Sample Letters against Flourish
The Flourish Programme is the new RSE programme designed for Catholic schools, which teaches children RSE from a Catholic lens. This means that it excludes relationships that do not follow the Catholic viewpoint of a relationship, i.e. between the marriage of a man and a woman. There are many other examples in this curriculum that […]
Why Lives Matter
The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag has created much noise on the Internet as Irish people, rightly, are appalled by the shocking coverage coming from America. Some are happy to put black squares as their social media profile to show solidarity and others try to hold a mirror up to themselves to try and be better people. There […]
Why does your Catholic school not teach about same sex relationships in RSE?
There’s a lot of talk about Relationships and Sexuality Education in the news. As anyone who sends their child to a Catholic school knows, teachers are not allowed to teach children the full RSE curriculum. They cannot teach children about same sex relationships or contraception or anything else that goes against Catholic Church teachings. But […]
How do I opt my child out if I didn’t at the beginning?
Some parents don’t opt their child out of religion in Junior Infants. There are a number of reasons for this: Parents believe, even loosely, in the religion of the school Parents don’t know about the right to opt out Parents don’t want their child to be left out at such a young age Parents don’t […]
Things you can do with your opted out child during Communion
Your kid is the only one opted out in 2nd class. The rest of the class are talking about how wonderful it will be to be united in a special way with Jesus Christ, sharing in the body and blood of Christ the Saviour. In reality, most of them will be talking about how much […]
What does the enacted Admissions Bill mean for Catholic primary schools?
The Admissions Bill (2018) was paused last year by the Minister for Education stating workload for schools the reason for not fully enacting the Bill, which supposedly ended the so-called Baptism Barrier in primary schools. While still a very fraught and flawed Bill, which still allows schools to discriminate on the basis of gender and […]
Is it ok for a school to ask for your religion?
Before the Admissions Bill came into practice, all denominational schools were allowed to prioritise enrollment applications from families of the same religious belief as their school’s patron. Put simple, Catholic schools could prioritise Catholic children over non-Catholic children. In order for schools to be able to do this, they would ask for a Baptismal Certificate […]
We’re Open to Everyone
Almost 18 months after launching Opting Out, it is time to open the site to everyone. We gave exclusive use of Opting Out to primary schools to show how they accommodate families and staff who do not share the same belief system of the school’s ethos. I set 3 deadline dates for schools to avail […]
Principal hid his beliefs
‘For the first time in nearly forty years I could openly admit that I didn’t believe in God’, reads the headline of an article in the Journal.ie. Retired principal, Peter Gunning felt he had to hide his beliefs from his school community. Read the full article by the clicking on the link below. What would […]