If one was looking for a typical, large, successful mixed-ability Irish Catholic boys' second-level school, St Paul's in Raheny, Dublin, would come quickly to mind.
Its main difference from similar schools is size, with 870 pupils from a wide area of the mainly middle-class north Dublin suburbs.
For principal Dominic McQuillan, the major stress is "the width of the job" and the energy he expends on "finance and the lack of it." He estimates that 30 per cent of his time goes on fund-raising, parental contributions and similar issues.
An English principal would be horrified that he gets less than £14,000 a year to employ a part-time secretary and caretaker. McQuillan has gone out and fund-raised to create four essential full-time back-up jobs: caretaker, second secretary, librarian and groundsman.
He pays tribute to the "huge dynamism" of his staff as a major factor in the school's reputation. He gives as examples of this links with schools in Belfast, Wales and France; its sporting trips, most recently for a rugby group to South Africa; and its involvement in a 100-school European project to develop schools' self-evaluation skills.
All the teachers gathered in his study are agreed that imposed and often draconian British-style inspection and evaluation systems would be completely inappropriate in Irish schools.
Lucy Hamill, who teaches French, says one big difference is in Ireland has avoided the "major pitfalls" of the national curriculum, Ofsted inspections and performance `league tables' by moving to reform the curriculum and other elements more slowly and with more consultation.
"Irish teachers are constantly evaluated anyway," she says. "If you're not delivering the goods the students are not shy about telling you. We live in a situation of automatic feedback, even if it's not going to be published in The Irish Times."
McQuillan says he feels St Paul's is a good school but if he was asked for the evidence he could not produce it. That was one reason they were involved in the European self-evaluation project.
The teachers agree that the amount of paperwork has increased enormously in recent years but they concede that, in an era when parents are demanding more accountability, this is inevitable and necessary.
They agree, too, that recent curriculum changes - in the whole range of Junior Cert subjects, many Leaving Cert subjects, Transition Year, modular courses and Leaving Cert Vocational - have "stretched everybody in terms of time."
Another major source of pressure on teachers is parents' expectations and the extreme competitiveness of exams.
"The points system is absolutely the most negative thing in the school system," says Pat Fay, a geography and business teacher. "The Leaving Cert is still the yardstick against which everything is measured."
