Teachers and parents dish up treats before beginning of Lent

Bhí na múinteorí – agus cuid de na tuismitheoirí – ó Ghaelscoil an Choillín ag obair go dian Dé Máirt seo caite i gcistin a bhí lán le Nutella, uachtar agus marshmallows agus timpeall 200 pancóg.

The teachers, and some of the parents, from Gaelscoil an Choillín, were working hard last Tuesday in a kitchen filled with Nutella, cream and marshmallows and around 200 pancakes.

“Celebrating Pancake Tuesday has become a school tradition now,” said, Trína Ní Nualláin Leas Phríomhoide na Scoile, explaining that the occasion serves both as a fundraiser for the school, and an opportunity to open a conversation about Lent with the approximately 150 pupils who attend the school.

“Some of the staff were up early this morning at four and five o’clock to make loads of pancakes. And the kids absolutely look forward to it, and of course tomorrow’s the start of Lent, so we’re talking about that in school today, and talking about if there is anything that we could do for Lent.”

The history behind Pancake Tuesday was that it was a way of using their flour and eggs and so on before the Lenten fast began, and the school encourages children to think about doing something nice for Lent, such as using kind words in school, or promising to make their beds in the mornings instead of relying on their parents to do it. “Kindness is always the focus anyway, but just like with a camera lens, we are zooming in a little bit more on that during Lent.”

As a Gaelscoil, another focus is, obviously, on the Irish language. The school encourages pupils to continue to use the language outside the classroom, so they use an incentive and reward system to encourage the children to speak Irish while in the school playground as well: “If we hear them speaking Irish, we give them a little token and then at the assembly at the end of the week, the children, who speak in Irish, get little certificates in the class. And then the class that gets the most tokens gets a prize, such as pizza.”