In January 2018 Braidside Integrated Primary School and Buick Memorial Primary School began a Shared Education Partnership, having successfully applied to Cohort 1 of the Peace IV: CASE Programme (Collaboration Through Sharing in Education).

The purpose of Shared Education is to:

1. Deliver educational benefits to children and young people
2. Promote the efficient and effective use of resources
3. Promote equality of opportunity
4. Promote good relations
5. Promote respect for identity, diversity and community cohesion.

This partnership enabled pupils from both schools to engage in a variety of learning opportunities. The Programme took place between February and June 2018 in Primaries 1 and 2. Our objective was to enable the children to play co-operatively together, to engage collaboratively in meaningful learning experiences and that we would develop a positive and meaningful relationship between our two schools; encompassing children, staff, parents and governors.

The focus of Shared Education partnerships is on educational and reconciliation outcomes; the embedding of which should add strength to the school. Through the partnership our schools were able to deliver 30 hours sharing per pupil. We were able to provide learning opportunities both in the school and through incorporating visits to appropriate locations (e.g the farm and the zoo). In June 2018, we held celebration events in both school to recognise all the children had achieved and to share the experiences with parents, families and governors.

We hope to continue through the next few years to embed our partnership further and allow more children to have the opportunity to engage.