Where do I send my child if we're not religious??
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Where do I send my child if we´re not religious?? 
08/06/2014 20:53 - Choosing a School / Application Procedures (Locality: Wicklow)
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Please please you wise parents out there, your advice is badly needed; I´m completely lost. I am originally from Sweden and not religious in any sense. My partner is from here but not religious either...We´ve a little boy who´s 2 and people keep telling me to put his name down for schools NOW! I´m panicking as I don´t know where to send my boy or where he´d even be accepted...He´s not baptised and I fear we´ll be ´punished´ and left out in the cold because of this. What does it mean to go to a Catholic school these days??? Or Church of Ireland; what does it all mean??? I´m nearly in tears here; I don´t want my little boy to be pushed in to something as big as religion when he´s so young, I want him to decide for himself when he´s old enough. What do I do?? Many thanks in advance / Sof
| re : Where do I send my child if we´re not religious??
10/06/2014 20:19 - Choosing a School / Application Procedures
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EDUCATE TOGETHER is a very good school and they do religion after school
| re : Where do I send my child if we´re not religious??
10/06/2014 12:46 - Choosing a School / Application Procedures
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Hi Sofia,
Thanks for submitting your question on the forum.
The issue of childhood education has come up a lot recently and is a thorny and complicated issue in Irish society. Without delving into our history with christian schooling, and avoiding argument with religious schooling for catholics and non-faith children, there are however lots of positive changes happening in our society including the reprogramming of Irish education.The scandinavian school model is frontrunner for schools all over the world and has been mentioned by our education ministers as an ideal target for Ireland. Unfortunately, any dramatic changes in education is rare here and is a frustratingly slow process. But changes are happening.
There are alternatives for you. Educate Together, www.educatetogether.ie/, is a growing body of schools that are ‘muliti-denominational, co-educational, child centred and democratically run’ around Ireland. They are not religious run and are highly regarded schools, please check out their site. Unfortunately, although growing, they are not available everywhere but there are new schools opening nationwide every year. Our advice is to contact your local ET to find out if there are any near you and to register your interest.
Thousands of non-faith kids attend catholic schools or church of Ireland (protestant) schools, and many schools have large populations of non-faith kids. Our advice is to contact your local religious school and see what they provide for non-religious groups.
Lastly, there are huge changes afoot here in education with large proportion of christian run schools soon promised to be run by secular bodies. Irish education and schooling is now changing so please take heart during this transition.
There is a ‘Swedish living in Ireland parenting group’ on Facebook too that might be able to offer some advice on their experience here.: Swedish living in Ireland parenting group/
And a recent rte radio documentary-on-one called ´Mairead´s First Communion´ , using the perspective of a mother from outside Ireland and an Irish father, very well portrays our ambivalence on state-sponsored school education.
Mairead´s First Communion
best of luck,
Sally @ schooldays
see also for further details:
citizensinformation.ie/
| re... : Where do I send my child if we´re not religious??
11/06/2014 16:25 - Choosing a School / Application Procedures
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Thank you so so much for your reply; it has really put our minds at ease. I´m going to do my ´homework´ and contact a few schools to find out as much as possible before it´s time to put Dylan´s name down. Thank you again, we´ve been so worried, especially me!
Kindest regards
Sofie
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