Cathal Barry
Canon Tom Deenihan, Secretary of the Bishops Education Conference, student Padraig Casey, Bishop Fintan Monahan and Fr Ignatius Mc Cormack, Principal at the launch of Catholic School's Week in St Flannan's College, Ennis. The principal of one of Ireland’s largest Catholic post-primary schools has credited male classroom assistants for the impressive exam results achieved by boys in his school.
St Paul’s High School, Bessbrook in Co. Armagh, has almost doubled the amount of “good” GCSE passes by boys in just two years.
In 2013, 36% of boys at St Paul’s High School in Bessbrook got five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths.
By 2015, that had risen to 65% in the school, which has more than 1,500 pupils.
The improved results are due to the introduction of new measures and programmes aimed specifically at boys.
The school’s principal, Jarlath Burns, told The Irish Catholic that the school had employed recent graduates as male classroom assistants to act as role models for young boys.
School authorities also assigned older male classroom assistants to students who lacked a father figure in their lives.
“With boys, classroom assistants are a very important part of what we do and that’s why we began employing male classroom assistants.
Honours
“A lot of these are young fellas straight out of college with first class honours degrees and great skills who are a brilliant help to us,” Mr Burns said, adding that the school also hired “men who are older to allocate to boys who we feel need a father figure”.
“Very often with boys it is the lack of a proper male role model they can look up to and get good example from that is the problem.”
Mr Burns also paid tribute to the school’s “extremely hardworking” teachers.
“It’s just down to hard work. There’s no magic dust here.
“We tried to focus on the boys and to make them feel valued. The biggest part of it is our teachers in class pushing our students really hard. Its pure graft and hard work at the end of the day,” he said.