A Shared Education Campus in Limavady

Principals Rita Moore (St Mary’s Limavady) and Darren Mornin (Limavady High School)share their story of shared education in Limavady.

Rita begins:

‘The previous principals had a relationship with one another from the early 1970s and, as a result of those friendships,  when a need arose in the school for a particular subject to be  delivered, they reached out and asked for help from their colleague. This was unusual in the 1970s, particularly when you realise what it was like in Northern Ireland at the time.  From those very soft and informal beginnings other opportunities were created by our predecessors to allow for more collaboration and community connections to take place.’

Darren continues:

‘It’s been going on for 50 years now in Limavady and it’s a model of what we can do when we work together in a positive way. They had the vision, the courage and the determination to reach across the fence and ask, ‘What can we do together to try and break down these boundaries and the perceptions of your community and our community?’ It started very small with one class and it's grown to where we are today. A lot of work has gone into taking us on that journey to now having this fantastic shared campus worth over £11.5 million.

It’s a very positive and challenging experience for a school leader. It takes you out of your comfort zone, because not  only are you leading your own school, you're actually leading two schools together in partnership, and that takes compromise  and we talk about that quite a lot.’

Rita explains:

‘Very early on, we realised that relationships are at the heart of everything we do. The success of the partnership between the schools is because of the relationships developed  over the years between principals, teaching and non-teaching staff. 

If you're building a house, your foundation has to be  secure and the foundation for our shared campus is excellent relationships, and the willingness to disagree, to compromise and to find a way forward. 

We've many challenges, but we always look at them as an opportunity. We ask how we can change the way we used to do things in our own individual schools, because now we're in a shared campus and we have to find a way that works for everybody.’

Darren says:

‘Many years ago, we agreed that all of our children in both schools must have access to the experience of sharing. They do Learning for Life & Work together, looking at employability, citizenship and PSHE. This builds a solid foundation and when they get to senior school they have no worry about picking a subject in St Mary's or Limavady High School. They've been exposed to the environment, the teaching staff from both schools and they meet us regularly. Organically, kids just move between campuses, they mix and it's normal. It’s just what we do every day.’ 

Rita says: 

‘The work we're doing together has to go beyond the walls of school and so we engage the parents and the local community,  informing them about what we're doing and opening our doors  to allow community groups to come in. The children see that although we are two individual schools, we have a shared community here in Limavady.’

Darren adds:

‘When we were doing our baseline, we looked at community connections as an area of work to be completed, so now we have a shared Parent Teacher Association that meets on a regular basis. We sent out over 10,000 newsletters to our local community about shared education, the projects we're doing and the impact it's having. We look at it like dropping a pebble into a river and it ripples out into the community. To have an impact in the community we needed to reach out and bring the  community with us, and I think that's been the strength here in Limavady.’

Rita says,

‘It has to become part of the DNA of your school communities and everyone has to buy in and feel they have ownership. If you force it, it won't work. 

It has to be organic and that takes time. When you plant your garden it takes a while to grow, and we have been growing our garden for over 50 years. We're now in the harvest time and we're reaping the rewards because of what happened in previous years and thanks to staff we have, the fantastic community we live in and the willingness to work together in the best interest of the young people.’

Darren concludes:

‘10 years ago, when the shared campuses programme came out, it was an opportunity for us to grow further. We were doing this  work prior to this coming along and that's really important. We were sharing first and then we took the opportunity to apply for a shared campus. We both lacked resources in STEM, in tech and the provision of drama, media and careers. The opportunity was there and we grabbed it with both hands. It allowed us to grow to where we are today, where kids in Sixth Form share private study together. We have shared drama lessons, shared history lessons, shared RE lessons and shared engineering and technology. There are lots of subjects where kids are now sharing and we’re sharing staff and that's a success story. The shared campus allowed us to grow that garden and widen the acreage to allow us to really push forward the shared agenda in our community. I believe it's  going to continue and widen to more opportunities. I think we'll see a growth of more subjects being offered across both schools and a breadth of curriculum that we couldn't offer alone. From a child's point of view, there's going to be lots  of opportunities from a wider curriculum.’

Rita concludes:  

‘We take nothing for granted and relationships have to be  maintained. We need to make sure new staff coming on board know the ethos and individual identities of both schools, and the shared ethos. It's such a unique experience for us but such a worthwhile one for the young people.’

Music teachers, Lucy Kerr and Emmet Doherty share their lived experience of shared education:

Lucy begins:

‘When I joined Limavady High School in 2012 we were already teaching GCSE music, year about, as a shared subject between Limavady High School and St Mary's.’

Emmet continues:

‘Whenever I became Head of Music, we had a conversation about how we could be more collaborative. So we changed it, and now we share every GCSE class, so the Year 11's and Year 12’s have me for some of the course and Lucy for some of the course. By  the time they get to A level, we know their strengths and what they might need more help with. It makes it more fluid and the pupils are more accountable as well, because they know we are each keeping an eye on their standards and coursework deadlines.’

Lucy continues:

‘Previously, we had shared INSET days and at the start, it felt a bit fickle. We were asked to write action plans and discuss our schemes of work but then we would go back to our own schools and do our own thing. But as one person departments, we were very excited about being able to share resources. 

In 2018 we created a video to launch the idea of shared education in the Roe Valley. We launched the video in the Arts and Culture Centre in Limavady and that was when we decided to have our first shared choir.’

Emmet continues:

‘We had over a hundred in the choir. There was so much interest and the kids really bought into this idea of being able to work with their counterparts in an ensemble with both schools involved. We did an arrangement of ‘Danny Boy’ especially for the event and it was just such a lovely event.’  

Lucy adds:

‘This then led to our first shared Carol Service, which is a big thing from a cultural and religious point of view.’ 

Emmet says:

‘It’s now one of the big events in the shared education calendar and to be able to share that together, you're really breaking down those barriers.’

Lucy says:

‘We're pooling our resources, as well. We get cycles of talent of people who are good singers and people who are good instrumentalists, but when we work together we have a bigger pool of talent and it means that we can do even more. The shared Carol Service can show off some of the soloists and  what we can bring together in terms of musical harmony.

The big event was the recent official launch of our Shared Campus. We wanted to create something that would show off the beauty of Limavady and how proud we are of this place. We started with a video, which was very powerful, and this turned into a live performance. We had Irish dancers from both schools, Highland dancers, bagpipes and drums and our shared trad group. In this performance we were celebrating the two cultures in our area and showing they can be so powerful when brought together. The audience found the performance very emotional. Everybody said they were choked up. It was so emotional.’