The Kilcranny House Schools’ Programme

The Kilcranny House Schools Programme is funded by the Department of Education for Northern Ireland, The Ireland Funds, The Community Bridges Programme of the International Fund for Ireland, The Yapp Charitable Trust and the Enkalon Foundation.

The overall aim of the programme is to “advance reconciliation by building the capacity of the individual participants in the areas of self-esteem, confidence and acceptance of difference”. Kilcranny has attempted to develop meaningful programmes that address real needs following consultation with principals and teachers from selected schools, and through the implementation of some of the evaluation comments made by young people and teachers on earlier programmes.  We have recently extended our services to include children with special needs.

All of Kilcranny House’s schools programmes work through the primary themes of (1) the environment, (2) culture and heritage, and (3) conflict resolution, in order to provide the children/young people with the opportunity to develop skills in the agreed areas of communication, trust building, mediation, team building, prejudice awareness etc.  These issues are explored through discussion, games, quizzes, music, drama and environmental awareness.

The Primary Schools Programme

The primary schools programme addresses elements of the Education for Mutual Understanding strand of the core curriculum, and also covers environmental awareness in science and nature.  During the last school year approximately 118 primary school children were involved, all of whom came to Kilcranny House on three occasions in the school year.  Perhaps the most significant aspect of the primary schools programme is the continuity of contact – rather than work with a class of P4 children each year, we are following the progress of a single group of pupils through their primary school career and hopefully into their post-primary schools.  New schools joining the programme in the 2003-2004 school year will send a Primary 1 group.

7 Schools Project

Kilcranny House also works with post-primary school children involved in a cross-community “seven schools project”. Schools here include Loreto Convent (Catholic grammar), Coleraine High School (Protestant grammar), Coleraine Inst. (Protestant grammar), Coleraine College, Dalriada Grammar (Protestant grammar), Dominican College (Catholic grammar) and North Coast Integrated College. In this particular set of programmes a total of 99 post primary school pupils come to Kilcranny House on 3 occasions in the school year. 

Transition Project

Kilcranny is also planning a project which follows the transition of P7 children to Post-Primary school, with the aim of minimizing the stress and anxieties experienced by the students.

In Service Training

In consultation with principal teachers and class teachers from primary and post-primary schools, the need to support staff in the delivery of E.M.U. has been recognised; (many teachers feel ill-equipped both personally and professionally to open, what they perceive, as a “can of worms”). Hence the fact that Kilcranny now provides back-up materials for teachers to use in the classroom is regarded as helpful. In addition to devising support material and in order to provide a unified, focused approach Kilcranny decided to build on our own skills and knowledge in the areas of “Circle Time” and “Peer Mediation” and staff members received training and support from Brendan Hartop of the University of Ulster over the summer. Schools offer effective pastoral care to pupils and already incorporate these methods into their teaching practice, particularly in “Personal Health and Social Education”. Kilcranny House is currently well placed to support schools in the work they already do and to help others  to focus on these issues. 

Now, on the receipt of a substantial grant from the Community Bridges Programme of the International Fund for Ireland, we wish to extend and develop this programme by offering free in-house training to schools - for the whole school community.  This training can be facilitated in the school or here at Kilcranny House.  The focus of the training we offer is: community relations in the classroom; peer mediation; circle time and citizenship. 

Our Youth Work programme has also expanded as a result of a recent Community Audit conducted by Kilcranny House (copy available on request), and this too is now funded in part by the significant grant we have received from the Community Bridges Programme.  The youth programme was developed by the Community Liaison Worker with assistance from one of the residential volunteers.  We offer team building, communication skills, co-operative games, looking at human rights issues, and inter-community issues (e.g. prejudice awareness, anti-sectarianism etc.) and environmental awareness.  This complemented an existing programme that incorporated environmental awareness into the four key stages of the curriculum, therefore implementing an educationally themed programme. The programmes are offered in the community and at Kilcranny.  The programmes are geared to be fun and enjoyable, with learning incorporated, and can be as intense or as light as the group is prepared for.  Youth groups are also welcome to use Kilcranny House to facilitate their own programmes.  To date we have done a significant amount of work with Rasharkin and Carnany youth groups, and this will be expanded to include groups in Macosquin and Ballysally.  In cooperation with Magilligan Women’s Group and the Northlands project we also organised a Drugs Awareness session in Magilligan Community Centre. 

The skills and experience gained by Kilcranny House staff through the delivery of the schools programme can also be utilised outside the school setting – peer mediation and peer education methods can be useful with young people and drug users.  Kilcranny is working  with the COMPASS Advocacy Group to develop a programme using similar techniques to raise awareness of issues surrounding disability, and to address bullying and harassment.  Workshops on stereotyping, prejudice reduction and citizenship will form part of this programme.