Tuesday, 16 December 2008

Islamic Studies


It was a proud night for Islamic Studies on Monday, as Dana Jaber, our first Muslim student, returned to Shimna to present the certificates and awards to our GCSE and A level students. Among all the other awards, Dana presented GCSE certificates in Islamic Studies to the first cohort of students to achieve the qualification. She also presented the Assisi Award for Muslim/Christian understanding to Johanna Ross of the Islam class. In her day, Dana had helped trial the materials for teaching GCSE Islamic Studies, and she continued with her studies with Chris Skillen's support when her family moved to Belfast and she transfered to Lagan College. Shimna now works with a network of schools, including BRA, Belfast Inst, Victoria College, Wallace High School, Malone Integrated College and Ulidia Integrated College. Dana's father Masoud also came along, which was great, as he continues to provide an active link for us with the Belfast Mosque.

Tuesday, 9 December 2008

Advent Message

Rev. Gordon Graham came in to talk to our 6th form assembly for Advent. He is full of the excitement of the the US election result and the possibility of big change. As an Obama supporter, he had to be Integrated and face the fact that one of our visiting US students is also an Obama supporter, while the other is a McCain supporter. At the end of the assembly, all three set off animatedly discussing their US future. For a while, our NI politics were inspiring too! Will we ever see inspiring again?

Friday, 7 November 2008

Contact with Local Politicians

Our A level politics trip to Stormont found our local politicians very interested and helpful. John McAllister of OUP had arranged during his recent visit to Shimna to meet up with the group. Jim Wells was also very positive in his meeting with our students.

Italian and Urdu

We are celebrating this week the return of Italian to Shimna. A small group of students began study with the Open University YASS. This is a scheme which allows school age students to follow units of OU undergraduate courses. The students will take up Italian from scratch, and can pursue their study through to GCSE or A level. We had also been searching for a similar course for the study of Urdu. While we haven't found a sufficiently high quality distance learning course, we have found suitable intensive courses at SOAS, which is a college of the University of London, and hope to sponsor interested students to study there.

British/Irish Sign Language

We are delighted that our course in British/Irish Sign Language is underway in weekly sessions, and is being taken by support staff, teachers and students. It is a really important step to include Sign Language along with all the other languages we teach. The course we are offering can carry right through to a GCSE qualification.

Friday, 17 October 2008

This is What Really Happened


Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet came alive for Year 9 students at Shimna Integrated College this week. English literature classes were joined by visitors from the Dutch city of Utrecht, who are also studying this tale of young love doomed by parents' disapproval. The Dutch guests, mainly from Muslim families, shared their own attitudes to a role for parents in choosing life-partners. Although their parents' generation mainly had arranged marriages, these students expected to find their own husbands and wives in due course.
'Our regular links with Shimna College offer real enrichment for our students. Their English benefits greatly, and the cultural sharing between students from Vader Rijn and Shimna broadens everyone's outlook,' said Guler Demirkaya, the visiting teacher of English.
The Dutch visitors gave presentations in English about their home countries - Morrocco, Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan and Surinam. They brought with them crocus bulbs which students planted as a joint memorial to child victims of racism and sectarianism.

Tuesday, 14 October 2008

Nobody Tells Me

Nobody tells me how they got on at the Dutch visitors invitation night out at the Kinderhaus in Killough. But they got home suspiciously late, and had a suspiciously good time. Why do I always have a Governors' meeting when there is something good on? Thanks to the parents who helped out throughout the visit.

Tuesday, 7 October 2008

Welcome Back Dutch Visitors


Of course our visitors are a different year group, but it is great to have our Dutch visitors again, with the rich cultural heritage they bring with them. Once again, they have contributed hugely to the experience of our Islam group. Nothing in a textbook beats actually asking the person wearing the hijab! A happy lunch out was had by all at the Strand. Back tomorrow, we hope, for another contribution to our crocus planting.

Friday, 3 October 2008

Great Start to Key Programme

This year's Key Programme cohort made a terrific start at their first residential at Killowen Outdoor Centre in Rostrevor. Our triplet schools this year are De La Salle from Dundalk and Meanscoil Feirste. I know I can see the benefits in my current year 12 class in those students who took part in last year's Key. The feedback from Shimna staff member, Joan, and the Key Programme staff this week, suggest that the new group will be equally successful.

Thursday, 28 August 2008

Staff Integration

On 26th August, Shimna hosted a huge conference of staff from six other integrated schools and colleges. The key note speaker was long time friend of Shimna, Colm Cavanagh, founding parent of Oakgrove Integrated College. The turnout was great and the workshops provided a rare opportunity to interact with staff from across the integrated sector. We all got a 'bag for life' to boot, so our eco-pioneers in year 10 will be proud of those of us who remember to use them.

Friday, 15 August 2008

Palestine and Auschwitz

You may have read in the Mourne Observer about two of our A level students, Rachel Skillen and Bronagh Magee making a presentation on Auschwitz to a group of Palestinian students in Dublin. The Palestinian students were part of a group preparing for encounters with a group of Jewish students. The Shimna girls were able to present a real insight into the significance of Auschwitz within Jewish culture following their visit to Poland in June. Their presentation forms part of the follow up work they will undertake to pass on the lessons they learnt at Auschwitz.

Saturday, 19 July 2008

Celtic shirts at the Twelfth

The Twelfth was in Newcastle this year, and somebody wrote to the Telegraph to say that they had seen young men in Celtic shirts out watching the parade. It's great that they want to, that they wore their Celtic shirts and that felt safe to do both. The letter writer hoped that Rangers shirt wearers would feel as safe watching a republican parade. These changes haven't happened by magic. Newcastle, as a holiday resort, has a history of welcoming all comers, but there were many years in the middle when parades of any kind were downright scary. All the people who have worked hard to get back to a shared society have won back such peace as we have, including the parents who founded Shimna. The letter made me glad that our students wear their Celtic and Rangers tops on non-uniform days.

Sunday, 1 June 2008

Hitting the Press in France


We have just received this cutting from the press in France about our very successful work experience exchange. It is good to see the French press take on board the significance of integration as well as the success of the trip.

Sunday, 25 May 2008

Cyprus Integrates


We had two very interesting visitors from Cyprus, Yiannis Georgiou, Head of English, and Karen Mason, Deputy Head. Borders are coming down in Cyprus and our visitoring teachers from a Greek Cypriot school are looking at ways to integrate the Turkish Cypriot students who are now choosing the school. They came to learn about integration from us, and we certainly learnt from the situations they shared with us. They travelled on to conference at Queens University, looking at integration in interface situations. We look forward to hearing about their progress.

Tuesday, 6 May 2008

International Report to BoG

To round off our international work experience this year, Niamh Lindsay, Rachel Cleary and Clare Murphy reported back to our Board of Governors on two of our trips: Niamh reported on the trip to Antonio Machado College in Soria, Spain; Rachel Cleary reported on the exchange with the Lycee Amiral Ronarc'h in Brest in Brittany, France. Clare gave an account of how she and French teacher Janet Moffett have built up the relationships and arrangements which made both of these trips such a success and so important for the future.

Lessons from Auschwitz

Rachel and Bronagh have returned, not to say recovered, from their day visit to Auschwitz. Bronagh has also been to the follow-up meeting, and both students have formulated plans for their portfolio, which will be accredited by the University of Hull. The two students plan: a minisite for the college website; an assembly for September to launch the 'Lessons' to our new students; lessons which they will lead with the incoming year 8s, focusing on anti-bullying and diversity as well as ensuring that our new students know what happened at Auschwitz; a display of the younger students' work, either in college or possibly in Newcastle Library. Lessons from Auschwitz offered an opportunity which was exciting and chilling all at once, and the girls hope to use their experience to make a real contribution.

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Five Chile Visitors

This week came the return visit from Chile. You may remember that Kevin went off on a study visit to Chile in the Autumn term, and this week the principals of the schools he visited there came to visit us at Shimna. So that the principals would have the same range of overview, our fellow Specialist Schools Grosvenor Grammar School, Belfast High School and the Model School, Belfast along with fellow Integrated school, Lagan College, all hosted a visit from the group. The principals also mysterously disappeared into Kevin's house on Tuesday to shout at the television! I wasn't invited! A climb up to Dundrum Castle and a swift constitutional along the promenade helped work up their appetite for a meal at Seasalt. Thursday sees them heading back half way across the world. An added bonus is that Sophie, our French tutor, was able to make contacts to help her find a placement for a year abroad next year as part of her languages degree at Queens.

Thursday, 3 April 2008

The President Visits




We had a great afternoon. The sun shone and everybody pulled together to create a lovely event. The Board of Governors did the welcoming, Ivor Anderson did the MCing, Matt McComish and Chris Law posed the questions. Clare Gould expressed our appreciation in English and Rachel Robinson in Irish. Kevin introduced the President, and the President did everything else. The Languages Committee provided the tea and buns, Valerie and Joan wore their new uniforms, Gervaise and the President remembered old times. Robbie and the President remembered old places. The rugby players from the careers event called down as did a number of our languages students. Lots of other people contributed in so many ways, and Danella managed us all. clare Murphy managed the links with the careers event and took the photos. Year 8 and 9 had the hardest job, staying patient waiting to wave. Our flower arrangements were amazing. So many people stepped in to do extra supervision, extra cleaning, extra helping each other with uniform, extra chair carrying about and dear knows what all else. There was lots of interesting discussion during the day about nationality, culture, sectarianism, respect for the views of others and the energetic challenge presented to an integrated college by a Head of State. Everyone was delighted that the President tuned in so completely to the message on our boulder. She obviously feels that she has pushed a few boulders up a few hills!

Wednesday, 12 March 2008

St Patrick's Week



St Patrick's week has been a great and versatile success. Year 8 galumphed around their ceili, year 10 quizzed and year 9 hunted treasure. Year 13 screened Irish short films, and there were buns for sale at break in the Irish room. The buns were advertised in Irish, so monoglots got none! The third in our series of film nights featured the Irish language, all organised by the 6th form languages committee. The Poc Fada takes place on Friday, and our money's on Alicia.

and Robbie Keenan managed to turn out for the staff soccer team as well.

Friday, 11 January 2008

Against Guantanamo


Shimna Students Lead the Protest Against Guantanamo

Five students, Oliver Elsholtz, Claire Gould, Daniel Quinn, Riona Mageean and Peter McEvoy, representing the Shimna Integrated College branch led the Amnesty International protest marking the sixth anniversary of US detentions at Guantanamo Bay. The Belfast protest was part of a world wide demonstration campaigning to close the US run prison camp. 1000 parliamentarians, including 33 from the Northern Ireland Assembly, have signed a petition calling on the US to shut the prison camp and to stop secret detention; this petition was presented to all members on the US congress on Friday 11th January. The Shimna students led dozens of Amnesty activists, all dressed as Guantanamo inmates in orange boiler suits and face masks, together with ‘US camp guards’ who shouted orders to the ‘detainees’ and forced them to assume stress positions used at Guantanamo Bay. Principal Kevin Lambe said, “ Our branch of Amnesty International is run by students themselves, and holds a very special place within the ethos of our college. I am very proud of the students who have played a lead role in a well organised demonstration on an issue about which they feel very strongly.”