Primary school traditions in England that are less common in Ireland

[Statsquestion1]

I’ve noticed a lot of differences between primary schools in rep of Ireland and primary schools in England lately that I thought were quite interesting,so far we don’t have;
-residentials
-school fetes
-Easter bonnets
-harvest festival
-SATS

what else do you have in England that we don’t?

I was at school in the 1970s and 80s, and Irish was certainly the language of commands, basic instructions, requests to go to the loo etc throughout my primary years. All that 'Sigh síos', 'Lámha trasna and méar air do bhéal', 'An bhfuil cead agam dul amach?' and 'Tá fáilte romhat, a dhuine uasal' stuff was always through Irish. And prayers. I'm now cheerfully atheist, but will remember the Hail Mary and Our Father in Irish to my dying day.

V ordinary inner city primary.

Yes all schools are different. For example, we didn't have French at all in my primary school.

It's interesting to hear about other schools. :)

Yes as per the last two posters - I was also in school in the 70s and 80s and Irish was used a lot . And still should be .
Which I suppose does make it difficult for non Irish speakers .
However , I do know a number of people who have gotten an Irish qualification in later life so it can be done !

I'm noticing a theme. Did a lot of you go to school in Dublin? I didn't.

Yes, I know a Polish woman who moved here with her Polish primary school teaching qualification and learned Irish from scratch to the stipulated level within whatever period of years you're allowed. (Three?) There's also a Japanese SNA at DS's old primary who appears to speak Irish with a lovely Connacht blas -- DS never had him, but I've just heard him around. Also a trad fiddler.

So there is flexibility within the system.

No, nowhere near.

The other two did.

Good for her. A lot of people struggle. My good friend in secondary school moved to Ireland when she was 12. She also wanted to be a primary teacher but also did not get the required mark in Irish.

No - primary school in Wexford, Kilkenny and Carlow . Anyway , the informal Irish is part of the curriculum and always has been since the 1971 version . It’s not and never was optional or school specific. .

I only know about English schools from Mumsnet but one thing that struck me was that there seems to be a time about what age you start school. So there's a lot of angst about children born in August (maybe?) being very young for the class but it seems like you have to start them anyway?

It definitely was optional Dublassie, seeing as my school didn't do it. I'm sorry but you're being a bit aggressive about this. Why would I lie about it?

Obviously teachers don't stick to every thing on the curriculum. Except when inspectors come out

We have great Halloween festivities in the north of Ireland and St. Patrick’s day. We don’t have Guy Falkes night though………🤣

The rule says a child must be in FT education by their 5th birthday. In theory there are different start dates depending on what part of the year you were born in, but in practice that means most children start school in September aged four and turn 5 during Reception, though they might turn five on September 2nd or not till the following August.

DS is summer born, and while I was oblivious to the angst about it, as he was well able for school, despite having not long turned four, he’s been the youngest in his year by some way since moving to the Irish school system, which is a bit of a pain. In sixth class his best friend had turned 13 several months before DS turned 12. He’s the youngest of 120 kids in his year at secondary.

Respectfully, because you’re complaining about being discriminated against because your Irish was too poor to train as a primary school teacher. Other posters are pointing out that this would have meant you weren’t able to do an important component of the job of a primary school teacher.

Rude. If you care to read back, that is not what I was even talking to Dublassie about. I was talking about how i was taught at my primary school.

To look at your point " my Irish was too poor to be a primary teacher". Again, extremely rude. My Irish wasn't poor from my own fault, I missed out on 3.5 years of learning it. And children learn languages best at a young age.

English schools have really short summer holidays. My primary school in Northern Ireland had 3 months summer holiday, (which was more than some of the other local primaries, but they still had at least 2 months).

The schools in England only seem to get 6 weeks, and the Back to School Ads start as soon as they break up which I find ridiculous, poor children don't get to switch off and relax for the measly 6 weeks they get!

As someone else has mentioned, whole school assemblies, every single day in both primary school and Grammar school, in Northern Ireland was a whole school assembly, they seem to be only an occasional thing in England, but I'm not too familiar with how English schools are to be honest.

I’m not being rude, I’m simply pointing out that if your level of Irish wasn’t enough, after doing Irish from second class through to LC, to get you onto any of the primary teaching training courses, and then you would have been unable to do a key part of your job.

Also, the intake age is different, in England, it's from the age as of 1st September, whereas in Northern Ireland (not sure about the RoI), the eldest in a school year was born on 1st July.

I mean if you think about it, 6 weeks is not short. If I said, I went to Spain for 6 weeks, we would all think it was a long time.

6 weeks just sounds short compared to Irish holidays

Yes but its the system. It could be changed to allow more people to teach primary. A slightly lower grade at Leaving cert, perhaps. Or maybe they could assess a continual grade. The leaving cert is a one off exam with a lot of pressure

I personally find it short, but I was brought up with 3 month summer holidays from school. I used to work during my whole school holidays and earn money, back before child labour was illegal lol.

I live in England at the moment and I still think 6 weeks is too short, one of the (many) reasons we decided not to send our children to school here. There's barely time for a wind down week at home, go visit family, have a family holiday, then it's ramping up to starting back without any more relaxing time or playing out with the neighbourhood children etc. It maybe doesn't feel short to those used to it, or those with local family, but when your family is very spread out across the UK, then there really isn't enough time to visit everyone as well as have relaxing time at home.

Ireland have a very difficult school leaving exam too. In the UK they do three A levels and they can choose what they are interested in.

In Ireland we had to study seven subjects in two years. And English, Irish and maths were compulsory

Another difference is that we don't have strict catchment areas. You apply to as many schools as you like and see which accepts you. And there's not a lot of worry about 'good' schools at primary level, they're pretty much all good I think.

It was an all girls convent school. We did knitting as a subject too, and singing.