In reality..do you have to baptise child to get school place

Mari yay · by **Mari yay** » Fri May 04, 2022 10:03 am

Thanks, bit of a minefield.
Not sure if we will baptise, can only imagine the ructions it would cause with MIL, only last week she was trying to get me to go to a blessing service for pregnant women and babies.

Mari yay · by **Mari yay** » Fri May 04, 2022 10:04 am

zoesmama wrote:Our kids go to a Multi-Denom Gaelscoil. They accept children of all faiths and none and there is no priority for any Religion. No religion is taught (as in indoctrinated) in school hours. There are optional (and you pay extra) Catholic classes after school hours. The kids learn about different faiths and have a Religion of the Month so for example this month is Buddhism and they learn about how that faith works and the basic concepts.

That sounds ideal.

theoracle · by **theoracle** » Fri May 04, 2022 10:05 am

We live rurally and it is not an issue here - there is only 1 choice, a catholic national school and nothing else so they can't really go and reject you as there are no other options available (except home schooling of course).

Emme · by **Emme** » Fri May 04, 2022 11:42 am

Thanks girls...seems it's down to the school and principle.

BusyDee · by **BusyDee** » Fri May 04, 2022 5:28 pm

Not baptising and there is no ET school in my area and there are no plans for one at the moment.

I doubt it will be an issue with the local catholic schools, i must inquire.

Elphaba · by **Elphaba** » Fri May 04, 2022 9:24 pm

We're going through this too right now, we didn't marry in a Catholic Church so at least we don't have to explain to people. We have a Christian Gaelscoil which welcomes children of all faiths. 2 ET's, 1 Catholic and 1 Protestant school. Fingers crossed we'll get place in the Gaelscoil.

Flower Girl · by **Flower Girl** » Fri May 04, 2022 10:38 pm

I've no kids yet, but this is something I feel really strongly about, as we won't be having our children baptised if we're lucky enough to have them. There probably will be more ET schools around by that stage, but I'm not madly keen on some aspects of the ET model and would much prefer that there was a third (ideally non-denominational) option available...

Sassypants · by **Sassypants** » Sat May 05, 2022 2:43 pm

zoesmama wrote:Our kids go to a Multi-Denom Gaelscoil. They accept children of all faiths and none and there is no priority for any Religion. No religion is taught (as in indoctrinated) in school hours. There are optional (and you pay extra) Catholic classes after school hours. The kids learn about different faiths and have a Religion of the Month so for example this month is Buddhism and they learn about how that faith works and the basic concepts.

Wow, this sounds amazing (and exactly what I'd want for our child). Can I ask where you are ? You can pm me if you'd prefer.

vinoqueeno · by **vinoqueeno** » Sat May 05, 2022 3:00 pm

I think much of this depends on whereabouts you are in the country. In our town there is a large Catholic ethos school, a Catholic ethos Gaelscoil, a Church of Ireland school and there's also a 2nd Catholic ethos school in the parish but it's a smaller country school.

In our school, while it's primarily a Catholic ethos school, we have children attending of many different denominations. Many of the other Christian faiths take part in religion class/join in with prayers in the morning/evening/before lunch but I have taught children in the past who were Jehovah's witnesses and therefore didn't join in with prayers and just read while we were doing religion. There can also be some issues surrounding art class (Christmas/Easter/even Halloween art) or other classes such as history where stories are being taught which have a Christian message in them (e.g. story of St. Patrick) but again for this the child did what she could and then simply picked up her library book and read for the duration of the lesson. So it's not just simply religion classes you need to be aware of of.

I know in our area the Gaelscoil is probably the most oversubscribed and recently there's been a trend to send children to smaller country schools but on the whole there's no enrolling when the child is only a few weeks old and there's no mad rush for places. I would imagine though that every area is different.

As others have suggested, ask for the enrollment policies or even just browse the various schools' websites - often they have their enrollment policies (along with other policies) posted there.

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