Debate contribution: Educational Achievement: West Belfast

Debate contribution by Mr Brian Kingston on 4 June 2024.

MLA

Mr Brian Kingston

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

4 June 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Educational Achievement: West Belfast

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4494687

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am very pleased to speak about this topic, and I thank the Member for West Belfast for bringing it to the Assembly. I will focus my comments on the greater Shankill part of West Belfast, which, obviously, I know well, having been a councillor for the area for 12 years on Belfast City Council and a community worker in the area for many years. I also declare an interest as a long-serving governor of Belfast Boys' Model School and Malvern Primary School. A great deal of effort goes into supporting educational achievement in the greater Shankill area. As Members may be aware, in 2014, the Greater Shankill Partnership asked the Northern Ireland Departments to recognise the designation of the greater Shankill area as a children and young people's action zone. I attended the launch of that here, as did five Stormont Ministers. We are now halfway through that 20-year designation. Three of those Ministers are still Assembly Members. The zone aims to improve coordination and cooperation between different government initiatives, with the aim of providing improved wrap-around support for children and young people. I welcome the fact that the Education Minister is present for this debate. I thank him for finding the time to attend. He may wish to make reference to announcements that he made just last week that are relevant to this topic. The first was the confirmation of capital new build funding for Glenwood Primary School, which is the largest of the eight primary schools in the greater Shankill area. I spoke about that matter in a Member's statement this morning, in which I thanked the Minister and his predecessors for bringing about the confirmation of that long-awaited funding. The Minister also announced last week £20 million for a major programme of investment to deliver innovative and community-informed approaches to raising achievement and reducing educational disadvantage in Northern Ireland. In areas of multiple disadvantage, there are additional challenges and complexities that face children, their families and the education system. I will always speak up for the need for additional resources to help children, their families and the educational system to address and overcome those additional challenges. As Pat Sheehan mentioned, in the wider west Belfast area, Full Service Community Network funding flows through the West Belfast Partnership Board, and is used for interventions that are considered to be the most appropriate. In the greater Shankill area, Full Service extended schools money is given directly to the Boys' Model School and the Belfast Model School for Girls to put in place relevant interventions, including linking with community partners, such as the Greater Shankill Partnership. The Model schools submit a joint evaluative report to the Department of Education each year on that funding. I understand that the funding is approximately £185,000 per year for each school. It is considered invaluable by the school governors. In the Boys' Model School, it funds parent support; transition activities for P7 to year 8 pupils; pupil support teams of staff who engage with vulnerable young people who are at risk of dropping out; and learning mentor intervention, which is targeted academic support at GCSE and A level. Both Model schools have seen year-on-year improvements in results and pupil attendance, notwithstanding the COVID impact. That could not happen without Full Service extended schools money. That money is approved annually, and so it remains constantly under threat. It would be catastrophic for the Model schools if it were to be lost. Funding in young people's education is the best way in which to prevent negative consequences later in life. I say as a member of the Boys' Model School board of governors that the school consistently performs well above the expected level of exam results for its level of free school meal pupils.

The school principal, Mary Montgomery OBE, was a key member of the expert panel on educational underachievement in Northern Ireland. The panel submitted its final report and action plan entitled 'A Fair Start' to the Education Minister in May 2021, and the Northern Ireland Executive endorsed it.

Both Model schools are also part of the north Belfast area learning community, which involves 11 post-primary schools on a cross-community basis plus the Belfast Metropolitan colleges. It facilitates shared classes in some A-level subjects, for which one school alone could not provide sufficient numbers. A number of inter-school activities bring pupils together in the interests of shared education, including the inter-schools North Belfast Youth Choir, formerly known as Harmony North. Returning to West Belfast before someone reminds me of the subject of the debate, I am pleased to note that the eight primary schools in the greater Shankill area are in the process of establishing a Shankill primary area learning community. That is a positive initiative that will benefit the entire school community. As has been mentioned, there are a bursary funds for pupils, one of which is run by the Boys' Model, one by the Aisling awards and one — the Baroness May Blood awards — by the Argyle Business Centre. Those three bursary awards cooperate to enable pupils to move on to further and higher education. In closing, I welcome the opportunity to highlight some of the positive initiatives supporting educational achievement in the greater Shankill area.

876 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:36 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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