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.

🤣🤣🤣🤣love it!!

So why enrol your child in a christian school?

I'm not a Christian - I also tend to follow the pagan festivals, surely I could argue it's a sad state of affairs if children don't know the pagan meaning behind Easter 🤷

In a non religious household why would it come up? Small children make bonnets and fluffy chicks and look forward to the Easter bunny bringing chocolate.
Its not a natural thing to say "You do realise that Easter is actually a festival celebrating the resurrection from the dead of Christ after he died for our sins so we might all have everlasting life", is it?
I mean its not like the baby Jesus, donkey, manger story thats easy to tell and understand. I assume school would cover it as part of education on religion in general, but its not one I'd be dropping into conversation.

We should do away with easter, this is no longer a christian country so it's absolutely pointless.

Instead call it spring holidays. get rid of Good Friday and add a bank holiday maybe sometime in October.

@Tuliptana

YANBU, but many posters on here won't agree with you, because there tends to be an anti-Christian vibe on here from some ......

And yes, it is a sad state of affairs.

You never said it was a Christian school.
I'm suprised it hadn't been taught then.
Assemblies and in RS lessons.
Blame it on poor teaching from the school if that's the case.

Are you in Ireland or the uk? Sometimes people have little choice in the school they enroll their children in. And believe it or not sometimes people choose to enroll their children in a school because they have a good reputation not because of their religious ethos… in many schools, including Irish catholic schools they now accept children of any faith and will accept that they will not partake in religious activities. Do you know why?…because the schools can’t afford to be that choosy. Lots of people immigrate from other countries and other cultures for a myriad of reasons, so the chances are in a class of 24 there may well be somewhere between 6-10 children of different faith. And I say that as a born and bred Roman catholic.

A lot of the population are non-believers, so for them Easter is about chocolate and time with family. Why you would make a judgement about that, but then ask people not to judge your beliefs is beyond me.
Each to their own, live and let live.

As an aside, even families who do believe often find the story of the crucifixion a difficult one to talk to children about without scaring them.

Why would people want an extra day off in boring October?

I think that rather proves the OP's point. Whether you are religious or not, I think knowing the origins and significance of Easter, Christmas, Lent etc (as well as those of other world religions) is an important part of both general knowledge and the background to UK, Scottish, European whatever culture. All totally at remove from what you personally believe. Literature, history, history of Art, politics...all linked.

Well its just emblematic of the declining trend in religiosity including Christianity. Long may it continue.

In a Catholic school is most certainly does

Because it’s a good school

You've said you are in Ireland.
Do you know how little Non Denomination schools or Educate Together schools there are? I would need to drive an hour to get my kids to a Non Denom school... and that has only just switched to Non Denom in 2025. Prior to that it was a Catholic School.

When my stepson started primary there were none on our county / within an hours drive. He went to the local national school and didn't do Religion. Out of 17 in his class... 5 didn't sit Religion.

Why is it a sad state of affairs? Would it be equally sad if kids didn't know about Diwali or Eid etc? Imo, parents should teach their children to respect the fact that people have different beliefs etc, but I don't think they need to teach them about religious myths that they don't believe in.

Children from practising Christian families will know, because the religious holiday will obviously have particular meaning or significance for them.

For children growing up in families which are of a different religion or no religion, it isn't really very important. I mean, obviously it would be good for them from a general knowledge perspective to have a basic understanding of the history of Easter, including its origins in pagan and Jewish traditions as well as the Christian stories/beliefs etc, but surely all children attending mainstream schools will get a basic grounding in each of the major world religions in any case?

Well yes…

High time the Easter closing rule was revisited. There’s probably a sizeable proportion of the population who would like to celebrate Spring with a trip to a nursery and then the remainder of the day gardening - because of their anomalously large size even small local nurseries can’t open.

Down with Easter!!!

availability, academic outcome, increase of parental choice?

Oh dear, some pretty negative views here it seems.

Why do you think the whole story is "ghastly" ? Or an "ugly old wives tale" ?

So does your family not take Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday as holidays and go to work on those days? 🙂

Easter comes from Ostara, the pagan spring festival. We teach our children about the equinoxes and how they link to Christmas/Yule/winter festival and Easter/Ostara/spring festival. At autumn they know when the equinox is, they know about Ohigan, Mabon, day of the dead and Samhain, that there is spiritual significance at each of the season changes. Specifically at Easter we explain that eggs and bunnies represent new life that comes in spring and predates the Christian version of Easter, but that some people believe that the Christian celebration is the original and only thing to celebrate. Personally I find it unreasonable that schools don't teach the pre-christian seasonal festivals.

Well, yes, it would be surprising in a Catholic school if the school had failed to impart even the most basic understanding of Catholic beliefs, but then, why blame the parents? Some of them are probably sending their kids to a Catholic school in the hope that the schools will teach them all of that. Then again, some of them may have chosen a Catholic school for entirely non-religious reasons.

If they’re in a Christian school, then surely the school would’ve done its part, particularly by y4. Do you judge the school too? Or maybe kids are doing that thing kids do and forget stuff that isn’t relevant (in their opinion)?

I’m not religious, but I (and their school) did tell my kids what Easter represented to some.

How can it be a "good school" IYO, if it's teaching them stuff you don't like/want them to know about ?