St. John the Baptist Primary School, Roscor might be one of the smallest schools in Fermanagh but its pupils are all big personalities.
With only 15 pupils there is a caring and supportive nature among them all but there is also plenty of fun and craic. Between sports, cups of tea, and growing vegetables in their polytunnel, the pupils keep really busy.
When The Impartial Reporter arrived the whole school was on the playground with Fermanagh football star Ultan Kelm having a lesson. The P7 pupils were in the hot seat and enjoyed answering our questions.
First to talk were Caitlin and Paul who had plenty to say about their “small but mighty” school.
Victoria Johnston: Do you like school?
Caitlin: Yeah.
Paul: It’s alright like.
Do you like football on Thursday?
Paul: Yeah, because tomorrow is Friday
Caitlin: No.
Caitlin: I play tin whistle and I like playing my book, I am in Belleek CCÉ
Paul: I go to Gaelic training at the Belleek pitch, I like Gaelic.
Did you grow up on the farm?
Caitlin: Yes, we have cows.
What type?
Caitlin: I don’t really know, I don’t be up there.
Do you like TV?
Paul: I watch whatever is on TV and Netflix.
Caitlin: I like Netflix too, I like watching Young Sheldon with my mum, dad and my dog.
What type of dog do you have?
Caitlin: Jack Russell Terrier called Sandy.
What else do you do for fun?
Paul: I am not too sure, probably just lie in bed.
Who is the best teacher?
Caitlin: Ms. Brown.
Paul: (Laughter) I don’t know.
Is school fun?
Caitlin: Sometimes we come in here and have tea, one time we had hot chocolate.
Paul: It is alright like.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Paul: I don’t know, we will just have to wait and see.
What about being a teacher?
Caitlin: I could be a teacher, but there is a lot of school you have to go to, to teach in a school.
What football team do you support?
Paul: Real Madrid, the best player is Vinicius Jr, Real Madrid is just good.
Are they better than Liverpool?
Paul: Well, Liverpool are just Liverpool.
Can you tell me a joke?
Caitlin: Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Caitlin: Dwarf.
Dwarf who?
Caitlin: I don’t know, they can’t reach the doorbell.
If you could have one superpower what would it be?
Caitlin: Well I would say flying but it would rain too much.
Paul: Teleportation.
Where would you teleport to?
Paul: My room.
Caitlin: I would go on holiday to Spain.
Paul: Or maybe Portugal.
What is the best thing about your school?
Caitlin: We get to go on a country walk in school when it is sunny and other children can’t do that with the roads.
Paul: Roscor is good because we’re a small school, so it is easy to remember everyone's names.
Cian and Thomas were keen to talk about all things sport as well as the time that Miss Carney their Principal was dancing!
VJ: Thomas, I hear you are good at fixing things, tell me more.
Thomas: I fix stuff that is broke, we go into the Polytunnel and look after it.
What do you do for fun?
Cian: I like playing football for Belleek really. I like scoring goals.
Thomas: I love PE.
Cian: We do soccer and stuff.
Do you watch it on TV?
Cian: Not really.
Do you support any teams?
Cian: Aston Villa, it was the first ever match I watched.
Do you like Liverpool?
Cian: (whisper) No!
What all do you do in school?
Thomas: We play tennis at golden time.
I am told you are good at finding footballs at playtime?
Thomas: I have found 28 in the ditch over there.
Do you like technology?
Cian: I have my mum’s phone but I don’t really look at it.
Thomas: the only thing I have is the PlayStation 4
Cian: I have an Xbox but I like being with my baby sister.
How old is she?
Cian: She is five days old or something, her name is Eala.
Do you help look after her?
Cian: I hold her sometimes.
Do you have any other brothers or sisters?
Cian: I have a sister who is out there playing, she is 6 and a brother who is 16.
Thomas: I have a brother called Nathan and a sister called Ava.
Has anything really funny happened in school?
Thomas: Miss Carney does the Griddy.
Cian: It’s like a dance.
Thomas: You move around I am not too sure.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Thomas: A farmer, we have sheep, calves and a horse, that is my sisters. It is very friendly; I am too scared to ride it.
Cian: A footballer or a boxer.
Who for?
Cian: I will play football for anyone except Man City, I don’t like them but one of my cousins supports them. I like UFC and stuff.
The final pair to talk to us were Arthur and Johnie who were great ambassadors for their school, they told us about the best play to get fish and chips and all the exciting trips that happen in St. John the Baptist P.S.
What is good about this school?
Johnie: Everything
Arthur: It’s unique.
What is the best thing about your school?
Arthur: It’s a small school and you get to go on more trips because it's small.
Johnie: Miss. Carney is the best principal.
I see you have a lot of plants growing in your polytunnel, tell me about that.
Arthur: We grow tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, and strawberries, people take them home and cook them.
Do you cook them?
Arthur: No someone at home.
Johnie: My mum and dad, they make loads of food with it.
Arthur: The broccoli didn’t really work out last year it kind of died but the cabbage was massive. We got two or three dinners out of the cabbage, we had cabbage, bacon and spuds.
What is your favourite dinner?
Both: Fish and chips from the takeaway.
Where do you go for that?
Arthur: We go to a boy in Ballyshannon Filling Station, it is called AJ’s there is a bit sign.
What is so good about it?
Johnie: Good chips.
Arthur: They have good spuds.
Really?
Arthur: There is no water going through them spuds anyway. You see nowadays the whole ground is wet, will the spuds be harvested?
You must be a farmer then?
Arthur: I am. We harvest grass.
What are the tractors like?
Arthur: We have a John Deere and three Fiat 110/ 90 Turbo.
Johnie: I like tractors but I am not a farmer.
Are there many farmers in school?
Arthur: Three, but sure, there is only 15 of us, how many more do you want?
Anything else exciting happening in school?
Johnie: We went on a special trip to Clonmany in Donegal, it was residential.
Arthur: We did driving skills and a mud run.
Johnie: We did paddleboarding, you put your knees on the board and paddle like this.
Did anyone fall in?
Johnie: I did.
Arthur: I was the only one in the school who didn’t fall in.
Did any teachers fall in?
Arthur: Miss Johnston fell in, but she has a new job now.
What do you do for fun, Johnie?
Johnie: I ride my bike.
I hear you drink tea in the staff room from time to time.
Arthur: The cup of tea is good.
Johnie: Mr. Conlon made the best tea but he went to Dubai or somewhere.
What else do you do for fun?
Both: Rugby in Ballyshannon.
Johnie: We do loads of sports in school: rugby, hurling, tennis.
Arthur: We play tennis at golden time.
Johnie: Arthur was in a play, we all went to see him.
Arthur: Babes in the Wood in Pettigo.
Do you like acting, will you be an actor when you grow up?
Arthur: Probably not, I think I will be a builder or something.
Johnie: A builder or an electrician.
What else happens here?
Johnie: We go to the Balmoral Show every year,. All the mums, dads, everyone.
Arthur: We go the Wednesday or the Thursday.
Good days for the show?
Arthur: I like a Friday, last year I went Thursday with school and Friday with my family.
What did you see?
Johnie: Tractors.
Arthur: Grassmen, Sammy Lucky Days.
Who is Lucky Days?
Arthur: She talks about tractors, and she is on Facebook doing these raffles, I have had no luck with them.
Do you enter or does Mummy or Daddy?
Arthur: Mummy pays for them but I tell her.
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