

Because the government doesn't want the logistical burden of running them.

Naturally, given the demographic changes in Ireland, there is some urgency to address this.

We don't know the new demographic, but it isn't going to be a million miles from the last time around.

fly_agaric

Blush_01 wrote:

Your partner said your child was of a specific religion, not with any even vaguely malicious intent, but rather to grease the wheel, so to speak.

Lying to "grease the wheel" would be considered malicious by definition would it not?
Or are chumps that wouldn't lie like this the ones really out of step with the rest of us, who should lie through our teeth on cv's to bag a job, cheat on our taxes if we are not PAYEworkerplebs (I am a pleb btw), brazenly skip queues etc etc if we have any sense?
It's all just adding a bit of grease to our own wheel!

OTK

Caryatnid wrote:

Surely OP, if you believe your above statement, your child's safety is priority number one, and you would not dream of sending him to such a school, and will do anything to get him into another school, not run by a paedophile club.

Another user had made this point. Clearly I don't believe that my child is at risk of abuse if I am willing to send him to school there. Being willing or keen to send my child to the local school does not mean that I endorse everything about the school. There are no priests on the teaching staff and I imagine my child will have minimal contact with Fr Roger et al.

The church has now withdrawn from the day to day work of teaching children to maintaining executive power - deciding which teachers are hired, operating sectarian selection policies, spreading scary myths about limbo and puragtory and so on.

I regard them as a cancer on the body of state education. I see it as disgusting that the church is effectively leasing their buildings to the state in exchange for the souls of the children. I just wish they'd **** off and atone for their sins.

luckat, you're right that I need to talk to my wife more about my child's education. I just let her sort it out and then walked in at the last moment and started throwing my weight around. My wife is very honest with me and with friends but has a strange compulsion to lie to all officials.