The school system in Ireland has been one of the most different and perplexing things we’ve encountered during our time here! Before moving here, I didn’t even realize Isaac would be going to school — I assumed he would be in preschool for 2 years here and that he would start at the same time he would have back home. I didn’t realize they start school earlier here than in the States, so it was something we ended up having to look into.

The biggest difference right off the bat is that most “public schools” are actually religious: the majority are Catholic, some are other Protestant denominations like Church of Ireland, and a very small percentage in recent years are non-denominational/secular. These non-religious schools, called Educate Together schools, are in very high demand and are super hard to get into — you have to put your name on a waiting list practically from  birth and are still not guaranteed a spot, so we had virtually no chance of getting into one. So our neighborhood “public” options were one Catholic school and one Church of Ireland school, neither of which we were comfortable with. Even if we had somehow decided we wouldn’t mind going to one of those, we most likely wouldn’t have been accepted because we lack the necessary baptism certificate. It’s pretty crazy that you are not guaranteed a spot in your neighborhood school and that priority goes to kids of certain religions over others. It’s a real problem in Ireland — one that is getting more press lately and that they are going to have to address, particularly as the country becomes more and more diverse. Even for families that are Catholic, some are non-practicing or don’t want religious instruction in school, and they often feel pressured to get their kids baptized (when they normally wouldn’t) just to get into school, or else they don’t get their kids baptized on principle and then are discriminated against by not getting a spot in school.

A few other differences from back home, at least in the public schools, are :

• many are separated by gender (boys schools and girls schools)
• most schools require a uniform (including ours, which I actually kind of like as it makes it easier to get kids dressed in the morning)
• I’d say the curriculum and teaching style are much more traditional. Not to say that there’s no creative projects or play, but mainly students are learning to read, write, and do math sitting at desks, from a very young age.

Fortunately for us, we found a really great private school here that has worked really well for our family in terms of not being a religious school. It’s an international school, so most of the families have at least one parent from another country, and it’s a really interesting mix of different cultures. In Isaac’s class, there are kids from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Romania, Hungary, India, the UK, and America. While there aren’t as many local Irish kids to get to know, I appreciate that he’s making friends from all over the world. The other cool thing is it’s a built-in community of expats and other families who are here temporarily like we are, so everyone is eager to meet each other and make friends.

Still, even though it’s a private school and supposedly non-religious (as opposed to the “public” Catholic schools), I’ve been surprised that the school still observes and teaches things from Catholicism. At Christmas, there was the Nativity play and writing letters to Santa, and now this week they were learning the story of Lent and Easter. I don’t know that the school necessarily thinks of this content as “religious” — more that it’s such an innate part of the culture here and is just assumed that everyone observes these. Isaac’s teacher invited me in to teach about Hanukkah back in December, which was nice. Still, even knowing that we are Jewish and me repeatedly talking about how we don’t celebrate Christmas, she couldn’t get over the fact that Isaac doesn’t get presents from Santa. Anyway, it’s just been an interesting adjustment and part of life here. In the States — at least in Seattle — I don’t think it would be tolerated to have religion incorporated in a school that wasn’t supposed to be religious.

In spite of this, I’ve still been really happy with the school and really glad we found an option that works for us! Isaac has been enjoying it for the most part (lately he’s become a little tired of going to school, as it’s a long full day) and has done some great activities there (PE, art, music, dance, field trips) and made some good friends. I’m happy it’s been a place we can all meet other expats and form a sense of community.