To judge parents who do not even tell their children Easter is a religious festival

[Tuliptana]

I'm shocked that 12 out of 20 children in my childs class had no religious knowledge of the meaning of Good Friday or Easter Sunday for Christians.
All aged 9yrs old.

do you really have to ask this in Ireland?

pssst there's fuck all other choices for lots of people because of the way the Catholic Church dominated all aspects of Irish life until a child of generations ago.

you don't get to insert yourself in to every aspect of society, leave little chice for those who want nothing to do with you and then cry hypocrisy at non - believers who want to use publicly funded resources.

wish my area had an educate together school available

I'm sure most children are aware that for a minority of people, Easter is a religious festival, with a rather morbid theme.

For the rest of us it's more a time of feasting, fun and perhaps family get-togethers, similar to Christmas but on a smaller scale.

Even in Ireland, religious belief is in sharp decline, and there's not much point complaining about it.

Because it's their legal right to do so? And the school obviously didn't have sufficient Catholics applying for their children for them to offer places to children of other faiths or of none, so the alternative would have been the entire school closing due to it becoming unsustainable - and your kid potentially being taught a different version of prayers, credo and even the number of books in the bible in a Protestant/Anglican/non faith based school as a result.

Of course, that is assuming that they actually wanted the school and applied for it in the first place, rather than it being the only one with spaces.

I'm surprised at the lack of curiosity of those who watch Easter go by every year, and maybe eat a few chocolate eggs, but who have never wondered what it's about. But I believe that the more you know of history, the better you can understand the present.

No shit, that was nothing to do with what I wrote??!! Secular schools teach RE they learn about all religions my child had a holi festival where they threw paint over each other, he loved it. You can opt for your child to not partake in church or other festivities in secular schools. My point was someone shouldn't send their child to a catholic school and complain its teaching about easter!! That is stupidity.

I'm Irish living in Ireland. the Catholic Church is abhorrent and deserves mockery

I'm sure we've talked about easter with the kids.

But as an atheist family, the Jesus myth has no bearing on our lives whatsoever, so I really don't give a shit if my kids are ignorant of it or not.

There's this amazing thing called Real Life. You should try it sometime.

If you want to know what I've posted about religion, you can advanced search me. I don't name change, it's all there.

Why Eid specifically? I don't mock Easter. I just didn't teach it to my children. Ditto Eid, Diwali, Yom Kippur. They learned some of it at school as part of RE and that was fine.

Criticising religions is something I do, both online and IRL, because all religions bar possible paganism oppress women and persecute gay people. Those are the big two, underneath that there are many other issues that I will call out wherever I find them. I had a boss who was a Hindu - Hinduism has this tradition where there's a period where women have to fast, but men don't. So I asked if there was an equivalent traditional period where men had to fast but not women. There wasn't. I told her I was not OK with that.

I have also had lengthy discussions with both Christians and Muslims about the concept of modest dress and why it should not be imposed (but can be chosen with proper consent). It's perfectly possible to criticise religions without being rude.

I know plenty of Irish people who aren't religious in the slightest

The same issue applies in the UK, though not quite to that extent - there are many places where your only catchment school is C of E. So you're stuck with it, because of the way the system works.

Great, an opportunity to share my favourite Stephen Collins cartoon of all time.

Well I judge parents who indoctrinate their children with religion. I’m also Irish! Our faith and religion have caused nothing but harm to our country and the children of our country

For kids attending a Catholic school, it sounds more like a lack of teaching on it? Surely it's been everywhere in school the past few weeks? But kids in general not knowing? Each to their own, we teach about the tale of Ostara, & why we have depictions of eggs, bunnies, chicks, lambs (fertility, & new life in Spring), and they vaguely know the Christian story of Easter, through picking up bits from other stuff over the years. We aren't Christian, so it only comes up in a similar way to other RE topics.

As an atheist from a NI Catholic family, I agree with this. However, if the OP had been "AIBU to be surprised that 12/20 nine year old Catholic school pupils had no knowledge (etc)" then I would have said YANBU. In fact, I'd be staggered if that's literally true. Religious Education is on the National Curriculum even in state schools so I simply cannot imagine a Catholic primary omitting this stuff.

Who's this 'we'?

It was a festival of springtime long before it was a Christian thing.

Maybe not but it is bonkers complaining about a Catholic School teaching about Catholicism !!

How many non-christian schools do parents have to choose from in the catchment?

'We' is Christians, obviously! We are ALL Christians, didn't you know?

I suppose if you look at the tendency for Catholics to try and blow up Protestants, you could have a point 🙄

My pupils love RE and are very interested in all aspects of the faiths we discuss. I think it makes a huge difference that the majority come from religious homes (approximately 50% muslim, 20% hindu, 10% evangelical Christian, one child of druids) so have a context for the main themes of living with faith which helps them make sense of the belief-systems of others. The ignorant ones tend to be the children brought up in secular families -they're not that interested, as a rule.
I don't have a religious bone in my body, but love teaching RE in a way that gets children asking questions and becoming curious about other people's lives.

I’m in my 30s and don’t know the purpose of Ramadan, what the Eid festivals mean, only vaguely know Diwali is related to light, I know Hanukkah is Jewish and can’t name another non Christian religious festival. Why should 9 year olds know more about my religion than I do at theirs? And I think I’m judging the schools more, I thought religious studies were compulsory so how has this not come up in 5+ years of schooling.

If you don't like it you can always home-school and then you can tailor the course to your own requirements.

I do want to clear up a misconception about religious schools. Unlike secular schools they have to teach RE to GCSE level and learn about other faiths. Of course they do mass and celebrate Christianity as it is a catholic school but they learn more about other religions than a secular school would. You will find that most Catholic schools are actually oversubscribed. It doesn't harm kids to learn about easter or to learn about other peoples beliefs it's better than walking around as an atheist thinking you know more than anyone else and belittling others with faith. Afterall most of us agree living by the ten commandments is a pretty good idea regardless if your a Christian. I don't judge anyones beliefs or lack of, we have freewill to make our own choices. I do get fed up with people being outright rude to Christians though, these threads always end up with insults aimed at us 'sky fairys'. Grow up. (not you another poster)

I'm taking about my children's sister, my daughter, dying, and shortly afterwards the school told my kids that Jesus was so special he got brought back to life, which was confusing and distressing for my kids because they wanted to know why their sister wasn't special enough.

HTH.