My big week

Aisling Tighe: Taking over as principal of Creevelea National School

Diplomacy is a big part of the job but dictatorship is definitely not, says Aisling Tighe, who has just taken the next step on her career ladder, from teacher to principal. Next week she will welcome all 22 pupils to Creevelea National School, near Drumkeerin, in Co Leitrim, for their first full week of school. Eleven of them will be in her class. Although a class size of 11 may sound idyllic to parents whose children face huge class numbers, Tighe points out that she will be teaching third-, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-class lessons to the different pupils in the group.

Creevelea is a two-teacher school, and Tighe is looking forward to a good working relationship with her fellow teacher. "I hear she's a great help, and in a two-teacher school you really depend on your assistant." Two weeks ago she completed a principals' course. "It's very exciting. I'm looking forward to it, although I am a bit nervous. On the principal course they really send the message home that the buck stops with me. They gave us a list of things a principal should be doing. It was huge. Things like interacting with everybody, from the board of management to the parents . . . if you think a child has a speech problem talking to the parents, the health services and dental services. Then there's the maintenance of the school."

A national-school teacher for seven years, Tighe held her previous post in Rosses Point, Co Sligo, in a five-teacher school. The big difference in the change to principal will be the amount of paperwork on top of teaching duties. "Everything from discipline and enrolment to health-and-safety policies and child protection has to be set down in policy papers."

Although they have a "lovely new building", the staff room will double as her office. "It's going to be a huge change, but you have to keep challenging yourself. It would have been very easy to stay on in my old school as a teacher, but you need to keep moving ahead. It's very important that the principal has a vision of the school. She has to bring the school along, in co-operation with the parents and the board of management. It's all about working together."