I THOUGHT I was a veteran of this first day at school lark, having merrily dispatched two sons on their way without a whimper or a tear. Take a week off work to settle them in? Pah! A day sufficed. I was constantly amazed to see parents in the local shop, crying into the courgettes after the trauma of the drop-off. “Pull yourself together, woman,” I felt like saying. “It’s not as if he’s gone to Liberia. You’ll be collecting him in two hours.”
But this time it’s different. Our youngest boy, Cian, is starting school, and there’s a good chance of tears. Not from him of course.
In fact, there were a few tears already on his last day of playschool. “It’s the end of an era,” I wailed to the Montessori teacher as Cian barrelled into the classroom, oblivious to my distress.
He can’t wait. The schoolbag was bought nearly two months ago, its sole selling point being that it had wheels. He resembled a very short air steward as he spent the summer parading up and down the street, bag in tow. He is particularly excited to be sharing a classroom with a beautiful blonde from playschool because he thinks it will advance his plan to marry her. Unfortunately for him, he gave the barm brack ring to another love interest last year, but intends to retrieve it soon.
I asked his nine-year-old brother if he had any advice for the young one.
“Just keep your head down and stay out of trouble,” he muttered darkly. “And don’t make a show of him by crying,” he warned me, sensing the torrent of emotion waiting to be released.
Whatever happens, I won’t be as bad as a friend who cried every morning for the first few weeks. She cried when she had to leave her daughters in. She cried when they came out after school and she saw their little faces searching the crowd for her. And a new round of tears began a few weeks later when they graduated to forming a “líne” in the yard. “They looked so endearing lining up,” she said, her lower lip trembling suspiciously, several years after the event. “I think I only stopped bawling when we got to Halloween.”
But spare a thought for the junior infants teachers who have to go through this drama every year. One teacher with a classroom of 30 beginners was handed a toilet roll by a mother and told that her child couldn’t possibly go to the bathroom on her own.
Another teacher was given two slices of bread by a mother and asked to toast it for her child, as she wouldn’t eat it any other way.
But my heart goes out to the teacher in the west who was informed by a pupil on his first morning that he had to go to the toilet. He left the room and she thought nothing more of it until he failed to return.
Some time later, the four-year-old turned up on his mother’s doorstep, almost one mile away. He didn’t realise there were toilets in the school and thought he had to go home every time he wanted to use the bathroom.
I promise to contain myself on Wednesday morning and will remind myself that my son is a strapping five-year-old, capable of reducing his bigger brothers to tears with a well-aimed kick. If he was a dog, he'd probably be a grandfather by now. If he was a swallow, he'd have flown across the world several times. But he's my boy and it's my nest he's flying from. With only a wheelie bag and a Toy Storypencil case for comfort.
Oh dear, I’m off again. I could yet be spotted in Super Valu next Wednesday, crying into the courgettes.
'I'll miss the stupid and immature jokes': Making the move from primary to secondary:
Finn Mac Annais moving into secondary school – here are his friends' thoughts:
AFTER EIGHT YEARS of national school, from junior infants to sixth class, seeing each other every school day, you become a sort of pack.
Sure, some of my friends are moving with me, but most are moving to different schools. You can’t move on with everybody but you can still stay in touch (thanks, Facebook).
It’s not just us who are moving on. Our principal, Ms Rumball, retired on the same day as our last day of primary school. And every year, our teachers move on to another bunch of kids.
I’m a bit cautious of secondary school – but if you have a great sixth-class teacher like our Ms Cummins, you should do fine. One thing that has made going to secondary school easier is getting to know new people who are going to the same school that I am. In a way, it’s good that some friends go to different secondary schools – it means you have connections in loads of different places.
It should be fun and challenging, coming from a small sixth class of fewer than 30 to a first year of more than 100. But it’s probably going to take a while to get used to.
We started off as juniors, then we were seniors, and now juniors again. It’s annoying.
Isaac Tompkin Clarke, my friend from sixth class, feels a little differently about it: “I’m worried the ladies won’t be able to keep away.”
I’ve been used to sharing a classroom with boys and girls, but some of us are going on to single-sex schools.
“Going to an all-girls school will be different, but I’m looking forward to the experience. I’ll miss my class and how easy primary was,” says Anna Lambert.
Chris Coogan is going to an all-boys secondary school. He thinks secondary will be better than primary. “I’ll miss getting up to mischief with the ‘boysh’,” he says.
In Chloe Smith’s opinion, secondary school will be new, with too much work and too much homework.
“I’ll miss all the stupid and immature jokes we always had,” she says.
Niall McGurk is the only boy from the class going to his particular secondary school, although his older siblings go there too. He will miss all the guys in the old school but is looking forward to meeting new ones. “It will be weird not being able to name everyone there,” he says.
David Ryan is going to a secondary school without classmates from primary joining him. “I’m very nervous about it because I don’t know anyone there, it will be a challenge,” he says.
Ross Quirke says: “I am looking forward to more sports and new friends, but I am not looking forward to more homework, getting home late, and mean teachers.”
A quote by Greek philosopher Seneca pretty much nails it (I'd put a smiley face here but The Irish Timesdoesn't use them): "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."
