In my school daze

It's a Dad's Life: The first grey memories of school and the pain of a playground accident influence the choice of primary school for September, writes Adam Brophy.

On an overcast day in 1976 my mother took me by the hand and led me through the gates of Loreto National School in Rathfarnham, Dublin. We were met by a nun who brought us on a brief tour of corridors and empty classrooms. They suggested I go and play in the yard while they looked after the enrolment forms. I was four.

The yard was grey and vacant, surrounded by even greyer buildings and I had no idea where my mum had gone. I stuck my hands in my shorts pockets and kicked a stone from one side to the other. Mooching, I took in the slide, the seesaw, climbing frame and swings. They were all grey too. Big, industrial steel playthings that loomed over me.

I climbed to the top of the slide and sat perched above, taking in my surroundings. It felt very high but there was no sense of danger. I pushed off and raced to the bottom.

But it had been raining that morning, the slide was still wet and I continued to accelerate right to the end, bouncing off on to the loose Tarmac of the yard. My tailbone took the brunt of it, but the heels of my hands were also skinned raw. I hauled myself up and sat on a swing, picking at the small stones embedded in my skin until my mum came out and we could go home.

I only spent a year in Loreto. The newly built School of the Divine Word in Marley Grange opened in 1977, and I was among the first cohort to enter there. It was much closer, only a walk away. I remember little about my year in Loreto, except that first visit and hurting myself. I have found myself thinking about that experience because the elder child is due to start school this September.

It's been more than four years since I quit full-time employment to look after her. For the first two of those years we were together non-stop, and she has been in part-time childcare the last two. At the outset I figured by the time she headed off to school I would have a clear idea of the educational approach that would suit her best. As the time approached I realised I hadn't given the topic enough thought. I have had to make a decision on which school to send her to, and have found that slide in Loreto 30 years ago being the deciding factor, or, to be more accurate, the numbness I felt sitting atop that slide.

I considered sending her to a Gaelscoil, but our first choice was full. I eventually rejected the second because it was in town and getting her in and out was going to be problematic.

Religion was less of an issue than attitude. I applied to a small Church of Ireland school in Marino, but again we didn't make the cut. If an Educate Together school had been a little closer to us I would seriously have considered it as I have heard great things about their approach. But the nearest is a trek away, and the logistics of getting the elder there and back, and picked up for occasional afternoon childcare, outweighed the benefits.

Ideally we would have gone for the local primary, but parents of kids who had attended there warned us off, citing discipline as a problem. Our choice eventually narrowed down to two schools, both of which came highly recommended by different people and seemed to offer similar environments and extra-curricular activities.

When I visited the first, I was assured that class numbers in Junior Infants would be restricted to 20. It has an adjoining sports field which is used for gym class, football, hurling and camogie and some parents have taken it onto themselves to organise after-school music lessons. The principal also told me about IT initiatives the kids are involved in, and an approach to teaching that encourages a development of lateral thought and problem-solving. While I was sitting, filling out forms, a couple of teachers popped in and out of the office. The atmosphere seemed calm and relaxed. I was impressed, but there was a second school in the reckoning and I was determined to check it out.

Up I went. A big, grey, Victorian building loomed in front of me. I was buzzed into the office and set about another bunch of forms. I spoke to the principal, gave her my first name and she introduced herself as Mrs . . . mmm, let's call her Murphy. She saw nothing strange in addressing me as Adam to her Mrs. I felt about six. Out in the corridor I could hear a child being admonished vehemently for having the temerity to speak while in line. I tried to imagine the elder staying quiet for more than 30 seconds.

I was informed that Junior Infants would be made up of four classes of 29, that the new curriculum was followed closely and encouraged creativity, but that there was no sport, music or drama included for the junior classes. It was then I remembered that a parent had told me this place was great for discipline. So was the workhouse in Oliver Twist.

I turned the discipline angle over and over in my head afterwards. Lord knows, the elder is lawless and could do with the rod being waved at her, metaphorically at least. She is demanding and obstreperous, she rarely does what I ask unless she knows there's something in it for her, she hardly eats, won't go to bed at night, curses like a navvy and likes to throw things at my head from the back seat when I'm driving. It's safe to say discipline has not been my strong point.

But I haven't spent four years encouraging her to say how she feels and express herself in whatever medium she likes, for her to be jammed into a strait-jacket the minute she enters formal education.

Sitting there, in that last school, writing out my child's PPS number once more, so she can step into a system that could churn her up, I felt like I was up on top of that slide again.

It was 30 years later but it was the same kind of building, same greyness, same feeling of regime, and this time I thought "someone could get hurt on this", and climbed back down the steps instead.

I hold no bad feelings towards Loreto in Rathfarnham; I have no feelings towards it one way or another. I'm sure it was a perfectly good school and that my teacher at the time was well-intentioned and caring. I feel it didn't suit me, the child that I was, and I was lucky to have moved, when I did, to a school that I have very fond memories of.

For that reason, I am basing my choice of school for my eldest daughter simply on a feeling that this school will suit her, the girl that she is. That feeling is based on a short time spent on the premises, but if I don't go by my gut I have nothing to go by. I hope she has a wonderful time in St Mary's in Fairview.