The Catholic Church in Ireland has issued new guidelines on inclusion for schools under its management.
Seeking to respond to the state’s Forum on Patronage and Pluralism, which was established to examine primary schooling in modern Ireland, the Church’s Catholic Schools Partnership launched ‘Catholic Primary Schools in a Changing Ireland: Sharing Good Practice on the Inclusion of all Pupils’.
The document offers guidance for schools in welcoming pupils of other faiths and none, while at the same time dealing with how Catholic schools can accommodate such pupils during the teaching of religion. The Catholic Church currently has responsibility for 89% of primary schools in Ireland.
Acknowledging that “the rapidity of social and demographic change in Ireland naturally gives rise to certain tensions and new questions [and] these include issues relating to the inclusion of all pupils in denominational schools”, the document nevertheless defends the place of religion within Catholic ethos schools while urging such schools to both communicate this to all parents “on enrolment” together with “the options the school can provide for children when a request for ‘opt out’ from religious education is made”.
Such arrangements, the guidelines state, may include, for example, “split timetabling of religious education between class streams” or “a parent/guardian absenting the child for the purpose of receiving religiousinstruction elsewhere” or a child “staying within the classroom following an interesting, educationally appropriate and child-friendly activity, where alternative supervision is not feasible”.
Unveiling the new guidelines document, Fr Michael Drumm of the Catholic Schools Partnership said the result of a wide consultation process.
“Given the notable record of Catholic schools in the area of social inclusion, it aims to help schools in developing good practice with regard to religious issues,” he said, adding, “as the Department of Education and Skills has noted, there is no ‘one-size-that-fits-all’ in this regard. Rather schools need to develop policies and practices which address the context of each particular school.”
While ‘Catholic Primary Schools in a Changing Ireland’ was welcomed as “a step in the right direction” by the former chair of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism, Prof. John Coolahan, he also suggested it was a “limited” response to the numerous recommendations made by the Forum, despite the Church’s assertion in the document that Catholic schools “have adapted [and] led the way in integrating migrants into local communities.”
