After 32 years of teaching, husband and wife Fergal and Christine McCann, from Irvinestown, will now have all the time in the world to spend together as they say goodbye to their respective places of learning where they have helped to nurture countless students.

Fergal retires from St. Mary's Primary School, Tempo, where he was principal for 17 years, while Christine says farewell to Loreto Grammar School, Omagh where she was Head of PE.

The pair met at St. Mary's College, Belfast and have been together ever since, and are celebrating 30 years of marriage this week.

Before settling in Tempo, Fergal also spent time teaching at St. Patrick's PS, Mullanaskea; St. Michael's PS, Enniskillen; St. Paul's PS, Irvinestown and Tummery PS, Dromore.

Looking back through his time, he said the main thing that motivated him in teaching was "making sure children got the best start in life and all their talents are recognised early on and they can make the most of what they can be".

"Children have different abilities but it doesn’t matter what level of ability – everybody can achieve," he said.

Seeing children he has taught achieving things in life gives Fergal a lot of satisfaction. "Your teachers are very close to you, and are very keen to see that you do well, whatever happens to you.

"The thing that I loved about it was we always had children coming back to do things like work experience, and teaching practice, even to get things signed for references, and all of that shows there is a sort of a self-perpetuating thing."

Looking back at his time in Tempo, Fergal praised the staff for making the school such a success during his time.

"We had a mantra or a strapline when I came there to create an atmosphere where excellence becomes inevitable, and without good staff working alongside you, it's impossible to do it."

For Christine, who spent her entire career at Loreto, she loved working with other schools. She was heavily involved in shared education in Omagh and worked closely with the six other Omagh schools heading towards the Strule Campus.

She also loved helping the school to win awards through sport, as well as being able to visit countries such as Sri Lanka, Austria, France and Bulgaria.

Christine said: "I had the ability to travel for leadership awards with the kids through sports. Before technology became the be-all and end-all, the kids use to exchange letters and do joint projects together.

"And through all the joint projects we did, they then were able to achieve an International Schools Award for the work they did with a school in Sri Lanka.

"I suppose the best thing about that was around the time of the tsunami [in 2004], our girls raised £5,000, that went out to fund money to build a school out there."

Speaking of technology, Fergal and Christine have seen the huge advancements it has made to education.

"When I started teaching, you had one computer in the classroom at the back of the room, and most of the older teachers were afraid of it. It was never really switched on!

"I suppose I had the great privilege of watching the very early days of the internet begin," said Fergal.

"It [technology] has taken off in education. For me, [I've seen the rise of] the information highway, the amount of information that you could get, and that pupils could get, and it just seems to keep on steamrolling."

Christine also saw the big technology changes when she was going through her things before she left the school: "I was moving from video tapes, to floppy disk, to CDs, to [USB] pens, and now everything is on the iCloud.

"I don’t how many qualifications I have had to do in technology!"

But as they both step away from their careers, what is next?

Christine, who paid tribute to the staff and pupils, past and present from Loreto, who she said are lucky to be part of the Loreto school community, will be spending more quality time with the family as well as spending time at CrossFit, at which she still competes.

And she is going to ease herself out of teaching: "I have left teaching, but have left my CV around schools to work my way out, slowly but surely. Just to see and laugh at all my colleagues that I have made the right decision!" she joked.

For Fergal, future plans are a bit more relaxed: "I'm too young yet to be throwing in the towel. It's another part of my life that is finished up, and I am just going to sit back and take things easy and look around me, and breathe."