No one stays at the back forever
Through Immigrant Eyes
Viktoriia Kantseva
One thing that genuinely surprised me about Irish schools had nothing to do with maths or English. It was the seating plan.
In my daughter’s school, children sit in groups of four or six, and they are constantly moved around. One month your child sits with one group, then a few weeks later — another. At first, I didn’t think much of it. And then I realised something very simple but very important: the children are not growing up in fixed groups. And honestly, I love that.
Growing up in Ukraine, school often felt very different socially. In primary school, we usually had one main teacher for several years.
Later, another class teacher would stay with us for most of secondary school, while subject teachers came and went around them. The system itself almost naturally created roles inside the classroom.
There were always the teacher’s favourites. The very active students who joined every competition, answered every question and somehow always stayed close to the adults.
Then there were the quieter kids, the outsiders, and everyone else somewhere in the middle. And once those roles formed, they usually stayed that way for years.
Even where you sat in class sometimes became part of your identity. If you struggled academically, you could end up at the back of the classroom for an entire year. After a while, it stopped feeling like a seat and started feeling more like a category.
1. Spending years trying to avoid becoming “the unpopular kid”: Children here seem to move between groups much more naturally.
2. Sitting in the same classroom role for years: The “teacher’s favourite, ” the quiet one, the outsider — those labels feel less fixed here.
3. Being afraid to speak to teachers: The relationship between children and adults at school feels much softer and more open.
4. Growing up with the same social circle every single year: Irish schools seem to constantly mix children together, which changes the whole atmosphere.
5. Feeling like school is only about grades: Sometimes it feels like the system here is trying to raise socially confident people, not only good students.
I was never very good at fitting neatly into school systems myself.
I had a strong personality, argued too much, questioned things too openly and definitely did not have the natural talent of becoming a teacher’s favourite. So maybe that’s why I notice these things now.
Because when I watch my daughter’s school here, I see something very different.
The teachers change regularly in the early years, which means children don’t spend their entire childhood trying to fit into one adult’s idea of who they are.
Teachers and assistants speak to all the children, not only “their own” class, and the children seem comfortable approaching any adult in the school. That part matters to me more than I expected.
Because children do not only learn reading and maths at school. They also learn who they are around other people.
And Irish schools, at least from what I’ve seen so far, seem to put a huge amount of effort into that social side of growing up.
There are anti-bullying weeks, group activities, older students spending time with younger children, constant encouragement to communicate and work together. The atmosphere often feels less like “survive school” and more like “learn how to exist with other people”. And maybe that’s why I find it so moving sometimes.
Because growing up, school often felt like a place where roles were assigned early and stayed with you for years. Here, children seem to get the chance to constantly start again.
And honestly, my slightly school-traumatised heart finds that very comforting.