shared education

Reconciliation above all

| Readers 1352

Reconciliation is the primary necessity facing Northern Ireland, believes Peter Osborne. Peter is a former chair of both the Community Relations Council and the Parades Commission. He was talking in the latest Forward Together podcast from the Holywell Trust. “I come from a perspective of looking at what reconciliation is about,” says Peter. He argues that to achieve reconciliation it is essential to correct the structures that create separation. This has led him to strongly argue for the integration of …

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A challenge to the separation of schools…

| Readers 4221

A closed and boarded-up primary school must be one of the commonest, and saddest, local sights.  Crumbling façades. Peeling paintwork. Broken windows. The silent playground that once resounded to excited chatter.  Weeds breaking through the tarmac where generations of children played football, rounders and ‘chasies’.  Schools aren’t just places of education, they are centres of community and repositories of communal memories, but there is little place for such sentimentality in educational planning.  Empty school desks and restrictive budgets mean that …

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CSSC research shows complexity and diversity of controlled education

| Readers 816

The Controlled Schools’ Support Council (CSSC) launched its baseline assessment of the controlled schools sector in Northern Ireland on Monday 18 September. Controlled schools are non-denominational and firmly set within an ethos embedded in Christian values. They are open to pupils of all faiths or none, and account for 558 or 48% of all schools in Northern Ireland. As CSSC’s research demonstrates, the controlled education sector is complex and diverse. It is also the only education sector to comprise a …

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The unsung Assembly achievement of shared education is not the enemy of integration.

| Readers 939

As we contemplate the political wreck that is currently the Assembly, we might look around for crumbs of comfort.  Although this has not been officially confirmed, I’m assured that the alarm sounded here and in the Irish News that the spend of only £3 million of a £500 million ten year fund pledged by Westminster under Fresh Start doesn’t mean lack of commitment. It is due to “normal” delay in capital start –ups and will be carried over to next …

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Will Theresa May’s support for grammar schools help or hinder schools sharing in Northern Ireland?

| Readers 1145

Now we know why Theresa May has been so vague about Brexit. All along she has been preoccupied with – grammar schools and lifting restrictions of faith schools especially Catholic schools! Schools will be allowed to select children on the basis of ability at 14 and 16 as well as 11, Theresa May said today, as she outlined the biggest reform of the education system in 50 years. The prime minister presented her plans to allow new and expanded grammar …

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