New team at the helm in St Mary’s College

It’s all change at the top in one of Galway’s top schools this September – although returning pupils to St Mary’s College will still see a familiar figure who has relocated to the hit seat.

Tom Nolan – former All-Ireland winning Galway hurler and scratch golfer – has been a teacher at the school on the hill for 30 years, but this school year sees him take over as Principal after the retirement of his predecessor and colleague.

And continuing the new team at the top, long-serving Deputy Principal Michael Lee has also opted for early retirement, to be replaced by a new arrival in Kieran Sweeney, a Donegal native who shares a visionary approach to the teaching of maths with his new boss.

It’s this combination of continuity and new thinking that the Board of Management is looking to, to oversee what it hopes will be a period of growth and development, continuing the evolution of the Diocesan College from its history as a boarding school to its future as a centre of excellence in education in the heart of the city.

St Mary’s has been part of the Nolan family for many years – Tom’s wife Edel is also a long-serving member of staff – but he has little time to reflect on history. Always innovative as a teacher, he intends taking that vision into his new role as well.

His ambition is for all students to achieve their maximum potential. “We will do our best for everyone, whether it’s the guys who will end up studying medicine or those who want to prepare themselves to do courses in security or whatever,” he says.

Academic excellence is obviously front and centre – as it is in every school – but the holistic approach to learning is also integral to that vision.

As the new Principal puts it, it is not overstating it to say that St Mary’s boasts the best facilities of any school in the city – with three full-sized outdoor pitches, two gymnasiums, two modern computer rooms, a new fully-equipped technical graphics room, dedicated science block, Ag Science room, library, study hall and more.

As Kieran Sweeney described it: “It’s like an oasis surrounded by concrete.”

The native of Illistrin outside Letterkenny is an NUIG graduate who retains a role there as a part-time lecturer in Mathematics and Irish teaching.

Most recently, he was Head of Departments at St Flannan’s in Ennis but he has been particularly involved with the development of Project Maths, serving as Regional Development Officer – and he worked, through the Department of Education, in Second Level Support Services for teachers in Irish.

Like Tom, teaching is something of a family business for the Donegal man – Kieran’s wife Annmarie is a teacher of Irish and geography in Gort Community School and they are expecting their first arrival in January.

The new team at the top places particular emphasis on Internet Technology, in a way that is accessible to all.

Tom has been quietly leading a teaching revolution on this front since 2008 when he first began recording his maths classes so students could revise and revisit outside of school hours; now he has 1,500 maths tutorials on line – free for all to view – going through the entire second-level curriculum, Higher and Ordinary Level….and at different paces so that all students can find the level they’re looking for.

“This has re-invented me. I was 25 years belting up chalk on whiteboards – but this has given me a new lease of life as a teacher,” he says.

“Initially these were just for the school, but now they are available to everyone. I work with a visualizer in class, so that I project my work onto the wall and that is recorded at the same time so that the students can go back over it on their tablet or phone that night – or even coming into school on the bus in the morning,” he adds.

St Mary’s is already implementing a similar online service across a number of other subjects, most notably in Irish and with plans to expand it exponentially – but Kieran Sweeney, as someone at the vanguard of the Project Maths evolution, sees this as a parallel offering as opposed to a replacement.

“We are catering for all sorts of learning and the reality is that some kids like text books; others are more at home online. So we talk about blended learning, to compliment what is happening in the classroom,” he says.

Project Maths represents a significant change of approach in Irish education. It involves empowering students to develop essential problem-solving skills for higher education and the workplace by engaging teenagers with mathematics set in interesting and real-world contexts – a more practical approach rather than rote learning.

Educationalists see it as the start of a change in emphasis when it comes to learning; the Junior Cert will undergo a transformation – if agreement can be reached with teaching unions – and that will then evolve into the senior cycle.

Change is something that both men are not just comfortable with; they thrive on it – and they are both challenged by what the future classroom will look like.

“Perhaps it will look more like the UK system, with as few as three subjects in senior cycle but a greater depth of learning to a level we now associate with third level,” offers Kieran.

“I would see merit in an approach where, after Junior Cert, you narrow the curriculum. There is little point in making students continue in subjects for Leaving Cert that they have already struggled with for the Junior Cert,” agrees Tom.

Not that there’s any chance of St Mary’s students getting left behind: “We are determined to ensure they all fulfil their potential and it is with that in mind that we work with every one of them to set personal targets, and that we hold regular one-to-one evaluations with their academic mentors to ensure they achieve these goals as they go along,” says Kieran.

Both are aware that they are filling big shoes with the retirements of Principal Ciaran Murphy and Vice-Principal Michael Lee, but they have the advantage of combining both familiarity and new blood on their side.

The challenge for Tom Nolan is making the adjustment from being one of the 30 teachers at St Mary’s to overseeing the welfare of 400 pupils – a number he intends pushing past 500 during his term in charge. He’s already focused, for example, on introducing a Transition Year option for those who want to avail of it.

The former Captain of Barna and Galway Golf Clubs knows what it takes to win – an All-Ireland U21 medal in 1983 and a senior All-Ireland in 1988 as well as a host of Barton Shields and Senior Cups on the golf course bear testimony to that – and this is a challenge he’s well up for.

“My vision is to provide a top class academic and holistic education for every student, no matter what their abilities. And when that works, they will be our best advertisement.”