Changing Times

We came in, we sat at our tables, you learned what the teacher taught from the front, and you sat at your desk. And the only time you left your desk was when you went to do a reading group with the teacher. I remember just being allowed to write on the chalkboard occasionally. You know when it was your turn to go up and do a sum or something. You were able to go up and you kind of felt like the teacher for a wee minute, you know.

Hazel Mc Crea

A visit to Short Brothers with Mr Walker, Millisle Primary School

20 CHANGING TIMES We used to go into the convent at Christmas to see their crib and the fi gures. Th ey must have been nearly life size and it was better than Disney, you know. Real straw and it was kind of like, “Where is the child? Why haven’t you got him in and what are there three wise men doing over there?”

Kate Hanna

‘Snow-white and the Seven Dwarves’, 1966 Millisle

Master Kane. He had a great interest in horse racing, so much so that when we played racing at lunch time, he would have marked a furlong on the road for us so that we could race a furlong. He also was very keen to hear the results of big races and on that day on refl ection, it would have been around the time of a big race that we would have had nature study. And we would have walked to the plantation at Oakley. He would have nipped into the local blacksmith’s shop, Joe McCormick’s, to listen to a race on the radio or to hear the result. Pat Higgins

I might read the life of the saint for the day if it was appropriate or there was a message for the children. Th e children could come in any time from 8am on because there was great supervision in the yard and parents who were going to work left them off and knew they would be looked aft er. We always had teachers willing to do duty and they played a set amount of informal football, in the yard in their own disciplined way. Th en you went to class. I always had a refl ection before prayers. Th e children seemed to like that, you know. Brother Christopher Kelleher

Th e people were lovely, farming folk and lovely country kids. You would go out in the evening and there would be a bag of spuds lying up against the car that somebody had left for the Master or a pair of pheasants hanging on a car aerial that somebody had shot and left for the Master. Th e Master in those days, you know, was still a big deal. I used to get people coming in to read letters you know people that couldn’t read. (Th ey) would come in and say I have a letter from a solicitor here, could you translate this for me. Th at was lovely you know but the days of two teacher country schools are gone. Arthur Greenwood Th e inspector then would have arrived and the school attendance offi cer would have arrived. I remember he would have taken a particular interest in some of us because we would have got 2 weeks off in the autumn time to gather potatoes with the local farmers. We got paid for this and I remember the princely sum of £5 for a week working from 8.30am to maybe 6pm at night. But it was heavy going. Some of us would maybe have stretched the normal time and stayed off a little longer so the school attendance offi cer came and he didn’t seem very pleased. His name was Mr Savage, I remember. Pat Higgins

I just loved Mrs. Patterson and she taught us then in P5. It was Mrs. Patterson that got us all involved in doing the speech festival in Bangor and encouraging us and teaching us how to do speech and drama and saying poetry. Th at was something that I had never had any experience of. I have never forgotten that and that has really been the basis that I now speak at various church groups and things like that.

Hazel Mc Crea

Convent of Mercy 1976 We had three senior classes in the early years you know; there was a great interest in the school on extra mural activities. In games, hurling, football, quizzes, concerts and music. Th e children got a great chance because we had a nice green fi eld and there was great commitment by the lay teachers taking games aft er school and the children looked forward to it. You saw another side to the children aft er school, outside the classroom, you know. Brother Christopher Kelleher

CHANGING TIMES 21

I think these little ones come into me, to my care and what I have to give them is how they see school for the rest of their days. If I can make school fun, whilst learning, and they’re happy and very confi dent with me and the whole school set up, then that is what would be more important to me than the actual physical teaching. I am now teaching children of children I taught years ago and it is lovely to have that contact with the parents that I knew. But it is very hard to get them not to call me Mrs. Wilson. So I also think it is nice to put that trust in me and bring their own children back… Rosemary Wilson, Teacher, Downpatrick Primary School

I remember a teacher in P2 called Mrs. McReynolds. When it was your birthday, she drew a lovely big birthday cake on the blackboard. She then cut it into slices, slices of it and then you got to pick maybe some of your friends that you wanted to have a slice of the birthday cake that she had drawn for you. She was lovely. Hazel Mc Crea

I think it is more formal. Th ey know they are doing comprehension today or their tests, spelling tests when they come in the morning, their comprehension, their numeracy. I think the formality is much more organised. I can’t remember going in on a day and knowing what I was going to be doing that day, apart from your tables. It was just more relaxed.

Gillian Mc Gimpsey

22 CHANGING TIMES

Visit to Folk Museum

Th ere was a lot of spontaneity of teaching in those years, where just whatever might have arisen on a particular day. I remember one day over in the school a fox went past the window. We then had a wonderful day, writing about foxes.

Anne Ferguson

I suppose one of the big things I see changing is technology. I made everything and wrote it out for the children and for a number of children we used carbon paper. So that was all done in the evening for maybe six or eight children. You would have needed to do like three at once. But I see that as a wonderful thing now we have photocopying. Anne Ferguson, Teacher, Southwell School