25 Myths About Multi-denominational Education

There are so many rumours and myths about multi-denominational schools, Educate Together ones in particular, it really was no surprise, to me, why many parents, even if they reject the tenets of the Catholic faith, will prefer a Catholic school to a non-Catholic one. I thought it would be interesting to list the myths I have heard over the years about them. Some will require a bit of explanation, and others, let’s just say speak for themselves.

1. Multi-denominational schools don’t celebrate Christmas, Easter, Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, etc.

Celebrate is an interesting word. Most children that think of Christmas think first about Santa and presents. With Easter, it’s likely chocolate eggs that come first. St. Patrick’s Day is all about a parade. None of these are particularly religious in nature and most Catholic schools are happy to oblige. However, on top of this, they add in the birth and death of Jesus Christ, and St. Patrick bringing Christianity to Ireland. This, genuine Catholics would argue, is the celebration, not the sparkly lights and floats along the main street. Celebrations can mean different things to different people in the very same school.

When Educate Together schools and Community National Schools mark Christian festivals, such as Christmas, Easter and St. Patrick’s Day, they do so in a slightly different way. Because these schools recognise that their classes consist of children from a variety of backgrounds, they generally do their best to be inclusive. Christmas should be no more celebrated than Chanukah or Kwanzaa or Yule, for example.

However, recognising that there is a tradition of festivities and celebrations around December time for a number of different belief systems, often you’ll find festivals of light or winter concerts around Christmas time, which to most cultural Catholic eyes is no different to what they see as Christmas. No, there shouldn’t be a nativity play but there will be happy songs and poems and plays in almost all schools. What Educate Together and Community National Schools do is they teach the religious aspect of the festivals in an objective way.

In other words, rather than stating to the children “we all believe that Jesus was born in a manger,” they will talk to children about what Christians believe and they will go further and ask the children about their own experiences.

You may have noticed I hadn’t mentioned Halloween. Hilariously, despite the schools warning that this festival would also disappear, it isn’t even a Catholic festival! In any case, most schools mark the final day of the autumn break with a dress-up day.

Just in case you were wondering, if you check out many St. Patrick’s Day parades around the country, you’ll likely find an Educate Together or Community National school in it.

2. There will be no Grandparents’ Day

Grandparents’ Day has become one of the highlights of Catholic Schools’ Week in the annual calendar. In case you may have missed it, yes, even though every week is Catholic Schools’ Week in Catholic schools, some time in January, every year they have a dedicated week to Catholicism. If that doesn’t make sense, don’t worry, it doesn’t. Each day of the week is themed in some way around prayer, participation and mission, and the Wednesday is generally the day where children’s grandparents join their class. It usually consists of a special assembly, which is either an actual Mass, or some sort of religious ceremony. As everyone knows, old people love religion, or so goes the thought process, I imagine.

Naturally nobody gives a single thought to the non-Catholic grandparents who, of course, are welcome to join in the Catholic worship.

Catholic Schools’ Week, not coincidentally, I believe, started in Ireland in 2012, shortly after the Forum of Pluralism and Patronage came into being. Much like Christians robbed pagan festivals such as Yule and Imbolc and turned them into nearly identical festivals, respectively Christmas and Easter then added Jesus into the mix, Grandparents’ Days have existed in schools far longer than Catholic Schools’ Week. In fact, you can go back to 1965 when Poland first celebrated Grandparents’ Day and in 1966 Japan followed suit. If you do an Internet search for grandparents day, you’ll find dozens of countries around the world that have been celebrating the day. Our nearest neighbours in the United Kingdom introduced it in 1990.

Long story short, without Catholic schools, Grandparents’ Days would continue as they did before Catholic Schools’ Week came along. The only difference would be that everyone would be treated with equal respect. Many multi-denominational schools celebrate Grandparents’ Days at different times of the year.

3. Due to having no uniform, children’s safety on school tours will be compromised

This is probably one of the myths that speaks for itself in terms of nonsense. As I discussed in my podcast on uniforms, many parents try to find any reason they can to justify children being forced to wear a tie and polyester trousers. Rather than simply admit that having a uniform is one less decision to have to make in the morning, they invent all sorts of daft ideas.

As we know, Educate Together schools don’t have uniforms but Community National Schools do. This breaks the argument immediately but it does feel like arguing the point is like that cliché of wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty but the pig likes it. Although I always wonder how these parents are able to get a muddy uniform clean and dry the day after their child rolls around on the grass on a muddy day. Anyway, a total of zero children have been lost on school tours in Ireland due to lack of uniform. I actually can’t believe this has genuinely been put down as a reason not to divest.

4. Children will not be able to greet each other in Irish

Dia duit! Yes, some have tried to argue that if a Catholic School tried to divest to a multi-denominational provider, because Dia Duit translates to God be with you, these new schools would be unable to say hello to each other. Even worse, Dia is Muire duit translates and God and Mary be with you. The mad thing is this wasn’t the first time I’ve heard this argument. I have genuinely been asked how do the children say hello to each in Educate Together schools.

Although this is another argument that speaks for itself, I will make two points. As you know, I went to a Jewish school and when we learned how to say hello in Irish, there was no issue with Dia is Muire duit even though Jewish people don’t worship Mary. Secondly, the English word goodbye is a contraction of God be with ye but, funnily enough I’ve yet to hear that word being used in their ridiculous argument.

5. The school would have to change its name

Most Catholic schools in Ireland are either named after the townsland that they are situated. For example, Adrigole National School is in Adrigole near Bantry in West Cork. If this school was to divest to a Community National School, its name would change to Adrigole Community National School. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

However, in bigger places, where there might be more than one school in a town, they often are named after saints. Using Malahide as an example, if St. Oliver Plunkett National School had changed to the same patron, it’s most likely it would be called Malahide Community National School. Oddly enough, this seems to be unacceptable.

Parents don’t seem to be too bothered about changing their school’s name when, for example, The Archbishop McQuaid national school in Loughlinstown was renamed to St Columbanus National School after the Murphy Report was published. Funny that.

6. All teachers would lose their jobs and would have to reapply for them

This was simply nonsense. For proof, we only have to look at the schools that already had reconfigured from Catholic patronage to a new patron body. A number of small schools were taken over by the Community National School, around the country, the first in Kerry in 2016, and all staff remained in their jobs. In 2022, Nenagh became the first town where one of its big schools reconfigured to the Community National School too. Again all the staff remained in their positions without any change to their seniority.

7. Educate Together schools don’t teach Irish

You might be surprised that this is quite a common myth, even among teachers. I have been asked on several occasions whether we teach the subject. I’m not sure where this rumour began but it’s one that persists. Naturally, it’s nonsense. Educate Together teaches exactly the same curriculum as every other school. In fact, there is a Gaelscoil in Cork under Educate Together patronage and there are several Gaelscoileanna teaching Educate Together’s Learn Together ethics curriculum.

Another misconception, which is also popular, and possibly linked to denial and wishful thinking is that most Gaelscoileanna are multi-denominational. In 2022, fewer than 10% of them could genuinely call themselves multi-denominational. In fact, their patron body has decided to go down the same dark road as Educate Together and the Community National Schools did in their early days and segregate children by faith groups during the school day. Their first school of this type was in Tallaght, where Catholic faith formation is taught during the school day and the heathens are shoved off together somewhere else to do god knows what! It’s a model that simply hasn’t worked. Separating children according to the god they believe in not only sounds bad, it is bad.

8. Educate Together schools are for foreigners

This is another one that I find I’m asked about a lot, or there is an assumption that all Educate Together schools are much more multicultural than Catholic schools. Educate Together schools are as diverse as other Catholic schools. Yes, there are some ET schools where there is a high migrant population, for example Bracken Educate Together, which when it opened in an emergency in 2007 due to a lack of school places with over 97% of its pupils from migrant backgrounds. However, there are other schools, where there’s little diversity and then there’s everything in between. Speaking of which…

9. Educate Together schools are white and middle class

and

10. Educate Together schools are for disadvantaged kids

All I need to say here is make up your mind.

11. Educate Together schools are good for kids with additional education needs

I think I can understand where this has come from. Before I tell you, for the record, Educate Together schools are no better for children with additional needs than any other type of school, unless the child doesn’t want to be indoctrinated into a particular faith. All schools technically receive the same lack of supports from the Department of Education and National Council for Special Education, (NCSE.) However, because most Educate Together schools are newer, they have the drawback of receiving fewer resources from the aforementioned agencies thanks to the algorithm that they invented for allocating resources to schools. There’s a full book in that alone so let’s stick to misconceptions about multi-denominational schools!

Despite this, especially in the early years of my school, and other Educate Together principals will tell you the same story, countless numbers of families would come to the school to enrol their child because the “normal” school sent them saying that Educate Together would be better suited to their child. As bad as that is, the rumour stuck so well that educational psychologists used to tell parents to try Educate Together because they are good with special needs.

It’s a very unusual rumour, and in fairness, when it comes to supporting children with additional needs, Educate Together schools do punch above their weight. By 2022, Educate Together schools had the highest per capita number of special classes for autism than any other patron body.

12. There is no discipline or respect in Educate Together schools because of the first name basis

This is another nonsensical allegation that I have heard on more than one occasion. It usually follows this exact conversation:

Person: You’re a teacher, eh? Where do you teach?

Me: I’m in the Educate Together school.

Person: Oh right, what’s the difference between that and a normal school?

(They always say normal school.)

Me: Well we don’t teach just one religion as truth

Person: Proper order. Proper order.

Me: And we don’t have a uniform and everyone calls each other by their first names.

Person: So they don’t call you “sir?” What do they call you?

Me: Simon

Person: And would you have problems then with respect?

Maybe I’m the opposite of old-fashioned, but I don’t think I call anyone by anything except their first name anymore. I call my doctor by her first name. When I’m introduced to a garda, I’m always given a first name. I can’t think of any job where I have had to call someone anything but their first name, except perhaps a priest, though I don’t have many opportunities to meet them.

Being called by one’s first name doesn’t mean one loses respect no more than being called something other than one’s first name means one will gain it, nor deserve it.

13. Parents walk in and out of classrooms in Educate Together schools

If you are a parent, you might read this sentence and think, who has the time for that? The answer to that question is very few people. However, that doesn’t stop the vast majority of teachers asking me how I cope with parents coming in and out of my classrooms because I work in an Educate Together school. It is one of the most successful misinformation pieces spread among students in Teacher Training Colleges, so much so, that they believe that every morning, the average Educate Together teacher is not only teaching her class, but with an audience of parents. I’m often tempted to tell them, when they ask, that we ask one of the children to play the part of the teleprompter so the parents know when to applaud.

This myth has its roots in Educate Together’s ethos. To be an Educate Together school, you need to have four pillars. The school must be:

• Co-educational
• Equality-based
• Child-centred
• and Democratically Run

Part of the democracy strand is that parental involvement is encouraged. That doesn’t mean that the door is open every morning and parents come and go as they please. Educate Together even had to go to the effort of explaining what they meant because the rumours were so ubiquitous. Parental Involvement needs to be meaningful and have a purpose. That means that if a teacher wants some help in the classroom, has an event or wants to do a showcase of the children’s work, parents can be invited into the school. It isn’t a free-for-all; but you knew that anyway.

14. Multi-denominational schools are anti-Catholic / anti-religion

One of my most powerful memories of going to synagogue one day when my dad was leading the service. It was an ordinary enough evening with the usual prayers. My dad used to like ad libbing the tunes of some of the prayers’ songs, perhaps adding an extra trill or changing the tune ever so slightly. Over the years, some of his efforts stuck and I always wondered if anyone else noticed in the congregation or was this evolution in action? Anyway, near the end of this particular service, a man at the back of the synagogue shouted out at the top of his voice: “There is no God.”

I’ve spoken to you earlier about not being anti-religion. I describe myself as a lazy atheist. I don’t care what people do in their own time as long as it doesn’t affect me. Because the education system systematically affects my life and that of my families, that’s why you’re reading this. I’m not writing a book about the removal of religion from society because whatever people believe is their own business.

What that man did in the synagogue that evening was not ok. Yes, to my 10-year old mind, it was very funny and we got a lot of mileage out of it for months afterwards; and no, it didn’t set the wheels in motion for my own rejection of a god. It wasn’t ok because almost everyone in the synagogue was freely practicing their faith and they were there by choice. The entire purpose of the synagogue was for the collective worship of the members of the community. Nobody had to go to the synagogue. Rightly so, the man was ushered out of the synagogue and I can’t remember whether we ever saw him again. I know I don’t need to add the fact that he wasn’t murdered. I presume he was simply told not to come back again.

I think people believe multi-denominational schools are anti-religion because, for some reason, they have been placed as being the opposite of denominational schools. Therefore, the assumption might be that because they are “pro” one religion, that the multidenominational schools must be “anti” religion.

To be fair, there are a lot of people that are anti-religion and they believe they should ridicule it at every opportunity. There is a lot of truth in the joke of how can you tell a man is an atheist? Don’t worry, he’ll tell you. If one is raised in a particular faith and then one rejects that faith, it is perfectly normal to go through a phase of being angry about it. It’s quite natural to want to tell the world about your discovery that there is no god. However, after a while, you get to realise that it doesn’t really matter. If somebody feels they should bathe themselves in milk every evening before bed to please their god, it really makes no difference to anyone else.

Perhaps the anti-religion allegation comes from a different place. Most likely it probably comes from people like me wanting a separation of church and State. In other words, we want religious indoctrination removed from schools. Again, this isn’t anti-religion. At best it could be argued that it is anti-“one religion.” For whatever reason there seems to be a presumption in Ireland that we are a very Catholic country, despite the fact that we are supposed to be a secular republic, albeit with a Catholic history.

However, even this doesn’t check out. Ireland’s population of Catholics in 2021 barely scraped the top twenty countries with the greatest proportion of people that identified as Catholics. We drew in 20th place with Lithuania at a lowly 78.2% of our population. Seven European countries are ahead of us, just in case you were thinking, and I’m excluding Vatican City from that.

It is important to remember that the only difference, in reality, between a denominational and a multi-denominational school is that the former worship one deity more than the latter.

I see an important role for religion in primary schools. Religious literacy, to me, is as important as media-literacy, internet safety and any other aspect of the curriculum. The fact is that around 85% of the world’s population profess to have a faith. Christianity, Islam and Hinduism are the three most practised faiths in the world, representing around 70% of the world. Atheists or those unaffiliated with a religion make up 15% of the world. With this in mind, it would be stupid to not teach children about the religions of the world and that’s what happens in multi-denominational schools. In fact it could be argued that denominational schools are more anti-religion than multi-denominational schools because the vast majority of Ireland’s schools only teach about a religion practised by under 18% of the world, whereas multi-denominational schools cover over 90% of religions. Anti-religion? I think we may put that one to bed.

15. Catholic schools are good schools

I’ve never had a chance to go on the radio to debate against David Quinn. If you pay as much attention as I do to radio debates on the role of religion in schools, you know that most of these shows had the same two guests: Michael Nugent, the head of Atheist Ireland; and David Quinn, the founder and director of the Iona Institute. The debate was always the same and never really went anywhere and both parties probably left feeling they had won the argument. I don’t think I’d win a debate against David Quinn but I often imagine what I’d say to him. One of his chief weapons when defending religious-run schools is to point out that Catholic schools are good schools.

He will continue with the line that if you go to any country where there are a minority of Catholic schools, you will find that they are over-subscribed and achieve some of the best results in their prospective countries. He often cites the United Kingdom as his main example. The logic here is that Catholic schools are good schools so other types of schools are not as good. He will be able to show you the data showing OFSTED (the UK inspectorate) reports and so on. Therefore, ergo, he might say, if we stop having Catholic schools, our excellent education system will crumble and no longer be good. While it isn’t said explicitly, there’s a strong inference that our excellent education system is founded on Catholic values.

What isn’t said is why Catholic schools are “good” schools. The majority of minority-faith schools tend to do well academically, especially if the people going to these schools are middle-class. In the United Kingdom, in order to get into a Catholic school, there are obstacles you need to get through in order to enrol. This can be as little as showing proof of attending Mass for several months, or becoming involved at some level in the faith community. Long story short, this advantages people who want something “better” than the state education system. In the United Kingdom, you can simply go to your nearest school, which is likely in your housing estate or you can make a load of effort to play a game to ensure your child isn’t in the same school as children from the estate. Some call it wanting the best for their child. I call it snobbery.

However, Catholic schools in Ireland are the State schools. You don’t have to make any effort whatsoever to get into a Catholic school now that the baptism barrier was moved. Catholic schools, in Ireland, like any schools in Ireland, are generally good schools, or good enough at least. If you compare Catholic schools to all other schools in the country, you’ll find they are average. This is unsurprising given that they have almost a monopoly of the education system.

There is no such thing as a good school in Ireland and it’s a really lazy but dangerous argument.

16. You can’t make Communion or Confirmation if you go to a multi-denominational school

If you are a Catholic child that goes to a Church of Ireland school, the school’s local Catholic parish prepares your child for Catholic sacraments outside of school time. This practice has been happening for decades. I went to a Jewish school and the Catholic children had Catholic faith formation before school and all of them made their sacraments. This is because the Catholic church values its members and even if they don’t go to the schools that they control, they believe it is their right to have the same rites as any other Catholic, or so you would assume.

Generally, this is exactly the case, so why on earth would the Catholic church reject children that go to multi-denominational schools? It may seem like a very obvious thing, but the vast majority of priests believe in their mission. Any priest that refuses to allow a Catholic child make their sacraments because they go to a multidenominational school is not following his mission. Hence why the above myth is a myth.

The truth might be that you can’t outsource your child’s Communion or Confirmation preparation to a multi-denominational school, which is a totally different thing. If you are one of those parents that gives out about a priest forcing your child to attend a certain number of Masses before being allowed to make their sacrament, the problem isn’t the church. Cultural Catholicism seems to be of the opinion that religion should only happen in school and should have nothing to do with the home. A multi-denominational school will not prepare your child for what amounts to a party for many. Perhaps that’s what people mean when they quote that myth.

17. They are all hippies!

Yup, middle-class, disadvantaged hippies that are great with foreigners with special needs. I think that’s the logic anyway.

18. Their teachers aren’t qualified

While it might be tempting to treat this rumour with the same contempt as the previous one, there is a logic to it, however twisted it may seem. You might remember that I mentioned that up until recently, almost all teacher training colleges are controlled by either the Catholic Church, or in one case, the Church of Ireland. It makes sense, therefore, that if one was to be an Educate Together or Community National School teacher that one might have to go to a different college in order to be qualified in their hippy ways. Given that there are no training colleges for these teachers, they must not be properly qualified teachers.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have tried to explain this. It still sounds ridiculous.

19. They have looser teaching methodologies

Speaking of which, this is another common theme when people talk about Educate Together schools in particular. I remember the first time I heard this. I was asked to go on a radio programme to discuss Educate Together as my school was about to open. The programme was all about diversity so I thought I was in for an easy ride, especially as it was a local station, and my warm-up call was very friendly. Everything started well and I talked about the school and explained how it was different to “normal” schools and then I mentioned that we didn’t wear uniforms. I may as well have said that the school was some sort of lawless anarchy. I spent the rest of the interview trying to explain that the school does have rules and that uniforms don’t necessarily automatically acquire respect, as the presenter became more and more exacerbated with me.

I’m genuinely always surprised when people talk to me about my school and talk about how freeing it must be to have looser teaching methodologies. I also wonder what they mean. Do they think we just walk into the classroom in the morning and make things up as we go along?

To be honest, I think when they say looser, they are talking about discipline. Now, I won’t lie. The word “discipline” is not one I like. It offers only Ms. Trunchbull vibes and I don’t know any school, multi-denominational or not, that doles out discipline anymore. However, there is a perception that multi-denominational schools aren’t as strict as religious schools, as if this was a bad thing. Not only is this untrue, because religious schools are nice to children these days too, but it’s a strange thing to hold against a school. Why would anyone want their five-year-old to be sent somewhere to be disciplined, loosely or otherwise.

20. Educate Together schools don’t have Boards of Management and/or their Boards are made up of parents.

If a teacher had a nightmare, it might be about a school where parents ran the place. When a teacher thinks of this scenario, they aren’t thinking about the 99% of parents that are lovely, normal people. They are thinking about the parent that send emails at two o’clock in morning with a follow-up email at nine o’clock the next morning wondering why they haven’t received a reply. They are thinking about the parent who decides the teacher is bullying his child after said child got into trouble and had to write a reflection sheet. They are thinking of the parent that comes to the classroom door every morning as if sending their child into the trenches of a warzone.

When teachers hear the rumour about Educate Together schools having Boards of Managements made up of parents, they are thinking about these parents. While it is illogical in many ways, it is understandable because there are examples of schools where unhealthy conflict has occurred between parents and school staff.

Because, back in the olden days of Educate Together, their schools were generally driven by parents who specifically wanted an Educate Together school for their child, these parents, especially in the early days of a school, tended to be heavily invested in them. Often the first chairperson of the school was a parent that was involved in a startup committee. Often the Parents’ Association is made up mainly of the same cohort. Usually the first principal wasn’t part of the start up and a tension can happen.

These days Educate Together schools are just like every other school in terms of Boards of Management. There are eight people on the board: the principal and a teacher representative; a chairperson and a nominated person who represent the patron; two parents — a mother and a father; and two external community members who should have little to do with the school. Educate Together schools and other multi-denominational patrons are as much at risk of the teachers’ worst nightmare than any other school, and that risk is minimal.

21. There is loads of bullying in Educate Together due to lack of uniform

This is similar to the nonsense about how many children they lose on school tours for the same reason.

22. Children won’t be ready for second level

Educate Together opened its first secondary school in 2011. Before then, the students had to leave the looser confines of their primary school and go into the big bad world of a non-Educate Together secondary school; and the students did fine. You might wonder how I know this.

There were genuine fears from parents when they enrolled their children in Educate Together primary schools about what would happen to them in second level. They felt the ethos of the school might disadvantage them in their perception of what they thought second level would be like. This became so much of an issue that Educate Together felt the need to commission a study on the transition to secondary school for Educate Together pupils compared to those coming from other schools. The result was there was no difference. However, this doesn’t stop many families worrying about it and it doesn’t stop those who benefit from scaremongering by spreading myths about multi-denominational schools.

23. Teachers aren’t paid

I have to confess only one person has ever said this to me. It was my mother-in-law. I don’t think even she believed it when she said it. She has a funny sense of humour.

24. Educate Together schools are woke

Being described as woke is a strange thing these days. In fact, I was called woke today because I said I didn’t believe that school uniforms were a good idea. Who knew that wearing one’s own clothes to school is now considered woke? It’s very hard to define woke because it is now a slur which seems to be used to describe anyone that isn’t anti-migrant or anyone that believes in gender equality or a whole host of other random ideas that follow no rhyme or reason. Seemingly Educate Together schools also fall into this definition.

As with most myths, one can trace the twisted logic that gets one there. The logic appears to begin with Catholic schools being conservative places so therefore they are “not woke.” Given that these people pit Catholic schools against Educate Together, therefore, they must be the opposite of “not woke.”

The truth, of course, is that Educate Together schools are no more woke than any other type of school. And given that the word has lost all sense of meaning, describing any school as woke is just silly.

25. Educate Together schools fly the LGBTQ+ agenda

This is another very recent trope about Educate Together schools. It’s not that Educate Together schools don’t support LGBTQ+ issues, it’s that there is no agenda. Moreover, Educate Together schools aren’t alone in supporting LGBTQ+ issues, lots of schools, whether their patrons like it or not, are proactive in highlighting and teaching about LGBTQ+ issues.

Yes, it’s fair to say, many Catholic schools don’t openly state that they are LGBTQ+ friendly but if you go to a Catholic school, you’ll know that the teachers in the schools do support all children and families. Perhaps, they do it in the shadows much like most things in Catholic Ireland — as long as it isn’t seen, it isn’t happening — but suffice to say Educate Together schools are not alone in ensuring their LGBTQ+ community are safe.

I think the above myth is in line with the woke nonsense I described above.

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You can see, even if they don’t particularly like the denominational system we have, why many people are not keen to change: better the devil you know and all that.

In my opinion, if we are to get anywhere near an alternative to denominational education, we have to tackle the lies and rumours. I find it so disheartening that people I call friends, people I admire, people who are in the education system, can be guilty of assuming some of this nonsense; and when people within the system believe and often speak of them as if they are the truth, how do we expect the general public to think otherwise?