baptism for school?

willow tree

hi all,
just wanted your thoughts. everyone is telling me that i need to book my daughter into school now if i want her to get the school i want. so im booking her into a gaelscoil and an educate together school, both look good to me. anyway, i want to have a naming ceremony for her, i was thinking the unitarian church but if she goes to gaelscoil will she need to be christened in a catholic church? if she wants to make her communion i want her to be able to if thats what she wants, so i guess i could just christen her now, so confused, i just cant support an organisation like the catholic church (even though i have strong spiritual beliefs).
anyway, back to point. will the school look for a cert,(i cant ask until school reopens and i want to have ceremony now). thanks in advance for thoughts.:cool:

Jelly2

willow tree wrote: »

hi all,
just wanted your thoughts. everyone is telling me that i need to book my daughter into school now if i want her to get the school i want. so im booking her into a gaelscoil and an educate together school, both look good to me. anyway, i want to have a naming ceremony for her, i was thinking the unitarian church but if she goes to gaelscoil will she need to be christened in a catholic church? if she wants to make her communion i want her to be able to if thats what she wants, so i guess i could just christen her now, so confused, i just cant support an organisation like the catholic church (even though i have strong spiritual beliefs).
anyway, back to point. will the school look for a cert,(i cant ask until school reopens and i want to have ceremony now). thanks in advance for thoughts.:cool:

You certainly seem confused. And I don't want to confuse you more, but if you can't support an organisation like the Catholic church, as you say, then why on earth would you be willing even to contemplate baptising your daughter? If that is not supporting the church, then what is (and rather duplicitous too)? I think that you should just send her to the Educate Together school - you think it's a good school, you know she won't have to be baptised in order to go there, and if she wants to be baptised later and make her communion she can follow through on these independently of the school. Problem solved!

Cottontail

I don't know how naming cermonies work, but I assume there's no religious aspects involved. So you could always go ahead with this and get your daughter baptised at a later date if that's what you decide to do?

stargazer 68

Op as far as I am aware yes the school will ask for the cert. I had to produce my sons for his school and again for communion and confirmation even though it was all for the same school

coats

She won't need to be christened to attend the gaelscoil but she will if you intend on letting her make her communion. You can ask their policies on opting out of religious classes, but as I said, she can't make her communion without being baptised.

fi1979

OMG are there actually schools that would refuse a child if they weren't baptised? I seriously cannot believe this in this day and age.
I went to a convent primary school, and even back then it wasn't strictly catholics!

willow tree

thanks for all the thoughts! i dont think that you would be refused but if there are too many for one school they may pick the child who was christened thats my understanding, seems bonkers so of course that could be wrong.
so i think i'll have the naming ceremony i want and as some of you said, if needs be i can see what happens down the line if she wants the communion. i just didnt want to lessen her choices at this stage. thanks for the feedback;)

McTigs

This business of baptising kids "to get them in to a good school" is, IMO, for the birds. The longer people do it the longer the ridiculous system remains in place. Seriously, it cannot be constitutional and if it is, it shouldn't be. This country has some big time growing up and modernising to do.

If any good comes from reports like cloyne and murphy it will be to release the grip of the catholic church on our schools.

My daughter is not baptised and is down for two schools, one educate together, one jesuit and neither asked one way or the other.

Jelly2

willow tree wrote: »

thanks for all the thoughts! i dont think that you would be refused but if there are too many for one school they may pick the child who was christened thats my understanding, seems bonkers so of course that could be wrong.
so i think i'll have the naming ceremony i want and as some of you said, if needs be i can see what happens down the line if she wants the communion. i just didnt want to lessen her choices at this stage. thanks for the feedback;)

All is well then. Although in regard to lessening her choices, you seem to be prioritising her ability to 'choose' from different schools in your above post. Perhaps think in terms of lessening her choice in regard to religion instead - if you baptise her, are you reducing her ability to later make a free choice regarding the nature of her religious beliefs? This seems a more important issue to consider here, as least to me.

Cat Melodeon

If you don't christen her now and she decides later that she would like to make her communion/become a Catholic, she can always be baptised later. There is nothing to say that a child MUST be baptised as a baby. I used to work with a Russian family (dad not religious, mum Russian Orthodox) whose daughter really wanted to become a Catholic (having attended a Catholic primary school from the age of 6). She was baptised in the February and did First Penance/Communion with her classmates the same year. So you don't have to decide for her just now at all.

willow tree

Jelly2 wrote: »

if you baptise her, are you reducing her ability to later make a free choice regarding the nature of her religious beliefs? This seems a more important issue to consider here, as least to me.

sorry i dont understand? the naming ceremony im having for her isnt religious, its a ceremony to welcome her to the world and allow her on her journey to later decide if she wants.

Jelly2

willow tree wrote: »

sorry i dont understand? the naming ceremony im having for her isnt religious, its a ceremony to welcome her to the world and allow her on her journey to later decide if she wants.

Just if you did decide to baptise her now, then that is really a lessening of her future choices that is more serious than reducing her choice of school if you don't have her baptised. But such musing over the impact of you decisions in these regards is all redundant now anyway, because you have decided on the naming ceremony!:)

Dades

willow tree wrote: »

thanks for all the thoughts! i dont think that you would be refused but if there are too many for one school they may pick the child who was christened thats my understanding, seems bonkers so of course that could be wrong.

You are correct on this.

If a school is oversubscribed with kids all from the area, some schools will indeed choose baptised kids over others in order to maintain the school "ethos" (as allowed by legislation).

What you need to do is find out how popular the particular gaelscoil is, and contact them anonymously to find out their admission policy. Even before you do that check to see if they have a website. Some school sites will expressly say they have a "catholic ethos" etc etc that they want to maintain and these are the ones to be wary about.

That said, I'm looking at the local school for a house I'm looking to buy, and while they declare a Christian ethos on their site, they specify in their admissions policy that they do not and will not discriminate on grounds of religion, race etc. - so kudos to them. Instead the criteria are proximity to the school, siblings etc.

tl;dr? Check with the school.

willow tree

Thanks Dades,
maybe after enda kennys speech legislation will be changed...who knows. meanwhile i was talking to a parent who said that they dont ask except if they are making their communion so thats a good while off:D

hoodwinked

i think it really depends on the gael scoil, i attended one when i was younger and they still are very much the same when it comes to religion, my sister has just finished there,


every morning/before and after lunch/before going home they say the relevant prayers in Irish, so she will be learning the religion everyday every class member participates in this regardless of religion, priests come to the school and do confessions/masses and they are very active in school activities...etc parents are told this though before enrolling children in the school, it is a very catholic school even today its why we are sending our daughter there.

so if your gaelscoil is like this even if you don't need a baptism cert be aware if they are very catholic she will be practicing the religion.