How does the Irish middle class compare to ours

[Norfolker]

My sister in law is from the Republic & she says the class system in Ireland is there but less obvious than ours.. Not as many private schools but more subtle markers.
She also thinks their state education system is far superior so private schooling is unnecessary. Any Irish on here want to elaborate? I found it interesting.
YABU there is no difference between UK & ROI. Exact same class system no difference in markets.
YANBU different traits contribute to the Irish middle class system

Can someone please explain what transition year is please. Also the education together primary schools. Are these fee paying? How do education together compare to the Irish speaking schools? Are they as desirable & as good academically as the Irish language schools?

To be honest, we're not the only nation that the UK doesn't learn about.
Hopefully they will soon forget that Ireland even exists - they've pretty much done that with the part that they own!

As far as I can tell from talking to British people, Ireland is not mentioned on the UK curriculum.

TBH, I took history at GCSE (ie. we could give it up at 14 if we wanted). Prior to that, history for me (30 years ago) was more about vikings/exciting stuff in primary, then 'the victorians', 'the feudal system' and 'major inventions'. I think I did something on WW1 in English Lit. but history was both very focused, rather than general knowledge, and concentrated more on teaching us research skills (sources, writing essays etc.) rather than actual history.

I wonder how many people in Ireland have inherited generational wealth going back centuries.

Can't your sister in law explain all of these things @Norfolker? I'm not entirely sure of the actual purpose of this thread anymore. Or indeed from the very start

If you studied it properly you should know that there was actually no famine. A famine is where there is no food, there was plenty of food, it just was kept from the people who needed it, purposefully. British landowners continued to have a rich and varied diet as their tenants starved to death outside, and they continued to export vast quantities of food

Yes but as we've learned today...it was all about expansion and progress

@Norfolker

Can someone please explain what transition year is please. Also the education together primary schools. Are these fee paying? How do education together compare to the Irish speaking schools? Are they as desirable & as good academically as the Irish language schools?

Transition year is a year after Junior Cert (GCSE) where students study core subjects, but they also explore things like Media, Drama, Techie Stuff, put together a mini-business enterprise, make drones, do work experience, all that sort of shite. It's a year for them to explore their interests outside of academia and before they knuckle down to the final 2 years studying for their Leaving Certificate.

Educate together is non-denominational . They are not fee paying.

Irish language schools tend to attract a better sort of student, but they are non fee-paying too.

Academically, I have no idea - I suspect that there is little difference between traditional, ET or Gaelgoir schools.

There are lots of people in the UK who will say they learned history in the UK that doesn’t explore things in the way that, for example Irish history in Ireland does. We don’t even have that connection to our own history as so much of it about Tudors, etc - we are taught, on the whole a very dry, removed curriculum (imv).

I apologise for steering too much of topic but some of this is unnecessary .

@Norfolker

Can someone please explain what transition year is please. Also the education together primary schools. Are these fee paying? How do education together compare to the Irish speaking schools? Are they as desirable & as good academically as the Irish language schools?

Educate Together schools aren't fee-paying. It's an alien notion to me and a very anxious, culturally-English, Ofsted-report thing to be even thinking in terms of whether their education is 'better' than gaelscoileanna.

They're secular, state, non-parish-based, co-ed schools. No God, no uniforms, often a mildly hippy child-centred ethos. Started in the 70s with one school in suburban Dublin founded by parents.

Someone up the thread described them as targeted by socially-aspirational parents, but I genuinely don't see that at DS's school, which has a real social and ethnic mix. I like its ethos, I like the lack of fuss about uniform, I like the fact that the children can show up with blue hair and dressed like Helena Bonham Carter if they feel like it.

Can someone please explain what transition year is please
It's a year between junior cert (GCSE level ish) and Leaving cert (ALevel ish) where you do less academic work and more work experience, civic and social education, group projects etc. Its meant to make for a more well rounded person.

Also the education together primary schools. Are these fee paying?
No, they are non-denominational

How do education together compare to the Irish speaking schools? Are they as desirable & as good academically as the Irish language schools?

Yes, they are great. All schools are pretty great, we don't have the hierarchies of schools like in the UK where some are terrible and some are fantastic. Its more about ethos but to be honest, the days of catholic nonsense running through everything is long gone in most national schools, which are nominally catholic.

@NothingIcando

Yes but as we've learned today...it was all about expansion and progress hmm

I am of Irish descent. At no point did I say I thought this.

Can someone please explain what transition year is please. Also the education together primary schools. Are these fee paying? How do education together compare to the Irish speaking schools? Are they as desirable & as good academically as the Irish language schools?

No, not fee paying - although you pay for schoolbooks and normally make a yearly contribution (I pay about 400/year contribution, and about 200/year in schoolbooks).

The one thing my relative said when she heard we were moving here (she was a primary school teacher in Ireland before she retired) was not to send them to an educate together - they don't have a great reputation, although I don't really know why. There are tales of 'Winterval' rather than Christmas etc. which I don't think are true, my feeling it that they just don't do the religious stuff like confirmation that the catholic ones do (my friends tell me even the non-catholic kids get involved with confirmation at their catholic schools).

The Irish medium schools are another thing all together - I'm afraid I don't know if there are Irish medium Educate Together schools.

I apologise for steering too much of topic but some of this is unnecessary.

What is unnecessary exactly?

LadyfromtheBelleEpoque I am Irish. I was being sarcastic.

The one thing my relative said when she heard we were moving here (she was a primary school teacher in Ireland before she retired) was not to send them to an educate together - they don't have a great reputation, although I don't really know why. There are tales of 'Winterval' rather than Christmas etc. which I don't think are true

You don't think there might be the teensiest bit if bias going on if she was a retired teacher from a much more regimented and uniformed environment?

I have an aunt who is in her late 70s now, also a retired French teacher from a convent secondary, and she can't get past the fact that the children at ET schools call the teachers and Head by their first names. That to her is 'disrespectful', as if the lack of the kind of horrifying royal-blue gabardine pinafore, blouse and tie we were forced into in the 80s.

And the 'Winterval' thing is just the same tired old guff that used to go on annually in the UK about 'Muslims cancelling Christmas'.

I’ll leave you be, guys. You make everything so fucking difficult. It was a discussion about different systems that I have some experience so I thought I could contribute but I’m out.

@LadyfromtheBelleEpoque

I’ll leave you be, guys. You make everything so fucking difficult. It was a discussion about different systems that I have some experience so I thought I could contribute but I’m out.

Go n-eirí an bóthar leat!

@LadyfromtheBelleEpoque

I’ll leave you be, guys. You make everything so fucking difficult. It was a discussion about different systems that I have some experience so I thought I could contribute but I’m out.

I can’t work out the Irish humour. I always feel I am being told off or shouted down or that I am being argued with just because I am English then people say it’s humour yet if I do it back there is rage and fury.

@LadyfromtheBelleEpoque, this is you apparently genuinely wondering why you couldn't 'work out Irish humour' from earlier on the thread. In the nicest possible way, it's not a clashing sense of humour that's at fault here. You need to read the room, listen and be less arrogant. If you come across like this in person, I'm not surprised you're consistently met with negativity.

was not to send them to an educate together - they don't have a great reputation, although I don't really know why. There are tales of 'Winterval' rather than Christmas etc. which I don't think are true, my feeling it that they just don't do the religious stuff like confirmation that the catholic ones do (my friends tell me even the non-catholic kids get involved with confirmation at their catholic schools)

Yeah, none of that's true. ET schools are great, oversubscribed and have a great reputation, Winterval is not a thing, and there are loads of non-Catholics in catholic schools who don't do any of the sacramental gubbins

I’ll leave you be, guys. You make everything so fucking difficult. It was a discussion about different systems that I have some experience so I thought I could contribute but I’m out

Well you started off by saying that English people knew loads of Irish history but pretended not to....so it was never going to go well after such bollocks!!

Belle I understood you to be talking about why some British people don't have or pretend not to have or have but think it's fine view of British history. You didn't say that was your own opinion.

@LadyfromtyeBelleEpoch was that a collective 'you'..as in 'you Irish' make everything so fucking difficult?..nice!

Or were you directing that at one particular poster?

@caperplips

It was directed at the people who were responding a certain way to my posts.

@Apileofballyhoo

Which I am sure you are well aware of.

I’m sorry @Pile but I don’t quite understory post.

Understand

@SkylightAndChandelier

Can someone please explain what transition year is please. Also the education together primary schools. Are these fee paying? How do education together compare to the Irish speaking schools? Are they as desirable & as good academically as the Irish language schools?

No, not fee paying - although you pay for schoolbooks and normally make a yearly contribution (I pay about 400/year contribution, and about 200/year in schoolbooks).

The one thing my relative said when she heard we were moving here (she was a primary school teacher in Ireland before she retired) was not to send them to an educate together - they don't have a great reputation, although I don't really know why. There are tales of 'Winterval' rather than Christmas etc. which I don't think are true, my feeling it that they just don't do the religious stuff like confirmation that the catholic ones do (my friends tell me even the non-catholic kids get involved with confirmation at their catholic schools).

The Irish medium schools are another thing all together - I'm afraid I don't know if there are Irish medium Educate Together schools.

In my daughter's ET school they had organised extra curricular classes in religious prep in communion year. I thought that was a good thing. Although I suppose you could turn that on its head and say why don't they do the same for kids of all other religions! Love the ETs we've dealt with, so much better than my experience in Catholic schools.