Galway teacher 'who broke the mould in education' retires after 27 years
Her teaching methods as a Reading Recovery Teacher were very early on recognised as best practice and shared on the PDST/Oide teaching platform - a rare distinction, and one she mentioned to almost nobody
A Galway teacher who broke the mould in education has said goodbye to the school where she’s taught for nearly three decades.
Staff, family and friends all gathered to send a hearty farewell to Ann Farrell as she started her retirement after 27 years with Creagh National School.
Ann, who was a Special Education Needs teacher at the school, “left a mark on the hundreds of children she taught”.
After graduating from St Patrick’s College of Education in Dublin in 1985, Ann spent thirteen years in Donegal before eventually finding herself in Ballinasloe.
The school said: “She came to Creagh in 1999, at a moment when special education in Ireland was still finding its shape. Ann did not wait for it to settle but kept studying, and acquired numerous qualifications throughout the years.”
Ann was integral to the growth of the school and its pupils, establishing the Literacy Lift Off and Ready, Set, Maths programmes.
“As a member of the In-School Management Team, Ann reshaped the school’s assessment practices, insisting that data serve the child rather than the file.
“Her teaching methods as a Reading Recovery Teacher were very early on recognised as best practice and shared on the PDST/Oide teaching platform — a rare distinction, and one she mentioned to almost nobody.”
Ann was patient with her students and taught them through ways that she knew they would find useful whether that was using Lego or even dinosaurs to further their learning.
“Where one strategy did not work she tried another. More than once the solution she arrived at was one that nobody had found before,” the school said.
Teachers from other schools often sought her advice with the school saying that “newly qualified teachers came with a problem and left with a plan, thanks to Ann”.
The school concluded by saying: “Ask the staffroom about Ann and the same words return: organised, passionate, committed, fair, wise, reliable, and generous.
“For pupils, the effect was simpler and more profound. Children who had decided they could not read discovered, in that small room, that they could. Hundreds of them. Some of those children are now parents themselves, sending their own into Creagh.
“Beyond the school gates she is a horsewoman, a skier, a musician of no small ability, and a woman with a considerable and well-hidden sense of mischief.
“On her retirement day, Ann said a few words. She spoke of the privilege of the work, of the children who had taught her more than she taught them, and of a profession she would recommend to anyone with the patience for it.
“Creagh National School will keep the programmes she built and the practices she embedded. Ann will be greatly missed by staff, pupils and parents alike, who wish her every happiness in a retirement she has earned many times over.”