THE first school open night for my son came after I had put in a 14-hour day, travelled 160 miles and had not had any dinner.
He had sat his transfer test in November and last week we went big school shopping for the place he'll spend the next seven years. We were at two open nights in as many days. So it was always going to be fabulous.
The first place they took us to after the principal's address was the science labs were we saw many wonderful things such as students setting fire to their hands using foam and making water move up tubes using matches.
As I stood there looking at my son – so young and small in this overwhelmingly big school – his life flashed before my eyes. I remembered the day we brought him home from hospital. The nights I walked the floors with him sleeping on my shoulder. His first words. How he used to break everything he touched. The day he stood up and walked. The epic birthday parties we fashioned. The first time he put on a football rig. When he was made captain of his school team.
I wondered if he'd be all right, if he'd make friends, if he'd be able to handle the work, if the other boys would be nice to him. I took a deep breath and tried to quieten the neurotic, irrationally hungry and tired Mammy voice in my head.
While I was walking around the room being highly impressed by flashy and binging things I noticed my boy and the other young lads who were in our group had gathered around a table. I innocently ventured over to see a set of sheep's lungs, without the sheep's body casing, laying on the table top. Just sitting there plain as you like, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The teacher, held the lungs up by the attached tongue for all to see and explained that she was going to inflate them.
The boys stood open mouthed as she got an actual bicycle pump, attached it to the slimy windpipe and inflated the lungs to capacity, turning them around and telling us that the cold dead heart, which we hadn't spotted earlier, wasn't beating because the sheep was, like, dead.
My head was spinning and my stomach churning. There was a moment where I thought I might need the assistance of St John's Ambulance or at least a receptacle to hurl into. But I stumbled out to the corridor instead and found myself in the company of other grossed-out mums who had also left their menfolk, big and small, gathered around the table of death with their mouths open and their eyes wide.
I managed to hold it together to wander around the rest of the school to be amazed by artwork and IT rooms and everything else and my boy went home happy.
The second school we went to had a tray of sheep's eyeballs on display in their biology labs. All different sizes, all with the pupils dilated, staring at me. I actually had a nightmare about them that night, that they were chasing me around the corridors of that school, hundreds of them, all blinking and staring. I woke in the night in a cold sweat thinking how many sheep had been sacrificed for school open nights of Northern Ireland?
Earlier one of the science teachers also told me a funny story about when she was clearing up her classroom after dissecting a sheep's heart, lungs and stomach with her A-Level group that morning. The big bag containing all the leftover bloody bits and gore etc had burst and blood and guts went all the floor and it took her an hour to clean it all up with a mop. She said that it looked like the scene of a massacre. I left that room knowing I would never sleep or smile ever again.
But besides all the gore, the schools I went to – one grammar, one non-grammar – were absolutely fabulous centres of learning excellence that I would have no hesitation in sending my child to.
My older child did not sit the transfer test. He left primary school struggling terribly with dyslexia. The boy fought to write a paragraph. Every homework was like a mountain to climb. A year with the fabulous staff at his all-ability school and that child was writing two-page essays for English and history.
This might not seem like a big deal to you, but to him and to me, this was a miracle of epic proportions that reduced me to tears and made him believe in himself again. That school built my boy's confidence, gave him back an enjoyment of learning and has lit a spark in him. We found the perfect school for him.
He and his friends are thriving, learning, being inspired daily and being taught by passionate teachers and guided by caring educators.
My other son is still to embark on his journey. But I know we'll find his perfect match too, regardless of his transfer test results, due out this weekend.
I pray for a day when the transfer test is abandoned as the awfully damaging and stressful process that it is. Thank goodness we are already seeing the first moves of this happening in the Omagh region were selection is to be phased out completely by 2020.
Until then though, I suppose we have to play the game.
