THE new principal of Woodland National School, Mr Kevin Caldwell will take up his post in September.

Mr Caldwell, a native of Donegal Town, has been teaching at Woodland National School since he took his first class in 1979.

For almost 30 years he has taught the senior classes in Woodland and is looking forward to becoming Principal. Mr Joe McNulty retires as Principal of Woodland National School on 31 August. Mr Kevin Caldwell has been Acting Principal since last October. He is married to Eileen, a teacher in Letterkenny Scoil Mhuire Gán Smal. "I began teaching in Woodland in January, 1979 and have been Deputy Principal for some time but this will be the first time in school where I'll be in an administration post.

"I had the honour of teaching in the school's first prefab when I started back in 1979. It was a small country school with 60 children. We now have 470 children with numbers expected to swell to 480 in the new school year," explained Mr Caldwell.

Mr Caldwell said he had seen many changes at Woodland over the years with the school expanding rapidly in the late 1980s and 1990s as Letterkenny town expanded.

"The biggest change to teaching over the years was the transition from multi classes to single classes which came with the growth of the school," said Mr Caldwell.

Woodland now has 26 teachers and two specialist speech and language classes. The demographics of the school has changed considerably over the last three decades as Mr Caldwell notes that only two or three farming families now attend as it has expanded to become one of the largest national schools in Letterkenny.

"I'm looking forward to working with a great team of teachers," he said.