Jnr, Snr, 1st class

What our Junior Infants, Senior Infants and 1st Class think of
St. Peter's National School

"I have 4 reasons why I love St. Peter’s - Playing with my friends, Aistear, i-pads and eating my treat on a Friday"

"My favourite thing about this school is having lunch with my friends in the classroom and making jokes"

"If you are a bit shy and you come here and meet all the other boys and girls in your classroom you get more used to the school and you can make new friends"

"My favourite time of the day is yard time when I get to see all my friends and play outside in the yard"

Meet our Junior Infants, Senior Infants and 1st Class teacher

Marianne Coyle

My name is Marianne Coyle. I am Deputy Principal of St. Peter’s National School. I graduated from St. Mary’s College in Belfast in 2003 with a degree in primary teaching. I taught for two years in the North of Ireland before settling here in County Meath. I started here in St. Peter’s in 2005 and was very privileged to be a part of the school’s official opening that year. I currently live in Ratoath but I will always be a very proud “Derry Girl.” Most of the children know I am a Manchester United fan and always look forward to Jersey Day when I can show my allegiance to my team.
Although I have had experience teaching all classes from Junior to 6th, Junior and Senior Infants is where most of my experience is based. I have enjoyed teaching many class levels but I do have a special grá for the infant classes. I enjoy teaching all subjects across the curriculum and over the years have been able to improve on my professional development and implement many initiatives into the classroom. I particularly enjoyed implementing the Aistear programme whereby the children learn various skills through play e.g creative, imaginative, social, literacy and numeracy. I also enjoyed introducing the Mathletics and Reading eggs programmes through the I-pads and the pupils absolutely love this particular aspect of the school week. It is also set up as homework tasks which is a great way of keeping parents involved in their learning. When I was in the older classes I implemented the use of SCRATCH which is a coding programme and this was a huge help to me when setting up the younger coding activities through BEEBOTS. This is still relatively new in my classroom but so far a great success!
I have been at St. Peter’s for nearly all of my teaching career and have watched it grow from strength to strength. We have a fantastic staff who work as a team and we are fully committed to making St. Peter’s a successful school. We are blessed with our P.T.A and Board of Management members who have always been so supportive of us and willing to do what they can for the benefit of the school. As one of the longest members of St. Peter’s N.S, the school means a lot to me. I love the close knit community feeling that the school brings. I love the fact that I know every boy and girl in the school by name and know that they trust me and know me. I look forward to many more happy years here in this fantastic school.

Managing a multi-grade classroom - a teacher's perspective

When the Induction for the new infants takes place every year in June a common theme is “How do you manage with 3 classes? “How do you differentiate between the 3 classes?” Are the pupil’s needs being met?”

One thing I will say that has helped me over the years is experience. I have taught multi-grade now for nearly 16 years and I see many benefits to this setting. I think it helps to build the self-esteem of both the younger and older pupils – the younger pupils feel encouraged and supported and the older pupils gain confidence and maturity in guiding the younger children through their learning. In a multi-grade setting we do a lot of station/group work and through this activity learning is reinforced. We also have 2 full-time support teachers to provide support in the classroom where needed during station activities.

Teaching in a multi-grade setting also helps to develop social and independent learning skills as a result of responding to different age and ability levels. In teaching different levels in a whole class setting all pupils are exposed to new challenges and opportunities to acquire different skills.

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