John Toal

He said to me, hold on, are we getting pizzas for this?

And then there was a final class full of characters who, when I asked how they felt about moving on, said, we are legends in this school.

And that was gold.

So that started me on a songwriting journey during which I channeled my inner Gary Barlow and came up with, I'm not going to lie, a stone cold classic.

Now, no recordings exist of any of these songs.

You'll just have to take my word for it.

But because it had been a success in years gone by, and because that year were a musical bunch, I thought we'd pair their song with May We Never Have To Say Goodbye by Sean Davey, which I love.

If you don't know it, it was written specially for the great coming together of people from all over the world to Ireland for the Special Olympics in 2003.

We crossed the oceans, we crossed the valleys, we crossed the mountains high.

But now we're here, there's none to fear, and may we never have to say goodbye.

In fact, they used to play it through the speakers at the end of big matches in Croke Park, just to make you feel more noble and Corinthian.

And it worked, even when your team had just lost by a point scored by a man who should have been sent off in the first half.

So anyway, the night of the P7 party came and we'd practiced.

And I told the kids not to let on about the songs.

We'd keep it a surprise.

So just as the parents were preparing to move outside for the barbecue, marking their little darlings moving on to big school, I started the piano intro and we launched into the Sean Davey.

Oceans and mountains and none to fear.

And I could see in the hall it had touched some parents who were probably surprised to see their kid up on stage singing and the words being so appropriate and all.

And then we explained that that wasn't all.

The boys and girls had also written a song specially for tonight.