Ballinamore community share in success of students

Seamus Enright 

In Ballinamore 

Padraig Leyden, principal at Ballinamore Community School welcomed a steady stream of students milling through their doors from early Wednesday morning eager to see what they had achieved in the Leaving Certificate.

Mr Leyden told The Anglo-Celt he took was almost as 'nervous' as the students.

'I think everybody gets caught up in the whole drama of the day that's in it. I suppose my advice to any student out there is to absorb what results they've got today, think about them. There will be something for everybody once the CAO offers come out, when the system kicks into action on Monday.'

He admits to finding comfort in the 'familiarity' of the old result system.

'We looked at a sheet of results and immediately you could calculate points. Now it's completely different, it'll take time, and it'll take students time as well.

'But really there has been no great change in the pattern of our students' results to other years. Our high results are in the mid to high 500s, which is always very impressive. There is always expectation that students will get this magic 600 but those are rare and few and far between.'

He adds that students arriving to the school to receive their results in person feeds in to the sense of collective ownership of the achievements of local youths.

One of those to pick up their results in person on Wednesday was Alhma Gilheany from Swanlinbar. Mr Leyden shook Alhma's hand and wished her well, and we left her in private to open the envelope. Hopefully she got what she needed.   

'Why torture yourself that few extra hours or so? It is, I feel, actually better for them to get their results when they have a chance of sharing the good news, or even not so good news with friends and colleagues here. It's a better place of mind to be than being at home and waiting to click a button for the screen to turn on.'