First day tears shed at school time in St. Clare"s

As they made their way sheepishly up the driveway of St. Clare"s Primary School, it was heart warming to imagine that in 20 years time, we were looking at the future teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers... or footballers and actors as some of them aspired to be! Yes there were tears, but it was moreso from the mammies. And the days of bringing an apple for the teacher to get on their good side seem to have evolved. It was flowers and plenty of them that children arrived with for their new teachers. The multi-cultural Ireland that we live in was never more evident than outside St. Clare"s as children and their parents from Cavan, arrived side by side with children and parents from Asia, eastern Europe, Africa... It was a wonderful display of culture and colour. Not only that but five sets of twins were among the junior infant students starting in St. Clare"s. The children were quiet but not camera shy. Their shiny new school uniforms were immaculate, the girls had beautiful ribbons and hair accessories and the range of school bags and lunch boxes was vast. Dora, Bob the Builder and Sponge Bob were among the favourites. The parents seemed more excited than the children. Camera flashes were going off left, right and centre; and there were some camcorders on the go too. Kalvin Smith-Corby (four) from Park View in Cavan was looking forward to doing some jigsaws with his new friends at school. But he told me that he wanted to be a footballer when he grew up and play for Liverpool! Steven Gerrard is his idol. And lucky for Kalvin, his Mum Fiona is a special needs assistant at St. Clare"s so she wasn"t going to be too far away. Unluckily for Sean Kearns, his mam wasn"t going to be staying - though he said he wanted her to go into school with him and he was going to sit beside his Daddy. But Sean, from Kilduff in Belturbet, was far from shy. He likes the stage and says: 'I want to be an actor.' Asked what type of films he would like to star in, Sean said he wouldn"t mind being the next James Bond because he likes fast cars. So while Sean was preparing for life as a celebrity, Chelsea Loughnane (four) arrived at school to find that she was already a celebrity, as many people called out to her. Chelsea featured in last week"s Anglo Celt. Her father Mark Loughnane raised €6,200 for the children"s hospital in Crumlin through a sponsored motorcycle run. He was inspired to do so by Chelsea, who suffers from a rare condition called Klippel Feil, which effectively means she was born more or less with no neck. Chelsea can turn her head slightly to her left but has to move her whole body to turn right. St. Clare"s undertook some work at the school to improve their accessibility in advance of Chelsea starting at the school. Asked what she was looking forward to most on her first day, Chelsea said 'talking'. Looks like her teacher will have a chatterbox on her hands. Perhaps Chelsea will make a new friend in Mecheile Smith (four) from The Gallops. Mecheile had beautiful blue ribbons in her hair. She likes make-up and was delighted to have her big sister Nicole there for support. Nicole is in third class. And Leigha Martin (four) was really looking forward to her first day. Leigha, a big Dora fan, wants to be a teacher and was eager to get into class to see how it"s done. Here"s hoping Leigha is still keen to be a teacher after her first week back. For more back to school coverage and pictures, see this week's issue of the Anglo Celt.