New St Joseph's Boys' School Principal will put pupils first

New Principal of St Joseph's Boys' School, Ciara Deane, will put pupils first insists outgoing Principal, Martina McCarron.

Mrs Deane will take up the position at the start of the new school year in September once Mrs McCarron retires.

Martina McCarron, who has worked in the education sector for 32 years, is calling time on her outstanding career in order to spend more time with her family.

She states that Mrs Deane's promotion is well-deserved and assures both parents and pupils that her successor will have the children's interests at heart and will lead from the front in helping them progress with their education.

“The new Principal will be my current Vice-Principal, Mrs Ciara Deane. It will be a smooth transition as she has worked beside me for fourteen years.

“Ciara will be putting pupils first. She will be bringing a bit of innovation.

“She has worked alongside me as Vice-Principal and has been a stalwart supporting me through all that time – especially in the pandemic years.

“Ciara is dedicated to the role, she's dedicated to St Joseph's and has extensive experience as an English teacher and leading and managing our special needs provision. She has also been the pastoral Vice-Principal for the past four years.

“So she will bring that experience but will also bring that ability to think outside the box, try something different and will be always wanting to see what works best for the boys.

“Ciara is a lovely person – she's very kind, very outgoing and always has a smile on her face.

“I look forward to passing the baton over to Ciara because she deserves it and I'm really, really delighted for her.”

Mrs McCarron has announced her retirement earlier than planned and said that the recent Covid pandemic had played its part in bringing forward her retirement date given the extra demands that it brought her and St Joseph's.

She added: “Regarding my own departure, it's definitely an early retirement. It's been a long, tough couple of years and I made a decision to look ahead and spend more time with my family.

“I've been in education for thirty-two years now and it's been a delight. It is a tough job though so I would like to spend a wee bit of time with my family and maybe do other things because as I say to everybody, I've never left school.

“I've always been in education if you include when I started at Primary One all the way through to today as Principal of St Joseph's. I think it's about time I gave myself to something other than the school bell.

“The pandemic years probably accelerated my decision to retire. You have plans – such as your school development plan – and everything was in place.

“But the pandemic made sure that you had to re-write the script altogether – which I think St Joseph's did well.

“I had a good team to help the school re-adjust to constantly evolving guidelines within the pandemic. My senior management team, the staff and the parents were excellent.

“Plus the boys did what they had to do. When they needed to be in school, we had them in school.

“It was tough for everybody but as the decision-maker, I was the one who had to keep abreast of all the guidelines, the regulations and risk-assessments. It was a tough, tough time.

“This year was not as intense as it was but it's (Covid) is still there and we're trying to recover – just like every school is.

“I'm hoping to have a wee bit of a rest. I want to do a wee bit of travelling next year _ I've a couple of holidays planned.

“After that, I'm open to being involved in other projects – maybe find myself back into education in some way once again. Just really want to spend a wee bit of time doing my own thing.

“You have to be at school 24 hours on call. You may go home at the weekend but you're always 'in school' in your head as it's 'plan, plan, plan' and 'do, do, do'. I just want to 'not plan' and 'not do' and take whatever the day brings for me – in the short term anyway.”