Madam, – I was surprised (and flattered) to be referred to as the principal of Christian Brothers College (CBC), in Weekend Review (“Shut the staffroom. Lock the lab”, May 22nd). This well-known Cork school has been mentioned often enough in the pages of your paper for someone in your office to recollect that Dr Larry Jordan is principal and has been since 1994. In the same article, which dealt with end of term misbehaviour by sixth-year pupils countrywide, Louise Holden also claims I issued letters threatening to “ban” pupils from “sitting the Leaving Cert”. I have never claimed to possess such amazing powers, no more, I’m sure, than any other deputy principal in the country.
Your journalist goes on to state that three CBC pupils “were asked to stay at home after they entered the girls (sic) school, threw eggs and staged a ‘kidnapping’ ”. This statement is untrue, damaging to the reputation of the school, and unfair to the 132 young men of the class of 2010. There is no excuse for such sloppy journalism.
CBC would have been more than happy to clarify any of the above points for Ms Holden had she taken the trouble to phone the school. We would have told her that our policy is to insist that our pupils concentrate on their studies in the run-up to the Leaving Cert; to insist that they come to school every day for every class, and to insist that they continue to treat their teachers with respect. This is the kind of support they need to keep them focused at one of the most stressful periods of their lives. In CBC, rules (including DES rules on required number of days in school) are neither diluted nor suspended during the final schooldays of our sixth-year pupils.
Ms Holden praises another school for its “clever” strategy of avoiding trouble by “not telling the students when the end of term is going to be”. Hardly an appropriate way to treat young adults! Parents of CBC pupils are written to at Easter and given the date of the final day. We rely on common sense, trust, parental support and good discipline to make the final days in school both enjoyable and productive.
Our system seems to work. In 2008, our pupils took first place in Ireland in four Leaving Cert. subjects: maths, physics, chemistry and German. In 2009 one of our Leaving Cert pupils, Rory Crotty, came first in Ireland in the Leaving Cert with nine A1 grades. – Yours, etc,