‘Shared education’ is a relatively new term in Northern Ireland but it has been the norm in the village of Brookeborough for over 40 years.

The pioneering work of primary school headmasters in Brookeborough was the catalyst for the Education Minister’s announcement last month that a shared education campus will be built in the village.
“We had it down to an unofficial integrated school,” said Phil McCrystal, retired principal of St. Mary’s Primary School. “We were short circuiting the system,” added Sam Blair, retired principal of Brookeborough Primary School. 

Mr. McCrystal and Mr. Blair met with The Impartial Reporter to reflect on their close working relationship and genuine friendship, the benefits of which have filtered down to many generations of pupils who passed through their schools.

They are pleased to see shared education becoming formalised with a new campus to be built in the village, adding that they “would have loved to have seen an integrated school.”

Since 2008, when the Fermanagh Trust secured £2.1 million from the International Fund For Ireland and the Atlantic Philanthropies for a four year shared education programme in Fermanagh, Brookeborough PS and St. Mary’s PS were among the 58 local schools who participated in joint curriculum planning; regular sharing of classes, teachers and facilities and joint events and training. The Northern Ireland Executive launched a Shared Education Campuses Programme in 2014 and Brookeborough applied. A survey of 117 local parents showed that 93 per cent supported the proposal for a shared campus, while six per cent were not sure. The new shared education campus will essentially consist of two schools on one site, with a shared canteen, playground, computer room and library and the continued sharing of classes and teachers. 

It was during the sixties that Mr. McCrystal and Mr. Blair’s predecessor, Charles Kirkpatrick began attending annual trips together organised by the Ulster Savings Group. They car-pooled to and from school and the two schools paired up for five-aside football and for road safety demonstrations taken by Sergeant McGuinness. When the Lakeland Forum opened in 1976, weekly swimming lessons for primary sevens began. Mr. Blair took up the role of principal in 1982 and, as the years passed, the two schools took day-trips to the Ulster American Folk Park; Florencecourt House; Gortatole; Navan Forge and Belfast Zoo (to name a few). The two schools would also perform an annual Christmas Carol service in Brookeborough Nursing Home, hold Christmas shows in each others’ schools, take part in a primary school sports day at Fivemiletown College, participate in a ‘top of the form’ quiz arranged by the PSNI and perform with the mummers.

Despite the Troubles, the sharing work continued.

Mr. Blair recalled occasions “when it wasn’t that easy” but they “decided we were going to keep going anyway.”

Mr McCrystal referred to January 1991, when the IRA shot dead former RUC officer Cullen Stephenson outside his home in Brookeborough. He said: “Sam and I had previously organised the first in a series of trips to the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh. The policeman was the grandfather of some of the children in Sam’s school. We wondered would this trip take place. I phoned all the parents of my children and told them to have their children down at Sam’s school at 9am on the Monday morning. I wondered would they all come and would Sam’s children all come because it was a very fraught situation. They all turned out. It really proved to me that what we were doing was the right thing. It was the first big test of what we were doing.”

During the ‘Ulster Says No’ campaign in 1985, the two schools were on a trip when their bus was stoned by a group of protesters, smashing the windows but leaving the pupils unharmed. “The kids weren’t frightened, I don’t think they realised that it could have been a very serious situation,” Mr. McCrystal recalled.

The day-trips soon turned into four-day residentials to Magilligan Field Centre and Cultra Folk and Transport Museum, with pupils from both schools sharing educational events by day and dorm rooms by night. 
“I don’t think other schools at the time were doing the residentials,” said Mr. Blair, adding: “The ground was broken during the day trips but the friendships were made on the residentials.”

It was Mr. Blair’s persistence with the warden at Magilligan which got the very popular annual trip off the ground; it had initially been for secondary schools only. “I got him talked around,” Mr. Blair revealed. “All those visits covered many aspects of the curriculum in an interesting and practical way. We were always supported by the department, the education board and the parents and Boards of Governors.”

The fun-loving pair added an extra treat to those educational trips by taking the pupils on a train journey. “Children in Fermanagh didn’t have much opportunity to go on the train so we took the bus to Lisburn and got the train from Lisburn to Bellarena,” explained Mr. Blair. “Coming home, they got the train to Derry/Londonderry, where the bus picked them up and took them home. That ensured that we had done the full loop of Northern Ireland! We did a similar trip to Cultra.” Mr. McCrystal added: “We could have easily taken the bus the whole way but that would have taken the fun out of it.”
The principals became firm friends and “always looked forward to the craic” they would have together.

Other highlights include: the pupils taking part in an ‘upstairs-downstairs’ style play which was performed in The Argory, near Dungannon to mark the centenary of the National Trust in 1995, and a dance project in the Ardhowen based on Holst’s planets. 

Mr. McCrystal said: “We came to be known as a paired school and any funding or events that were being offered to joint schools, we were first on the list in Fermanagh. We didn’t over-think it, it just seemed like the natural thing to do.” Mr. Blair added: “You were doing it for the education of the children.”

Commenting on the new shared education campus for Brookeborough, Mr. McCrystal said: “This is a step in the right direction. If schools in small villages are to survive, they have to integrate in some way. If  you could keep the politicians out, it would be the ideal scenario. Sam and I won’t be here to see integrated education in Brookeborough but I envisage it in the not too distant future.”

Mr. Blair concluded: “I think the shared education campus is great. It’s a big step. A lot of work has gone into it with support from the department, the education authority and Fermanagh Trust. It will give the pupils an easy opportunity to do activities together and to establish friendships.”