Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): We have with us today Hazel Gardiner, the principal of Brookeborough Controlled Primary School; Dermot Finlay, the principal of St Mary's Primary School, Brookeborough; Iris Barker from the Western Education and Library Board (WELB); and Mary Hampsey from the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS).

Good afternoon. You are all very welcome. I apologise for the delay. I know that you were in the Public Gallery, so you were able to hear what was being said previously, and that might have been informative. Thank you very much for waiting. I ask to you make an opening statement. Members will then follow up with some questions.

Ms Hazel Gardiner (Brookeborough Shared Education Partnership): Good afternoon, Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to brief you on our shared education programme. I am the principal of the controlled school, and I will talk about our school experiences of shared education to date. My colleague Dermot Finlay, the principal of St Mary's, will tell you about our current shared education programmes and our plans for the future.

Our two schools, which are situated in the village of Brookeborough, serve the surrounding rural area. Brookeborough is in the most deprived 6% of super output areas (SOAs) when it comes to proximity to services. The schools are just a short walk apart — less than 10 minutes. Our current enrolment is 119 pupils — 66 in the controlled school and 53 in St Mary's — and each school has three teachers, including us. Our schools reflect the community in which we serve, with over one third of pupils qualifying for free school meals and St Mary's receiving extended schools funding. The two schools have enjoyed an excellent relationship for over 40 years, going back to the 1970s. We have participated in education for mutual understanding (EMU), cross-community contact schemes and a local cross-border, cross-community scheme with schools in County Sligo called the Riverbrooke project. Those projects involved the children working together, although mainly on trips away from the school. However, they included residentials in Magilligan Field Centre and the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, and it was most unusual that schools were able to do that in the 1970s. In a sense, our schools have been working together long before the phrase "shared education" was coined. All those activities continued through challenging times. I was a young teacher in the school in 1987 when the then principal lost his mother-in-law and father-in-law in the Remembrance Day bombing. Both schools in Brookeborough have had parents, pupils and children who suffered and were personally affected. Even since then, when politically sensitive issues are reported in the media, it has the potential to affect the dynamic of the partnership, but the commitment and strength of our partnership has enabled us to overcome those challenges. The two schools maintained and developed linkages, and today we stand on the threshold of a shared campus for our children and the community. If Brookeborough can do that, other divided communities can do it also.

In the past six years, through funding and support from the Fermanagh Trust, the children have enjoyed shared lessons across the curriculum. Those have included joint classes on respecting difference and the undertaking of a major history project where the primary 6 children from the two schools interviewed local people and looked at little country schools that were closed. They found out that those schools had been integrated all those years ago. They also performed a self-penned drama for the public called 'Racism Ruins Lives', and there are shared classes in gymnastics, ICT and art, to name but a few.

One of the difference between the old community relations programmes and the Fermanagh Trust shared education programme is that all children are spending regular — indeed, weekly — time in each other's schools from P1 to P7, working and playing together. That has resulted in them being more comfortable in each other's company and being appreciative of their cultural differences and personal similarities, and it has allowed for friendships to be formed.

As well as societal benefits, there are obvious educational benefits from all of that. However, we want to stress that shared education has not diluted our separate cultures: we both have a strong identity. Support from the Ulster-Scots Agency has enabled the school that I am in to work on the flagship programme, where we celebrate culture through dance, music and drama. In fact, last Friday, Trina Somerville, the director of education and language at the Ulster-Scots Agency, attended a performance of Dan Gordon's play 'The Boat Factory' in the school. St Mary's also has a strong cultural identity, which is celebrated through sport, music and language.

Through shared education, we also learn about each other's cultures, and we have shared performances and activities. For example, as recently as yesterday, our schools were involved in Project St Patrick in Enniskillen. Over the past few years, we have jointly entered choral speaking in the Fermanagh Feis, winning on one occasion. The children have played rugby together, and, at one of the Project St Patrick parades in Enniskillen, they performed Scottish and Irish dancing at the same time.

For our teachers, we have hosted joint training. Through the Fermanagh Trust programme, there has been training in good practice, partnership-building and the Rural Respecting Difference programme. The teachers plan together, which is particularly useful in small schools, where it is possible to feel quite isolated. We have organised our staff through shared education, which has allowed us to decompound combined year groups, which, again, has obvious educational benefits for the children. Each school now has access to the skills of six teachers. In the autumn term, our P3 children from the two schools were brought together to be taught science by one of my teachers, who is doing an ENTHUSE award at the minute and has a particular interest in science. That is making use of her skill.

We organise joint training and workshops for parents; for example, Internet safety, which is done by the PSNI, the Rural Respecting Difference programme and reading strategies. Although we have separate parent-teacher associations, the two have come together and worked together, most recently to bring the parents, grandparents and children together in the village to plant bulbs to improve the environment.

Our two boards of governors have had several joint meetings, and those began at the time of the first area plans. They then formed a joint subcommittee, which has met several times. The Western Board and CCMS joined that subcommittee and attended several meetings as we prepared to submit an application for the shared campus.

I will now hand over to Dermot, who will tell you a little bit about the current plans and those for the future.

Mr Dermot Finlay (Brookeborough Shared Education Partnership): Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to come up to talk to you. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of you on previous visits to Stormont and down in Fermanagh when you visited Enniskillen.

The Committee will be aware that the WELB and CCMS have submitted a proposal to the Department of Education for a shared campus in Brookeborough. For more detail on the level of sharing that we are doing, the table in the briefing paper provides an illustration of the sharing at pupil and teacher level that we have planned through the shared education signature project. We applied for that recently.

It can be seen that 100% of our children take part in shared activities, providing regular and sustained contact. Through the three-year signature project for shared education, we plan to deliver shared activities and to decompound combined year groups, both of which will have huge educational benefits for the children. We are also sharing a teacher in the project. The value of our shared education was acknowledged by the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) in our recent inspections in 2011 and 2013. The ETI said that the children spoke enthusiastically about their experiences and that there were many examples in the school of very good collaborative work on shared education. The synergy of sharing not only complements the joint learning and teaching but raises the individual provision of each school. The richness of our shared past and the proposal for a shared campus has developed naturally over the years owing to the high level of sharing between the two schools over four decades, which Hazel talked about.

The Brookeborough shared campus has immense potential to enhance and develop a shared future for the local community. The proposal for the shared campus was a community-based decision to sustain primary education in Brookeborough for both sections of the community. It is, as the Minister of Education asked for, a bottom-up, local solution that meets local needs.

A series of meetings was held with parents and governors, initially separately and then jointly. The Fermanagh Trust facilitated a community survey in March 2014, which was distributed to parents, staff, Churches and members of the wider community, and the outcome was overwhelming, with 93% of the community supporting a shared campus. The campus has the support of all political parties on Fermanagh District Council, and, at a recent meeting in February 2015 with the First Minister, the deputy First Minister and Arlene Foster, we received a tremendously positive and enthusiastic response to our proposal for the shared campus. The deputy First Minister, during Question Time at the start of March, described the Brookeborough initiative and our leadership as inspirational.

The sharing that we are involved in will widen and deepen within the shared campus. Shared campuses are about building united communities, and that is what we want to do. Thank you very much.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Thank you very much, and thank you for coming to meet us this afternoon.

For the record, can you explain what the shared campus will look like and the practicalities that will be involved?

Mr Finlay: If I had a fantastic diagram, I would be able to show you exactly what it will look like. The concept is that our two schools will be on the one site and in the one building. We are suggesting not two new schools but one build where —

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Sorry to cut across you, but does that mean that you will have a project similar to the one in the Moy?

Ms H Gardiner: Yes.

Mr Finlay: It is similar, yes. There will be one building on a shared campus site, with classrooms that my school will occupy and classrooms that Hazel's school will occupy. There will be two distinct schools: St Mary's and Brookeborough Controlled. There will also be parts of the building that we will share, including the playground, the lunch hall and a classroom in which shared activities can take place.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You will no doubt be aware of some of the criticism that the Moy project has received. How do you view that criticism?

Mr Finlay: Which criticism are you thinking of?

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): There are criticisms around the fact that you have two sets of children going through the front door and then being separated.

Mr Finlay: Yes, when I first heard about the Moy through the media, which I am sure you have all been subjected to at some point, I thought that it was a strange design and pattern as well. We visited some schools in Glasgow that had the shared campus model, and, once I saw it in practice, it became clear to me that it was a reality. If you are talking about the depiction of left and right and blue and green, as you see on the television, that is oversimplified and naive and understates the whole case.

I will draw on an example from my school. When the children are in the playground, the P4 and P5 pupils come and line up and the P6 and P7 pupils come and line up. They go left and right, into their classrooms. Some mornings, depending on activities, the P4 pupils go off to the left and the P5, P6 and P7 pupils go off to the right, with me. Primary 1, 2 and 3 pupils are in a totally different part of the school. That is not divisive; it is just the natural organisation of any school.

In fact, the shared campus that Hazel and I will hopefully succeed in getting will increase the contact that the children have. They will be in the playground in the morning, they will have lunch together and they will have planned curricular activities, so they will see much more of each other. I worked in a large school in England where 500 pupils lined up and went through many doors. However, they were all still part of the same school. The depiction of children lining up and going off here and there is naive and oversimplified.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): From a wider community perspective, how has the proposal been received in Brookeborough and beyond?

Mr Finlay: The proposal has received overwhelming support. I said one time at a public meeting that I did not want to take St Mary's in one direction, only to look over my shoulder and find that there was nobody else behind me. In fact, we are responding to the community, and we said so to Minister O'Dowd. We told him that the people in Brookeborough were asked whether they would consider a shared campus for the sustainability of education in the community, and that they said yes, overwhelmingly.

Ms H Gardiner: We presented various options to parents at the beginning of area planning. We looked at integrated and shared models, and we talked about all the different possibilities. As Dermot says, the parents felt that this was the way forward in our area.

Mr Finlay: Hazel and I said as well that the length of time in which there has been sharing in Brookeborough is unique when compared with other areas of the country. This did not happen overnight. I have been in Brookeborough for 11 years, while Hazel has been there a bit longer. We have got to know each other and work with each other. We are comfortable in each other's company, and, as a result, so too are our staff and parents. I see Hazel's children regularly, and she is up in my school as well. It has been a long time coming and has been an organic process.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You have to be commended for the work that you have been doing. It is a reflection on you. Those of us who do not represent areas such as yours probably do not understand the difficulties that there are in border areas in particular, and you have to be congratulated for that.

Mr Finlay: Well, I am a blow-in, you see. I grew up in west Belfast so, for me, being in Fermanagh was an education in itself. [Laughter.]

As Hazel commented, different parts of the country were affected by the Troubles in different ways, and, if you lived in Belfast or Derry, you thought they were happening just there. When I moved to Fermanagh, I realised that there were situations and that people were touched by the Troubles there as well. Forty years is a long time, and things have moved on. Change comes, although it comes slowly. The people of Brookeborough are on the threshold and asking the Government to consider a shared campus for the community.

Ms H Gardiner: The community sees huge benefit as well, because there is currently no neutral venue in Brookeborough for community events. To have something like that on the shared campus would be very worthwhile.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): For you, the only barrier at this stage to moving forward with the project is financial.

Mr Finlay: Absolutely. If the Department of Education says yes to us in June, there should be no problem at all. I am sure that it will.

Ms Iris Barker (Brookeborough Shared Education Partnership): The outline business case was submitted to the Department of Education on 30 January this year. We expect an outcome from the Department before the end of June. We are hoping that it will be a positive result and that we will move to the full business case, for submission later in the year.

Mr Craig: Dermot, I listened with interest to what CCMS had to say earlier about its whole concept of shared provision, and I get the impression that, if everything goes well for you, we are going to see this worked out.

What I struggle with — I struggle with this, because I do not come from a Catholic-maintained background and therefore have no idea what it means in reality — is the fact that Tim Bartlett explained that, with the Catholic teaching certificate, every teacher is basically an RE teacher. Given my background, that is a bit of a strange concept. I asked this daft question: can you not share classes if you are struggling for numbers in a particular class? That is perhaps the next logical progression of the shared model. There was a hint that something is going on between the Churches in the background to get around the Catholic teaching certificate issue. Do you foresee that ultimately coming about in this model if everything goes well and there is a fair wind?

Mr Finlay: First, as a teacher, I always say that there is no such thing as a daft question. [Laughter.]

The Catholic teaching certificate is, I understand, open to anyone to do. There are universities and teacher-training colleges, at which anyone can access a teacher-training certificate for religion, and that means that he or she is competent in teaching the Catholic religion.

We are already teaching the children in classes together through planned delivery of the curriculum. In the outline plan in our briefing paper, we cover things such as personal development and mutual understanding (PD&MU), which is a key factor in reconciliation and getting children to learn together. We have extended that to science and maths. We are and will be two separate schools, and we will have our own subjects and teaching, but, planned within that, there will be time with the children. Hazel's children spent a whole day at my school last month being taught together, and they put together a DVD for the proposal. There are times when that can be done. It is fair to say that we have been doing it for a long time.

We have applied for a signature project as well. Wednesday mornings are given over to shared education so that the two schools can come together. That is across the school, and 100% of the children take part, as do staff. Within the next year or two, we see that extending to the whole of Wednesday. In fact, the contact is widening and deepening. When I first met Hazel, we were involved in EMU, but we perhaps met for a day, went on a trip and then came back. The children sometimes sat on the bus. They sat on one side and we sat on the other side, and we got on the bus on the left and the others got on the bus on the right. We had lunch together over there. It was well meant and well planned, and the Speedwell Trust did great work with the children, but they then all went back to their own school. The contact has intensified and is more regular and more natural, in that the children actually now know each other. I make the old joke, and will do so again, that, when I go into Hazel's school, I make my own coffee or tea. We do not stand on ceremony any more. We know each other quite well, and the children do as well. If I see them around Brookeborough, they will wave over and say, "Hello, Master Finlay". I am not some person whom they do not really know They have had contact with me. You talked about being in the classroom together. We are doing that already and intend to increase it.

Ms H Gardiner: It is great to be able to use the expertise and skills of staff and to have six teachers. If somebody specialises in music, maths, science or whatever, we will be able to tap into that.

Mr Craig: I look at it as having shared resources. When I talk about "resources", I mean teachers, because all of that reduces your overheads. You are telling me that you are already there, or are at least close to it.

Mr Finlay: Absolutely.

Mr Rogers: You are a breath of fresh air, and thanks for sharing your journey with us. What is the nursery or preschool provision like in the area?

Ms H Gardiner: There is the Playstation in Brookeborough, which is cross-community. Children meet in the station house. That was initiated by the Brookeborough and District Community Development Association. The children are there for a year or two and then have been separating.

Ms Barker: It is a voluntary playgroup and acts as a feeder for both primary schools at the moment. We hope that, as we go through the process of moving to full business case, we will engage with the playgroup. We and the schools have engaged with the playgroup with a view to moving it to the site as well. The difference is that it is a voluntary playgroup, so it has to secure funding from alternative sources. However, we are happy to engage with a view to including the playgroup on the new site.

Mr Finlay: The playgroup has wholeheartedly asked whether it can be part of the campus. We have children in our school — in fact, Arlene Foster's child was an example — who know each other from playgroup, go off to their separate schools and then meet up during shared education. The shared education project that the Fermanagh Trust funded over the past six years was an opportunity for those children to rekindle friendships and say, "I remember you". It was a positive thing, and, according to some children in my P7 class, they are now seeing each other outside school as a direct result of shared education, because they have got to know each other.

Mr Rogers: To go back to the beginning of the journey, was it sharing out of necessity? Did that play a part?

Mr Finlay: Hazel's school is 50 years old, while mine is a little bit older at 75 years. We had celebrations recently to mark those anniversaries. We did a joint play through shared education about memories at school. Some parents fed in memories, and one was of trips to the Causeway safari park. I am just about old enough to remember the Causeway safari park, and I am sure that some of you are too young to remember, so it was going on even then.

It was done not out of financial necessity but for community relations. Hazel can talk more about that, because she was there before I was.

Ms H Gardiner: The two principals at the time were very committed to it, which was amazing at that time. I sometimes accompanied them on residentials for three or four days at a time, and you could see friendships forming. That is going back to the 1980s.

Mr Rogers: What was your biggest challenge on the journey?

Mr Finlay: Money. It is always resources. The Fermanagh Trust's projects were invaluable, because it provided the funding. Without that, we could not have done a lot of what we did.

Hazel touched on the hearts and minds of people. When things pop up in the media, you realise that sometimes you have to be aware of the sensitivities of the past, because they can still come back to haunt us. Every now and again, you think, "Oh, hang on, will what's going on elsewhere affect us?". People are at different stages on that journey and of acceptance. I am not saying it has all been a bed of roses, with everyone flying the flag for shared education. People have different opinions, but the people of Brookeborough are wholeheartedly saying to us that this makes sense. They have a pride in their community. People have said to me, "Who's going to want to live in a village with no schools?".

I have seen tremendous change in Brookeborough. I am there just over 10 years. There was no pharmacy when I first came. Little restaurants and cafes have opened up, and, as I said, the pharmacy is there now. The two schools are an integral part of the village. They are pivotal. If you take those two schools out of the village, you rip the heart out of it.

The people of Brookeborough are coming at this from a community point of view, not from a Protestant or Catholic point of view. Hazel and I have children and families in our schools from mixed marriages as well, who then know each other through cousins, friends and relatives. We are not talking about Hazel's school being over there and mine being here; there is a linkage that has been there for a long time.

To go back to what you asked about when it started, a teacher involved in the history project told me that, many years ago, she used to give another teacher at St Mary's a lift. They shared the journey and then started sharing resources. Mary is an ex-teacher, so she will know what I mean about the resources. They were sharing resources, and you are talking about 35 or 40 years ago. It was happening even then.

Mr Rogers: Thank you. I wish you all the best on your journey.

Mr Finlay: Thank you, Seán.

Mr Rogers: An important plus that you alluded to is that it is also about revitalising rural communities. Without a school, we cannot do that.

Mr Kinahan: That is wonderful to hear. Congratulations on where you have got to. Just before you came in, we were asking CCMS and NICCE about how we can get change. The shared education Bill is coming through, and I wonder what advice you have for us at this end. We hear, all the way through, that it should be done bottom-up, and yet here we are, about to put something in top-down. What would you like to see us do with the shared education Bill to make things happen more easily for you and for those embarking on the same journey?

Mr Finlay: Off the top of my head, funding. Hazel is whispering that to me. It is all about the money, isn't it? I would tell you to listen to people like us and the Moy. I have to be frank: we are not the only schools doing shared education; we are pioneers in some ways, but other schools are doing great work. The integrated sector, Trevor, has done great work over the years, and I have a lot of respect for it. You have to listen to the people who are doing it. I had my reservations about a shared campus. I was appointed to St Mary's, Brookeborough; it is my school, and I am very proud of it: "Leave me alone, please; I am happy with things. Give me back the two teachers that I had six years ago". However, things change, and I now think that a shared campus in Brookeborough is the best thing for Brookeborough, long after I am gone, looking at society and the future when these children are our age.

I would honestly tell you to talk to people. There is shared education all over Fermanagh, and the Committee was talking to people in Fermanagh. It might not suit everywhere, and it might not be possible everywhere right now, but who is to say that it cannot work in future? Talk to people, including parents. Sometimes, people come to talk to people like Hazel and me, and the teachers. Talk to the parents and, ultimately, the children. Listen to their voices, because some of the children coming through our schools do not have the hang-ups; they have grown up in different times. You talk about the Troubles and they say "What?". The Troubles are on my daughter's history curriculum at secondary school. It is history, but it still has a legacy.

Ms H Gardiner: Training is also very important for governors, staff and parents. The Fermanagh Trust ran training in partnership building, good relations and respecting difference programmes. That is very important because, as we said, everybody is coming from a different point. Some issues are difficult to deal with in a shared class, so training is very important.

Mr Finlay: And do not rush it.

Ms Barker: The pressures facing primary and post-primary schools, given the funding and the pressures therein with the Department of Education's sustainable schools policy, focused the minds of small rural schools, particularly in the Western Board area, where there is a very high percentage of rural schools.

Where you have two primary schools, with 66 pupils and 53 pupils, those pressures help to focus minds, and the shared education campus programme was something that they could see, given their history of sharing, would be a lifeline. The work of both schools has been fundamental to that.

Mr Lunn: I suppose, in the light of some of the unkind things that I have said about the Moy proposal, that you might expect some hostility, but there is none. I have met you both before, and the sharing that you have done beyond the curricular requirements is very impressive. I imagine that many of your pupils, between the two schools, already know one another quite well.

I wanted to ask about logistics for a start, because I am ashamed to say that I have never been to Brookeborough —

Ms H Gardiner: That is terrible. [Laughter.]

Mr Lunn: The sign on the road flashed past. I would like to go, so there's a hint for you. How far away is the next nearest school in each of your sectors?

Ms H Gardiner: About five miles.

Mr Lunn: And where is that?

Mr Finlay: If you do not know the geography, there is Tempo, Brookeborough, Lisnaskea, Fivemiletown, which is in a different board, and Maguiresbridge.

Ms H Gardiner: All within roughly five miles.

Mr Lunn: I have been to all those places; I do not know how I missed Brookeborough. [Laughter.]

I just wanted to get the layout.

Hazel, you said that there had been a full consultation with the parents, as you would expect, and that the integrated model was one of the considerations that you put to them. Did you involve the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE)?

Ms H Gardiner: No, not at that meeting; it was a parent meeting during area planning. One of the things that you need to remember is that there was an attempt to open an integrated school in Fivemiletown, which is five miles away, and it closed after a couple of years. Some of those children are now with us.

Mr Lunn: Did the parents get to express an opinion about the possibility of one school rather than two joined together?

Ms H Gardiner: The message came across at both meetings that each sector wanted to maintain its own culture and identity; they wanted to share and work together but keep a separate identity.

Mr Finlay: To touch on what Jim Clarke from CCMS said, I am not in the business of promoting a form of education; I am the principal of a school. What Hazel and I engaged in were meetings with our parents separately in response to area planning, which was looking at a local or parish-based solution. They were given a range of options and spoken to very honestly. As Hazel said, there was an integrated school in the Clogher Valley and it closed.

Parents say that they are very happy with Brookeborough controlled schools and with St Mary's; they want the two schools to carry on, and the shared campus allows for that sustainability. It is about what you have all commented on today: mutual respect and understanding. It is about being able to say, "I am this, and I am quite proud of it. You are that, and you are proud of that". The old adage from the 1970s is, "I'm OK; you're OK". It is about living together, the two schools existing on a site and sharing and increasing that sharing for the benefit of the children. Jonathan said that we are all coming at the same thing: it is about the education and social benefits of the children and about building a united community.

Mr Lunn: Will you continue to have two boards of governors?

Mr Finlay: We have our boards of governors —

Mr Lunn: I think that you said that you had a joint committee.

Mr Finlay: There will be a joint board of governors. There is a joint committee at the minute.

Mr Lunn: You will obviously continue to have two principals.

Ms Mary Hampsey (Brookeborough Shared Education Partnership): There will be two boards of governors but a joint committee with people from each board. That is the plan.

Mr Lunn: I wish you well. That might seem odd in light of what I think about the Moy, but this sounds different to me. My hope for the Moy, which, from talking to the people there, I think will take an awful long time to materialise —

Mr Finlay: Some of the Moy staff and governors came to Enniskillen for a public meeting at which we talked to parents from both schools about the different models and the Moy. They spoke about their experience, and I must compliment them. I found them really inspirational. The work that they have done is tremendous. When I first saw it on the news, I remember thinking, "What?". However, it goes back to what I said to Danny: you have to talk to people and listen to them, as they are living the experience. The people of the Moy have voted for that and want it to happen. I found the Moy people inspirational.

Mr Lunn: Fair enough. They voted for it by not a very big margin, but that is OK. I think that the first point that the Moy needs to get to is where you are at the moment; you are miles ahead of them. Beyond that, my hope and expectation for both schemes is that they will end up with one school.

Mr Finlay: Can I have that in writing, Trevor?

Mr Lunn: It is the only logical outcome. When you have that level of sharing, cooperation, mutual respect, understanding and affection, it has to go that way. Whether it takes five years or 25 years, I certainly hope that that is what happens. In the meantime, fair play: get on with it.

Mr Finlay: Thank you.

Ms Hampsey: I am quite new to shared education in Northern Ireland. I was principal of a large Catholic maintained primary school in Dungannon. Mr McCausland came down on a couple of occasions, and I hope that we were one of the inclusive schools that he talked about rather than one of the others. We have, as I said, adopted two different cultures, two different faiths in that school as well.

As someone who has also had experience of working with schools in the controlled sector, it amazes me how much work goes on that is not made public. I was not aware of the level of sharing anywhere until I came to Brookeborough. There is another example involving Moneynick and Duneane. I am amazed at the level of sharing there; they acted off their own bat just because they were eager to take people forward.

Having worked with the board in both sectors, it amazes me how much there is in common; there is little difference, really, when you are in either school. Children are the same; teaching is the same; inspections are the same; and parents want the same thing. The only differences that I can see are faith differences to do with scripture or whatever. The only real difference is the sacramental liturgies. We had Protestant children and children from mixed marriages in our school, and there was never a problem. Some Protestant children came to watch the children make their first communion; they were at the party, too. It was just enlightening.

We should focus on what people have in common not on their differences, because sometimes we create difference. No matter what the Christian religion — I am sure that the same is true of Islam and Buddhism — there are two tenets: love God and love your neighbour as yourself. That is the ethos of any school that I have been in in Northern Ireland. Treat people as you would like to be treated; respect yourself; respect God; and respect others. That is what it boils down to, so we should not get hung up on differences.
I think that your role may be to encourage people who wish to do this. CCMS asked me to work as an associate for it on this topic, and I have been amazed at the example of these people, who take it to the nth degree. We had the community relations, equality and diversity programme (CRED); we had shared education; we went away together; we were in one another's schools, but not to the extent that these people share daily and weekly.

I do not think that it can be imposed from above; it has to be nurtured. We worked in integrated schools, too, and there was never any problem; we all got on wonderfully well.

Mr Lunn: It does not really solve the problem of composite classes in your two schools, does it?

Mr Finlay: Not totally, but the shared campus and what we are doing now allows us to de-composite. To a certain degree, composite classes work; it is when you get a problem with, say, primary 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 when they cross key stages. I worked extensively in schools where they were one year group, and even in that you would have differentiation. Composite classes often raise standards, as the younger children are extended and challenged. However, the model that we have now allows us to de-composite classes — our school is only down the road. You have never been to Brookeborough, Trevor, so you do not know.

Ms Gardiner: You will have to rectify that.

Mr Finlay: We will have to rectify that. It is a short walk, but a short walk with children becomes a longer walk, and organisation is the problem. If we were on a campus, it would be easier to organise things so that we do not have to worry about the inclement weather in the winter and getting younger children on buses. The shared campus would allow us to de-composite further and, as Hazel said earlier, utilise the expertise of six teachers, as opposed to three and three.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: Thank you. I have had the opportunity to discuss this with you. I do not think that anybody round this table, or round any other table, would question the sharing, and the enhanced sharing, that has gone on between the two schools. I am particularly interested, given the cooperation, enhanced sharing and the bottom-up approach, why the initial process for T:BUC was unsuccessful. More to the point, have lessons been learned? Are there assurances? I am interested because it is being heralded as a model, which you have described very articulately today. What happened at the first round of Together: Building a United Community?

Ms Barker: Are you referring to the fact that it did not go through the first expression of interest?

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: Yes.

Ms Barker: There was a wee bit of confusion in the first expression of interest. Department of Education officials seemed to read into the proposal that the two schools were looking for a four-classroom school each or two separate buildings. It was for that reason that the Department asked for further clarification. It asked that the CCMS and the Western Board take forward an outline business case and met both the managing authorities and the schools and their chairs to make it clear that they had to provide value for money and that there had to be economies of scale through sharing in one building rather than two, since, because of the sustainable schools policy, both schools would not qualify for a new four-classroom school. The proposal was therefore revised, and we have made it very clear in the outline business case that it is one building to be shared by both schools, and that there are economies of scale and a number of benefits from sharing facilities.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: This is not by any stretch of the imagination a criticism of your work, but I am interested in why — I would have thought that the Department would have identified that from the get-go.

Ms Hampsey: It just seemed to be a misinterpretation based on the way it was written.

Mr Finlay: That is why I hesitated when Michelle asked me what this looked like. I am not sure how people misinterpreted it. I would never be daft enough to say, "Let us build two new schools." That would not be sustainable. It is one building and one school that we share. That is why, as Iris points out, it was initially misunderstood, and we did not get through. The Department, however, has acknowledged that; it recognises that now.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: But it is absolutely pinned down now in the outline case and the developing business plan.

Mr Finlay: Absolutely.

Ms Barker: The very first line is that the proposal is for a shared campus, a single site, a single building for two schools.

Ms Hampsey: We wrote it as clearly as that.

Mr Finlay: The deputy First Minister was very surprised to hear that as well. There was no room for clarification. When the proposal went through, they took it at face value. We never got a phone call to ask if it was two schools; but I am not pointing the finger or placing blame: I do not know who was responsible. There was a misunderstanding.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: But it is absolutely clear now.

Ms Barker: Very clear.

Mr McCausland: What I have to say are more observations than questions. First, I think that you are taking forward a very interesting project, a very good initiative. The principle is to take things incrementally — to start with what people want, what people can cope with, what will work at this time. What might happen five years from now, or 25 years from now, goodness only knows. We deal with the thing as it is, rather than trying to force it.

Mr Finlay: Agreed.

Mr McCausland: The other thing was the practical sharing between the schools; that is very good. I was interested, because I have asked this question at other presentations. It is hugely important that children come together, given the cultural differences between communities, on a basis of equality, respecting other traditions and, then, seeing what can be done together. I thought of an interesting example of one school in which there is a tradition of Irish dancing, and in another, a tradition of Scottish dancing. When the two come together, they can put on a performance together, as we saw in Belfast at the musical performances involving St Patrick's and the Boys' Model. I am interested in whether you have any comments to make on the importance of cultural confidence in children as they come together.

Mr Finlay: I totally agree. It is an absolute; we come in as equal partners. As I say, it is about mutual respect. Children go to sporting events. For example, my children have played rugby; Hazel's children have played Gaelic football. There is music, and we have had plays together. Drama is another example of how to bring children together. We had Irish dancing and Scottish dancing, and the dancers helped one another and learned from one another. We also entered the Fermanagh Feis and choral verse speaking together — they had to change the rules slightly, because they had never had a partnership enter before. Thankfully, we won that year; but we went in under Brookeborough shared partnership.

There are many aspects. It is up to us, as the leaders of the school, with the parents and the governors, to make sure that it is planned and not ad hoc, and that one culture, sport or language is not promoted above the other. That is about being sensible and being pragmatic and knowing your children and your parents, and knowing each other and having a planned approach.

Mr McCausland: I remember the visit to Mrs Hampsey's school; they do great scones. [Laughter.]

Ms Hampsey: I am not there now, Nelson, so I do not know what they are like.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You tend to find that in primary schools.

Mrs Overend: It has been good to hear your stories. It sounds very good. I want to play devil's advocate: when you talked about doing shared education projects, you referred to the money problem. If you were to turn that on its head, and if you had a shared education campus and you had six teachers for the number of children that you had, do you think that there would be progression? Would you be forced to integrate further to reduce costs further and economies of scale?

Mr Finlay: First, we are not integrating —

Mrs Overend: I know that you are not; I understand completely what you are doing. I am just thinking down the line and whether you will be forced to think about that further.

Mr Finlay: If I backtrack to what I said to Danny, it is about education and training, and Hazel talked about training as well. I have never had a negative comment about the shared campus from the community that I live in in the wider area. I have had people misunderstand the concept. They say, "You are amalgamating, you are all in together, sure you are integrated". Lay people, even people in the education sector, can misunderstand the terminology. We are not integrating, but the sharing will be increased, because we are on the same site. We cannot increase it totally, because then it will end up being an integrated school, but we have to manage the level of sharing.

Mrs Overend: That is what I was wondering. Do you think that it will come down the line and that you will be forced to look at that?

Mr Finlay: If it happens naturally; I do not like the idea of forcing anything on any parent, teacher or board of governors. I heard the witnesses from CCMS say that it is about parental choice. If you force anything, it will not work; eventually people will go against it if it is not what they want. We are saying that, through time, the natural progression for Brookeborough has been to arrive at a shared campus. When we move into the shared campus, that can be heightened, and we have planned for that in the signatory project where we are extending the shared education from the morning to the whole day. There will be other activities, perhaps after-school activities. We already have a range of things, such as the parent association meeting. I would prefer to see it happening naturally, but I do not have a crystal ball. If you had asked me 15 years ago whether I would be talking about shared education, I would not have known, so I do not know where I will be in the next 15 years.

Ms Barker: It is all to do with sustainability. What we hope, both from a managing authority point of view and from the schools' point of view, is that the brand new shared campus will have state-of-the-art facilities, and we hope that it will be attractive to parents to send their children there; therefore, that will ensure sustainability in the future. We would not be pushed into any cost-cutting exercises.

Mrs Overend: I was just trying to play devil's advocate, but I wish you well.

Ms Hampsey: Trevor referred to the delay in getting things up and running in Moy. That is absolutely not the fault of Moy primary or Moy controlled school. It is because of the bureaucracy and the stages that they have to go through, and a project group is working on it at the minute. It is certainly no fault of the schools or the boards or governors; it is just that it takes time. They received approval in June, and they are now putting in the full business case. It takes time; it is not that there is any delay. There is a time when things are right. Sometimes, if things stall, take time and sit, the impetus is lost. It would be a terrible tragedy if that happened.

Ms Barker: It is not a simple matter of getting a site to build a school to accommodate all the children; governance and accountability arrangements have to be put in place, there has to be a memorandum of understanding between the two managing authorities, and a service-level agreement for the use of the facilities. As Mary said —

Ms Hampsey: A lot of red tape is preventing them from getting together.

Mr Lunn: In your CCMS role, has a decision been made about St Mary's and Fivemiletown Primary School?

Ms Hampsey: My role is only really shared education; it is to support the schools that wish to go forward with their plans at this time. That is my brief. I am a grandmother now two days a week, and I do this part-time, and I really am enjoying it. As I said, I am really impressed by the people whom I have met and their commitment.

Mr Lunn: That was to prove that I do go to Fermanagh and that I have been to Fivemiletown.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Thank you very much for presenting to us this morning. I wish you well with your project.