Article 31 ‘Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.’

Year 1-7 pupils have had a variety of opportunities through our Shared Education Programme this year covering a wide range of subjects.

Our photographs below give a snapshot of our activities this year and each class showcases their individual events on our

School Facebook and Seesaw pages.

Year 7 pupils visited Portglenone Forest as part of their ‘Reforestation of the Imagination’ Shared Education/Pushkin Project.

The boys and girls from Year 5 met with their Shared Education partners to find out about how to stay safe at home and on the road.

A big thank you to our local firefighters Sinead and Simon for their informative talk about fire safety in our homes.

Inspired by the words of Her Grace, the late Duchess of Abercorn, The Pushkin Trust’s theme for this year is ‘Reforestation of the Imagination’ embracing the element of ‘earth’.

With this theme in mind,Year 7 pupils had a morning of music with their friends from Kilrea Primary School.

They used percussion instruments to recreate the forest and ending their morning with a joint choir performance of ‘Only You’.

While one group were involved in music the other group worked together to design a possible coat of arms for our town of Kilrea.

Shared Education has got off to a flying start this year.

Our pupils are enjoying getting back together with their friends from Kilrea Primary School.
P1,2 and 5 pupils have been involved in exciting programmes this term.

They have had so many exciting learning experiences covering a wide variety of subject areas.

As the year continues all classes will be involved in Shared Education Programmes. 

Although there has been no pupil contact since Covid struck the Shared Education Leadership Team have continued to work closely with EA. We have been directed by EA to complete a variety of tasks and engage in Teacher Professional Learning Modules. We are preparing for some pupil engagement in Term 3 of this school year and hope to re launch our Whole School Shared Education Programme in Term 1 of 2022.

Year 5 enjoyed their tour of the town with their Shared Education friends from Kilrea P.S.

Article 29 Goals of Education

Children must respect their own and other cultures.

Year 1, 2 and 3 - November 2019

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture)

Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

First joint Board of Governors Meeting for

Kilrea PS and St.Columba’s PS

Cluster Training on Pupil Mindfulness delivered by ‘Mini Explorers NI’

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture)

Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

Year 4 and 5 enjoyed singing and dancing with their friends from Kilrea Primary School.

March 2019 

Year One and Two 

We had lots of fun visiting our friends from Kilrea Primary School. We completed lots of fun activities on ‘The Gruffalo’ together and went on a Gruffalo Hunt in our Woodland Area! 😁🐻

Article 14 states ‘Every child has the right to think and believe what they want to and to practise their Religion.’ 

Year 1 and 2 - Beauty and the Beast

This time we went to Kilrea Primary School to do

Dance and Play activities based on Fairy Tales.

November 2018 Year 1 and 2

Year 1 and 2 got together at St.Columba's

Primary School for the first time this year

to meet each other.

Wednesday 3rd October,2018

Launch of Our Cluster- Health & Well Being Day

St.Columba’s P.S Kilrea,Kilrea P.S,Rasharkin PS,St.Patrick’s P.S Raskarkin,St.Anne’s Corkey and Knockahollet P.S

2018/19 Shared Education Joint Staff Planning

‘Planning The Year Ahead’

SharedEducation Week

8th October,2018

Shared Education Showcase Conference

(Part of Shared Education Week Celebrations)

We had opportunities to hear from Derek Baker,DE Permanent Secretary,Shared Education Funders and ETI. We also were presented with Shared Education Workshops relating to the themes of Teaching & Learning, Community Connections,Pupil Voice and Effective Leadership. Professor Paul Connolly QUB was the key note speaker at the event.

Shared Education Project with Kilrea P.S.

2017/2018

Year 1 and 2 from both schools enjoyed their shared education trip to Garvagh Forest. They explored the forest and found lots of signs of summer. The boys and girls discovered many colours of the forest and recorded these on their own colour card.

Governor Participation

Scavenger Hunt around Kilrea

Year 7 had a fabulous Creative Dance/Movement session with our Pushkin facilitator Libby Mailey on our theme of ‘Opening Ground’.  Our pupils explored the theme through dance .This morning’s workshop incorporated so many aspects of the curriculum and of our Shared Education values. 

Pupils from Year 4 and 5 had great fun recording our Shared Education song ‘Together’ today. We are all very excited so keep a look out for the finished product! 🎵🎤🎬

We started our Year 6/7 Sports Programme with Kilrea Primary on 27th April.  This programme will run for 6 weeks and pupils will have the opportunity to take part in a variety of sports including basketball, table tennis,archery and orienteering. The first week was very successful and all pupils thoroughly enjoyed their activities.

Year 6/7 pupils enjoyed a day at Baronscourt with their friends from Kilrea Primary School. The visit was part of our Pushkin/Shared Education work. Pupils got to take part in a variety of workshops.  They got to work with writers like Kate Newman and expert facilitators in the field of ornithology, art etc. The pupils got to experience the grounds of an estate and appreciate the wonders it holds in terms of bird and plant life. We found twenty species of birds on the estate. Pupils will use these experiences to follow up on cross curricular work in Term Three.

Year 6/7 visited Movanagher Forest as part of their Pushkin/Shared Education work with Kilrea Primary School. Our Pushkin Theme this year is ‘Opening Ground’.

And so our Salmon eggs have once again arrived in the Year 6 classroom where they will care for them for six weeks.

Year 7 pupils were invited to Garvagh Forest with our friends from Kilrea Primary School to take part in a forest trail as part of a pilot project.

P7 Drumming Worshop with Ronan McKee, a Pushkin facilitator and our friends from Kilrea Primary.

P7 pupils enjoyed making music with their African drums.

Shared Education 2016/17

Another successful year for our Shared Education Programme. This year our focus was S.T.E.M/S.T.E.A.M. All classes were involved in the programme this year and a variety of topics were covered including 'Let Go,Let Fly, The Blue Planet, Transport and Floodtide in the Heart. pupils worked with facilitators, were involved in shared lessons and visited places associated with the topics. Our School Facebook Pages documented all events as they occurred.

The pictures below illustrate the success of our final Celebration Day that showcased all the work carried out by pupils and staff from both schools.

Shared Education with Kilrea Primary School

We have been working closely with Kilrea Primary School through different projects for more than 10 years.

CRED/Pushkin Project in Year 7

P7 teachers have planned for and carried out a full programme of shared curricular project work every year for the past 5 years which is part funded by CRED and supported by the Pushkin Award. In the past this has included activities such as, 'Building Bridges using Sentinus', exploring and discovering bridges in Derry and discussing the history of each culture, residential trips, art sessions and talking and listening sessions facilitated by CRIS.

Year 6 Salmon Project

Year 6 classes have been involved in the Salmon Project for the past 10 years. This project is funded by The Honourable Irish Society based in London. This project involves work both inside and outside the classroom, including raising salmon from eggs, releasing them into the river, classification of river mini beasts and visiting the hatchery together. On average each year this involves 40 children and 4 staff from both schools.

Barry McGuigan 'Happy Hearts' Programme in Year 4

We were selected as one of six partnerships in Northern Ireland to take part in the 'Barry McGuigan Happy Hearts' Programme. This introduced our Year 4 classes to boxing and healthy living. This involved 30 pupils from both schools over 6 sessions - 3 in each school. This culminated in a visit from Barry McGuigan to which all school pupils were invited. A total of 295 pupils and 35 staff were present.

We have also used music to bring the schools together! We have carried out many music and dance projects which have included our school choirs singing together during the big switch on of Kilrea Christmas Tree lights, rehearsing, travelling and singing together at the Peace Proms and with the African Children's Choir.

We are now part and parcel of the DSC Signature Project: Shared Education with our friends from Kilrea Primary School. This is an exciting new three year plan, through which our children will share even more learning experiences together. All children from Years 1-7 will be involved in STEM learning activities in the academic year 2016/2017. The reconciliation process continues and our journey together will hopefully be a long and lasting one!

'Go Fly Your Kite'

Mrs Keenan's and Miss Crozier's classes have been working together with Year 3 in Kilrea Primary School on the topic of 'Weather'. During shared learning activities, the children had the opportunity to create their own kites and wind buggies. We can't wait for a nice windy day to get together and race them! 🌬🏁💨

Year 3 Shared Education visit to Kilrea Primary

Article 14 - Every child has the right to choose their own religion and beliefs.

Article 15 - Every child has the right to choose their own friends.

We had a lovely meet and greet session with our friends from Year 3 at Kilrea Primary School as we embarked on our shared education programme for the year.

Year 3 Shared Education Project

Article 15 - Children have the right to meet together and to join groups and organisations.

Article 31 - Children have the right to relax and play, and to join in a wide range of cultural, artistic and other recreational activities. 

Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed their shared education project with their friends from Kilrea Primary. They attended a 3 week session at Ballybrakes bowling stadium in Ballymoney. All the activities were organised by Donna McCloy who is keen to promote bowling with younger players.  Also thanks to Roy, Pat, John, Mark and Gary who helped out and made the visits so enjoyable.