Mothers weepy on first day at school

LUNCH boxes packed, shoes polished and bottom lips trembling, they fought back tears as the first day at school beckoned — and they were just the parents.

As the day of reckoning dawned, it was the grown-ups who were struggling with their emotions as the 50,000 students headed off.

“I was a little bit blubbery, to be honest, but Chelsea was all excited. All the children were, actually, it was the mums who were a bit apprehensive, but the children couldn’t wait to get rid of us,” Kathryn Burke, from Tuam, Co Galway, said. Four-and-a-half-year-old Chelsea couldn’t wait to go to school yesterday. Being a veteran of playschool, she was no stranger to making friends, but her mother was a little sad to see her go.

The sight of her only child in her little brown uniform heading off to the Presentation Convent school in Tuam where all her relations had gone before her was enough to tug at the heart strings of her mother, although Chelsea wasn’t too impressed with her ensemble. “She wasn’t too keen on the blouse and tie, and couldn’t understand why she had to wear a shirt under her pinafore,” Ms Burke said.

Little Alison Oliver from Ballintemple in Cork also found it funny to be wearing a tie. “She couldn’t wait to come home at the end of the day and roll up her tie in a ball like her dad does,” her mother Lynn said.

Setting off for school yesterday morning was like a big adventure for Alison. “A group of her friends from playschool and a few neighbours are going to the same school, so she had a gang of friends there already, and her big sisters were also there to keep an eye on her,” Mrs Oliver said. “I was a bit sad to see her leave. It’s the end of an era really for us; she is the last one of our family to go to school. Her twin sisters, aged 11, will be heading to secondary school next year, so it was a bit of a milestone for us to have Alison head off to school,” she added.

Mrs Oliver said the parents just about managed to keep their emotions in check in the morning, but there was a sense of relief when the whole thing was over.

“There were no tears, but the mums had to be practically thrown out by the teacher. When we came back to collect them we all gave them a standing ovation. It was the relief, I suppose, that they had all survived.”

National Parents Council (Primary) operates a helpline for parents on a range of issues at 01 8874477.