This photo features pupils from Lisneal College www.lisnealcollege.com and St Mary's College www.stmarysderry.com
St Mary’s College is an all girls, Catholic maintained secondary school in the heart of the Creggan area of Londonderry/Derry. It is working with Lisneal College, a controlled secondary school, through Queen’s University’s Sharing Education Programme, which is supported jointly by the Fund and The Atlantic Philanthropies.
Students from St Mary’s and Lisneal share Learning for Life and Work classes, taking it in turns to travel to each other’s schools to learn together. Learning for Life and Work provides opportunities to discuss identity and citizenship.
Martine Mulhern, Vice-Principal of St Mary’s explains the impact of the partnership: “Our partnership with Lisneal brings a very practical dimension to our Learning for Life and Work curriculum. It is easy to talk about citizenship in the abstract but sitting in a classroom with students from different backgrounds, wearing different uniforms, gives our discussions a very practical and real focus.”
David Funston, Principal, Lisneal College, said: “Many of the problems we have stem from ignorance. I think children going to another school and learning from another culture and how they do things in a different tradition can only broaden our children’s education.”
St Mary’s and Lisneal’s shared activities have also included a trip to London to examine culture and heritage, and St Mary’s has extended its existing Saturday school programme to include Lisneal College students.
Martine is now a huge advocate of sharing education. She says: “By sharing education, we have all grown in our understanding of one another - teachers, pupils, parents. An understanding of the sameness has come about - the realisation that underneath we are all the same. It’s also brought to the fore a sensitivity to symbols and the need to consider other people’s feelings and viewpoints which are all incredibly important and invaluable lessons for life and for our shared future.
“In a city where there are still regular sectarian clashes between young people, it is encouraging to see our students building real friendships which extend beyond the classroom and which will shape their attitudes and choices long into the future.”
