St John’s celebrates 50 years

This Sunday, St John’s National School in Shannon will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its foundation and Church of Ireland Bishop of Limerick, Killaloe and Ardfert, Trevor Williams, will come to the school for a special service.
School principal Tina Noone said the school was set up to cater for the population of what was then an emerging town. “The school was set up in 1961 to meet the needs of the international community in Shannon because a lot of people were coming in from abroad to the industrial area. The numbers have fluctuated over the years and now we have a two-teacher school with a shared learning support. We get people from Quin down to Cratloe and into Shannon.”
She said the school had received an Active Schools flag from the Department of Education in January and is very grateful for all the support it has received from the local community over the last half-century. It is a two-teacher co-educational school. “As part of the holistic development of the child, a religious programme, developed and approved by the Church of Ireland in conjunction with the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, is taught. We strive to provide a well-ordered, caring, happy and secure environment where children, irrespective of gender, religion, social background or educational achievement, can experience a sense of harmonious development in all aspects of the person. This is reflected in the students’ participation in art, drama, sport and cultural activities,” Ms Noone added.
Few, if any, have as strong ties to the school as Vera Knowles. “I’m teaching there since 2002. I’m actually a past pupil and as far as I know I’m the only past pupil to be a member of staff,” she said.
She said the school’s enrolment has ebbed and flowed over the years. “I went to school there from 1980 to ’88. There were three teachers at the time. At the peak I think there were nearly 90 children but numbers have fallen back over the years. There were three teachers in a two-classroom building and the junior and senior infants were in the hall, where I started off. Then the school got a prefab but that’s gone now and it’s back to a two-teacher school.”
Vera says the school was quite exceptional when it first opened its doors. “St John’s is the only Church of Ireland school in Clare and it’s the oldest school in Shannon but only by a couple of weeks; the Church of Ireland school and the Catholic school were established in Drumgeely Flats, when the town was being set up, and we were just a little bit earlier than them.
“It was a really multi-cultural school and it still is today. There were pupils from all over the world because people came to the factories when town was being set up from South Africa, America, Australia, all around the globe. The population was very diverse for a school in Ireland in the 1960s, it was quite unusual.”
She said the size of the school has long been one of its strengths. “I remember the small classes meant everybody was quite friendly and close. The teachers could keep a good eye on you and there wasn’t much of a fear of anyone being left behind or anything, because the numbers were quite small. We had a lot of social events like the sports day in Cratloe House, where we still have it today. There was a really good school community and a very diverse population in terms of religion. It’s under the Church of Ireland’s patronage but all denominations are welcome and all denominations tend to go there, because if you want an alternative to a Catholic school, that’s where you tend to go. We’ve always had many different religions,” she added.