‘I loved every day that I came to school. I never felt like I was doing a day’s work’

AFTER a teaching career spanning 45 years all of which was spent in Meath, proud Galway man Cóilín Ó Coigligh has retired as principal of St Mary's Convent Primary School in Trim.

A native of Gort, Cóilín took up his first teaching role in Rathfeigh NS in 1978 and became deputy principal the following year before being appointed principal of the school in 1983.

After 20 years as a teaching principal in Rathfeigh, Cóilín moved to St Mary's Trim to become an administrative principal in 1998 and has been there ever since.

There was a week of events at St Mary's to mark Mr O Coigligh's retirement and pay tribute to him including a maroon and white day in the school on Wednesday, prayer services, rounders matches and Halloween fancy dress with the week culminating in a whole school assembly on Friday and a retirement function that night in Royal Tara Golf Club.

Cóilín recalled how he first came to Meath to take up a job in Rathfeigh NS in July 1978 and had many happy years there. "My first two years, Mrs Lydon was principal who was also from Galway and a native Irish speaker and we got on really well. When she retired, Sean Dempsey, another man who was fond of the Irish, took over and he was there until 1983 as principal. Then he moved to Trim and I got the principalship in Rathfeigh."

A small rural school, there were just three teachers when he started in Rathfeigh but a rise in numbers saw the school increase to six teachers by the time he left in 1998.

"It was a lovely place to work. There is a great community in Rathfeigh. They were very supportive and very much behind the school. I always felt very supported there and loved my time there."

He told how during his time in Rathfeigh, they established a rounders team, which grew into a rounders club for the area with several different age groups getting the chance to play in Croke Park and from there rounders also spread to a lot of different schools in Meath. They also had a very successful community games in the early eighties.

Cóilín loved the school but felt it was challenging to balance teaching duties with the responsibilities of also being principal.

"It was challenging to have to teach a class and run a school. When I got the job in Trim, I didn't have any classroom responsibilities. No matter how many hours I spent- and I spent long hours working on the principalship - still you were left with a lot of guilty feelings about not looking after your class if you had to do some admin during class time".

Cóilín also took a break from teaching in Rathfeigh to teach in Saudi Arabia from 1992 to 1996. He said it was very different and very challenging and after the four years, he was ready to come home and missed Rathfeigh.

Cóilín went for the job of principal of St Mary's Convent School, Trim, and was delighted to be appointed in April 1998 and became the first lay principal in the school's history, taking over from Sr Paul.

"The minute I walked into the school, there was always a lovely atmosphere. The Sisters of Mercy had run the school for over 100 years and did a great job. I remember the shine on the floor and how well kept the place was. There was a lovely caring atmosphere here," said Cóilín recalling his first impressions of the school.

At that time there were two nuns still teaching staff and his two predecessors- Sr Paul and Sr Claude - are still involved in the school and come to visit and take part in events such as Mercy Day which is celebrated in September, prayer services and graduations.

As the first lay principal, Cóilín said he didn't find it challenging other than that he was anxious to continue to good work that was going on in the school.

"Going forward, it was in my mind to keep going what was already here, that was the challenge because what was here was really good and I was anxious it would continue to be so. The staff were always very caring and there was always a good ethos in the school. The pressure or challenge was to continue that."

Since Cóilín first arrived in St Mary's, the school has grown from having 25 teachers to 35 as the population increased. Up until 2010, the school was split with some classes still taught in the old school building across the road.

"In 2010, we built a large extension here of eight classrooms and a hall and then everybody could be on the one campus.

"We had two other extensions since that. One last year and one in 2013. In 2013 we got a new additional educational needs room and two new classrooms and last year, we got three additional educational needs room and one new classroom."

St Mary's has two of only three classes in the county for children with speech and language disorder, the other being in Navan. Cóilín explained that children from all around the county attend these classes. It is a joint project with the HSE and Department of Education and has been in existence for about 27 years.

Also during his time at St Mary's Cóilín undertook a fellowship programme in 2010 where he essentially swapped jobs with a school principal in Koroit in Australia, a town about three hours west of Melbourne. Cóilín took over Mark Maloney's job and Mark came to St Mary's for a year.

"It was absolutely fantastic, life changing. To work in a another system, to see how other countries do it and to see how well funded the Australian system was. There were a lot of new initiatives in Australia. And the Australian principal went back with new ideas as well, so it was a win win for both schools.

One of the challenges for any principal in Ireland is to balance the books and manage the school on the funding allocated by the Department of Education and Cóilín feels primary education is poorly funded in terms of the capitation grant which is calculated per pupil.

"The capitation grant was frozen for many years after the downturn in 2007. There is an additional complication now. It is fantastic in the last few years that the department has reduced the pupil-teacher ratio and that is the single most important thing they have done for primary education in the last four or five years but that creates a knock-on effect because the amount of money we get is per pupil and now we have less pupils in the classes with the same number of teachers but we don't have as much money as we had when there were larger numbers in the class. Reducing the pupil teacher ratio has been a boon but they didn't financially compensate for the losses," said Cóilín.

The reduction in pupil teacher ratio meant that St Mary's went from having around 620 pupils to 560 pupils so the capitation grant also reduced as there were less pupils but the school still had the same overheads.

As Cóilín prepared to finish up in St Mary's, he said: "I loved every day I came in here. I never felt like I was doing a day's work. There were plenty of challenges, but it was a lovely place to work. I have always enjoyed it. I always felt supported by the staff and by the community and the kids are great kids. It was a good gig."

After 45 years in teaching, he said it was "very bittersweet" to be finishing up.

"I had some very very happy days here in St Mary's and also in Rathfeigh. I was lucky to work in two fabulous schools and I have very fond memories of both schools. Teaching and principalship were my life and I like to think that I gave it my best. It is going to be hard not to be involved but I know I made the right decision. It is time for me to move on. I will be moving on with sadness for what I can no longer do but I will bring an awful lot of happy memories with me also."