Minutes:
The Chairperson advised the Committee that Ms. A. Mervyn, West Belfast Area Learning Community, Ms. K. O’Hare, Hazelwood Integrated College, and Mr. A. Logan, Belfast Boys Model School, were in attendance and they were admitted to the meeting.
Ms. Mervyn provided the Committee with an overview of the Learning Education Programme which had been implemented by the West Belfast Partnership Board (WBPB) to promote a partnership between schools and the community to improve outcomes for the young people in the area.
She explained that education was the number one priority for the Board and explained the importance of the structural development of robust partnerships and the Strategic Education Plan for the area. She outlined to the Committee that, since the Learning Education Programme had been established within West Belfast, the percentage of pupils in the west of the city which had achieved 5 or more GCSEs, Grade A*-C, had increased by 17.3% between 2011 and 2016, which had meant that it was now 0.2% above the average for the whole of Northern Ireland.
She outlined to the Committee that Easter Schools were run by the Partnership and that the Aisling Bursaries scheme, which was sponsored by local businesses and individuals, had donated a total of £574,500 to 671 students since its inception in the year 2000.
The Committee was advised that the EastSide Partnership, in the east of the City, had recently implemented EastSide Learning, which was based on the success of the WBPB’s Learning Education Programme model and was seeing positive results.
Ms. O’Hare explained that Hazelwood Integrated College was located in the north of the City and currently had 939 pupils. She pointed out that 19% of pupils had Special Educational Needs and 58% of pupils were entitled to free school meals. The Committee was advised that, while the college had improved greatly over the past few years, a lot more had to be done in order to effectively tackle social deprivation. Ms. O’Hare outlined a number of innovative approaches which the school had taken, including a Pathways Curriculum, collaboration with Northern Regional College and Belfast Met, engagement with the Greater Shankill Partnership, mentoring programmes, home visits, work placements and a successful internship programme with large companies including Deloitte, Danske Bank and the Clayton Hotel group.
Mr. Logan outlined to the Committee that the Belfast Boys Model School in North Belfast was a non-selective boys school with approximately 1000 pupils, 60% of whom were entitled to free school meals.
He advised the Members of how, over the last three years, the school’s performance in GCSE English and Mathematics at Grades A* - C had been above the Northern Ireland average for similar non-selective schools.
During discussion, a Member raised the issue of lower educational attainment by protestant males. Ms. O’Hare outlined that, while their grades generally remained lower than their counterparts, there were a number of champions who were seeking to change that and pointed out that the top achieving male from Hazelwood Integrated for the past two years had been a protestant male.
A Member stated that it was enlightening to hear about the best practice model from the West Belfast Partnership and the number of ways in which other areas of the city had been able to share the successes of the approach.
In response to a suggestion from a Member, the Committee agreed that a paper be submitted to a future meeting regarding how the gap in North Belfast be filled, given that it no longer had a Partnership Board for the area.
The Chairperson thanked the three deputations for their attendance and they retired from the meeting.