St Brigid’s School celebrates ‘hat-trick’ of graduations

By Joanne Jordan, principal, St Brigid’s School, Mullingar

It is hard to believe that I have been principal in St Brigid’s Special School for almost three years now. What is even harder to believe is that this is the first of those three years that we have been able to celebrate our students’ graduation day with any kind of flair. The joys of being a ‘Covid principal’.

Like many of my colleagues across the length and breath of the country who were appointed to principalships just as Covid arrived, it has been an interesting time for school leadership.

There was a wonderful buzz around the school with the build-up to the school celebrations on Friday June 10, and student and staff smiles were to be found on every corridor.

It has been a great privilege to be at the helm at St Brigid’s, even in a pandemic, as it has really shown me the level of resilience and strength of character in our students as they can make the best of any situation and plough on.

We have nine amazing young adults graduating from St Brigid’s this year, and every one has a unique set of skills – but the one thing they all have in common is a passion to succeed.

Every student worked to the best of their ability, both in school and while being taught via remote learning over the last few years.

I have watched both in school and Zoom as the students adapted to the challenging Covid protocols and they constantly found new ways to stay positive.

They are inspiring to say the least.

Ahead of the graduation, the students helped to transform the school PE hall into a banquet room that was fit for royalty.

Art was displayed on the walls, tables were set for fine dining, bunting was strung from wall to wall. Flowers from the school wild garden adorned every table. It was simply enchanting!

The graduation day was a real display of school community.

Kathleen Wiley, school cook and office worker, assisted by a group of the students, prepped dinner for 68 people. And it was mouth watering!

Kathleen always goes above and beyond for the students and we are deeply appreciative to have her on the staff. Colm, one of our bus escorts, set up keyboard speakers and had the dance floor packed until home time, and many of the teachers ditched the high heels for the flat dancing shoes, me included!

It certainly felt like there wasn’t a trace of Covid and the vibe of celebration and happiness was bouncing off every wall.

Not only were we thrilled to have our students who were graduating and their parents in to celebrate this milestone, it was wonderful to watch parents look on with pride to see their children graduate and be part of the ceremony.

Ms Connolly, Ms Jennings and Ms Butler all had lovely words of inspiration for the students and some funny stories were fondly recalled.

We have great support from parents in St Brigid’s and their children are an absolute credit to them; we thank them for their constant support and for taking the time to join us to mark an important transition.

The day was further enhanced as we celebrated a ‘hat-trick’ of graduates as we had extended an invite to the class of 2021 and the class of 2020 to come in for presentations.

It was a pleasure to present awards to students who had left school in March 2020 for what we believed would be two weeks – this was the first opportunity they had to return.

Congratulations to all graduates in the class of 2022. We wish you every success in the next chapter of your journeys. You will all be deeply missed. Thank you for the great memories.

It has to be said days like Friday would not be possible without the hard work of all the teachers, SNAs, secretary and school staff at St Brigid’s.

There is a great team spirit in our school and I would like to thank all the staff and the board of management for their hard work and commitment to afford our students the best school experience and for helping every young person in St Brigid’s to achieve their true potential.

Being principal of St Brigid’s is truly a humbling and rewarding job, and one that I love.