Carols at St John's

Our terms ends traditionally with our carol service at St John's Church of Ireland. The service is part of our series of events across different denominations: for example our Remembrance Day service at the Methodist Church, St Patrick's Day service in Irish at the Presbyterian Church, adult baptism at the Baptist Church and the Catholic Church visits planned for next term. This year we have a change of personnel as the Rev. Cadden, newly of Castlewellan, leads our service, with Ivor Anderson leading on behalf of the College. Readers include Danas Kurmis, who will read in Lithuanian from the testament presented to him by his form class last year, on the occasion of our annual visit from the Gideons Society.

At the Cenotaph

Tamara O'Rourke, Claire Gould and Jessica Sharpe laid our wreath at the Cenotaph in Newcastle, supported by year 8 students Lucy Lakin, Sarah Louise Duffy, Emma Baker and Sinead Murray. We then all warmed up with hot chocolate and buns before joining the congregation at Newcastle Methodist Church for their Remembrance Service, led by a certain Christopher Skillen. The sermon included detail from his trip to Krakow during half term. The congregation was very welcoming and our students were able to contribute by giving the readings. Then it was off to the Strand for more sustenance in the shape of toasties, scones and ice cream. Many more of our students were in evidence in the Scouts and Boys' and Girls' Brigades, and Wills McNeilly lowered and raised the flag.

Remembrance Day Assembly

Grainne Tobin presented our annual Remembrance Day assembly, ably supported by Niamh Lindsay, Helen Crane, Tanya Murray and Rachel Cleary. The girls read beautifully. Sunday, 11.11.1914 sees Jessica Sharpe and Stuart Hanna lay our wreath at the Cenotaph and take part in the Remembrance Day service at Newcastle Methodist Church, where Chris Skillen will be preaching. A Remembrance Day assembly will follow for our senior students on Monday. Our Rembrance Day efforts are mirrored by our activities for St Patrick's Day. In each case we challenge the historical appropriation of the event by one community or the other within Northern Ireland.

Krakow Trip

Three of our staff are in Krakow during the Hallow E'en half term, Chris Skillen, Rose Murray and Deborah McDowell. Part of their purpose is to follow up some of the work Chris has undertaken as part of his Holocaust Foundation Fellowship. One possibility is a future trip for some of our students.

Presbyterian Harvest Celebrations

Lots of us headed to Newcastle Presbyterian Church today to celebrate Harvest festival and to see the decorated church. Year 8 came along; A level Religious Studies students came too; Alex McCauley sang; Michael Rutledge sang; Chair of the Board of Governors, Billy Burnison had an early start and drove down from Belfast to join in; Wills McNeilly gave the reading; Rev. Ivan Patterson welcomed us and conducted the service. We are very grateful to him and to the congregation for welcoming us to the church. The flurry of activity we witnessed afterwards alerted us to the fact that the congregation had delayed the distribution of fruit and vegetables to local families.

St Luke

We have found great opportunities for church visits this term. On Thursday, students took part in a special St Luke's Day service at St John's Church of Ireland in Newcastle. The interesting part of all our church visits is always that for some students the visit is a chance to share their own stuff with fellow students, and for some an opportunity to visit a denomination or religion different from their own. Reports from the service include students experiencing something very new to them, students showing their friends their own church and also some students finding much more in common with their own denomination than they expected. Thanks to Canon Ian Ellis as ever for sharing his church with us.

Racial Diversity in Holland

A really interesting set of visitors appeared from Utrecht via Killough this week. The group of Dutch students was staying at the Kinderhaus, which had originally been set up in the depths of our troubles by Dutch people, in order to offer a secure holiday space for groups of Catholic and Protestant young people. There is an interesting irony in the change of mission which sees the Kinderhaus host mixed race groups of Dutch students, many from families who have settled in Holland from elsewhere, for example Morocco and Turkey. Chris Skillen led a workshop on artefacts from his Holocaust studies, and organised a bulb planting by Shmna and Dutch students as the beginnings of a Holocaust Memorial. It was particularly interesting for Shimna and Dutch students from Christian and Muslim backgrounds to work together on a study of Jewish experience. Turkish lessons followed, led by Shimna staff member, Christine Ozdemir, supported by our Turkish visitors and our own Kemal and Sait Can. A further interesting element was input from the Dutch group's cook, who discussed our menu with our cook, Anne Carlin, and advised the Musim students about what they could and couldn't eat. Highlight of the visit is our return invitation to Killough to join the Dutch students in an Islamic meal. The meal will be a particular treat for Shimna students who took GCSE Islamic studies last year.

A level Geography Conference

We were delighted to host our now annual A level history conference, with Kilkeel High School and St Malachys, Castlewellan. first class academic presentations alerted students to current environmental issues and offered an insight into university style of learning. The conference offers one small opportunity to our A level students to work with students at other local schools beyond the integrated sector. Huge thanks to Jean Forbes for again undertaking the organisation of the day. The setting at the Slieve Donard gives our students a welcome boost, and values the effort they put into their excellent achievement in A level geography.

Integration Day

We always give a staff training day over to integration at the beginning of each year, and this year we invited the team from NICIE to work with us. This particular year we begin our second year as a Specialist School, our first with the Sharing Education Project, the first of the e2s curriculum, first time on the Key Programme, first time on the Challenge Award - along with everything else we are involved in. We deeply need to tie all the intiatives in to the central purpose of integration. We also have several new staff to welcome and because an integration day throws us all into talking about ourselves, new staff have the chance to get the measure of us more quickly. We finished the day by writing ourselves a letter each committing us to personal actions towards integration, and the NICIE team will send them back to us in a couple of months. Thanks a million to the NICIE team for facilitating the day.

Integrated and Religious Blogging

Today launches another new Shimna blog, this time focusing on integration itself. Have a look at the great picure of a Shimna An Dun supporter, sitting beside two Ballynahinch Rugby Club supporters, all of them watching a third code, soccer. Integrated schools all face the dilemma about whether to allow or to ban sports tops on non-uniform days. We take the view that if integration means bringing your stuff in with you, we must be able to live with other people's sporting allegiances. We have always encouraged rather than banned, and we have gained from 'learning from each other' on the sports supporting front. Our students do not all go home to areas of integrated housing, and we must all show a bit of sense about where we wear gear that might be controversial or put people at risk. Great photo!