Eva is now in second class. AKA ‘Oh lovely, she’s in communion year’.

Except that she’s not making her communion because we are not a religious family.

Yes she’s in an Irish Catholic school BECAUSE THEY ALL ARE (I know, I know, Educate Together are great but not always accessible to everyone) and they are genuinely a super school.

One of the best.

If it wasn’t for the religious aspect.

At age 8, Eva is in that fabulous phase of being curious about everything, reading every book she can get her hands on, making flower perfume, studying nature, wanting to know what the inside of the moon looks like, practising maths – just aching for knowledge.

And she would have acquired considerably more knowledge by now in second class if her teacher didn’t have to task her with making pictures of glowing holy chalices from teeny pieces of yellow crepe paper – y’know, to decorate the parish church.

Today I am told that the entire class went to said church by bus to run through the ceremony and the three kids who won’t be participating in the communion sat at the back of the church with nothing to do. They didn’t even have a book between them.

The saddest part is that there is a library right next door that would have enlightened their brilliant minds with stories and history and art that they didn’t step foot in.

If it is important to you that your kid goes through the motions of making their communion for whatever reasons you hold personal to you, that’s fine, you do that.

But my kid was hoping to go to school to get an education.