Loreto Community school has a special place in the heart of all current pupils, past pupils, current and past teachers, parents, principles and vice principals. Everyone leaves with a different experience but a journey they will carry with them forever. Everyone’s time at Loreto has moments of success and failure, moments of happiness and of maybe sadness, over-whelming moments and moments that will last on the memories of those of forever. Loreto leaves you with a sense of belonging, pride, and for past pupils a feeling of “I would love to back to Loreto for just one more year”. For students, I am sure, their experience was challenging but one they wouldn’t change for the world. The place where you spent most of your teenage years with your best friends learning lifelong skills, being involved in many extra-curricular activities from sports teams, to musicals. An experience where they achieved to their highest potential with the help of the staff of Loreto around them.
The opening of the new Loreto building would change the experience for a lot of teachers and pupils making the transition at that time. The Minister of education Mary Hanafin said that ‘students will benefit from new and better facilities as these high-quality building projects get under way in their schools’. (Education.ie/publications)
Students would no longer spend their teenage years in an older run down building but would spend their teenage years in a bright, vibrant, modern, high technological school which would give all students with an even better experience at school.
When talking to students and teachers and principals you see that the experience of Loreto is very different for everyone. The question I asked myself was: How have the experiences of students and teachers changed over the last 10 years?
When talking to the principal of the school she mentioned that her experience has been a lot more challenging in the last 10 years. She went on to talk about how the ways of teaching, new curriculum plans, new polices have all been introduced and from a teachers perspective she found it has been challenging but none the less an experience that is very beneficial for the future of education in Ireland.
One other change which was mentioned and she explained it as the “biggest change” in the school would be the increase in the number of students presenting with mental health issues. “Anxiety is a very common phenomenon now”, she continued to say which does seem to be a major part of the experience of both the students and teachers in more recent years. She finished by saying that this challenge is “something that would not of been the as prevalent 10 years ago”.
When talking to past and current pupils of Loreto their views were somewhat different to that of the Principal. One student talked about how the opening of the new building completely changed their experience as the new building offered students “amazing state of the art sports facilities”, which is something that makes school a better experience for many students. Students also mentioned of how in more recent years the ways of teaching has changed and evolved and they go on to explain that “classrooms have now become more active and engaging” something of which students enjoy and adds to experience of school life.
Loreto Community School Milford 