Naomh Pol News Issue 2

Our New Vice Principals!
Ms Fearon has been a valued member of the staff in St Paul’s for 16 years. With the successful
launch of the Sociology and Health and Social Care departments in 2005, along with the launch of
the Romania part of the International Projects, she has managed to leave her extremely beneficial
mark on our school. Ms Fearon was Assistant and Head of Years 13 and 14 before settling into the
role of Head of Pastoral Care for six years.
Being a proud past pupil of St Paul’s, Ms Fearon has a great passion for progress
and in making the school experience the best it can possibly be for every student.
She says of her new job: “It’s different, it’s a challenge, it’s a new direction but I am
going to embrace it in the best way I can!”
As part of her new role, one of Ms Fearon’s main priorities is to ensure fairness in
the upcoming Centre Determined Grade process. She strives to ensure each
student gets the grades they deserve and that our school’s internal grading system
will be ‘watertight’. She is a great believer in data and analysing data to better accommodate each
student in their day to day studies.
Even though her new job differs in many ways from her previous role, Ms Fearon aims to bring the
pastoral aspect directly into her new role. She talks of how her job is “all about the students and the
improvement of individual children.” On a personal level, Ms Fearon says she is always very proud of
the child who overcomes barriers to learning and achieves C grades. She says “that C grade is
actually their A, because they have achieved their personal best.”
Ms Fearon is very focused on creating “a culture of kindness” and cares for each individual student,
saying “Sometimes being hard on a student is done out of love. Just like with parents, we want to
push to get everything we can achieve out of you when we see there is ‘more in the tank.’”
She believes loyalty, the ability to tell the truth, flexibility, being open to trying out new ideas,
straight talking and, of course, the ability to have the craic are all qualities which have helped her
throughout her life. She has always worked in all-ability schools and is passionate about creating
opportunities for all abilities through an “educational landscape where all needs are catered for and
failure is a foreign word.”
As she begins her new role in the school Ms Fearon aims to: “Champion every learner - in the
classroom, on the stage, on the court, in the field, through their personal characteristics. Everybody
leaves us, knowing that we, as a school, value them and have fought their corner in trying to bring
out the very best in them, wherever possible.”
By Shane O’Keefe, Year 13