Northern Ireland: Education

Northern Ireland has too many children who have little or no access to a quality education.

School systems are often too inflexible to accommodate their individual needs, so that a range of issues is frequently a barrier to learning, including: disability, ethnicity, poverty, sexuality, bullying, emotional well-being.

We want education equality for all the most vulnerable children. We challenge government to achieve this aim.

Our education work focuses on four major areas:

 

Inclusion

We are helping schools to become more inclusive by recognising, accepting and valuing the differences experienced by all members of a school community.

An example of this support is Inclusion, a one-day conference we organised to explore inclusion within education: what it means for schools, teachers, governors, other staff, communities, children and families. We learned how inclusive approaches within a school can strengthen children's social relationships, and educational and personal success.

We are now offering ten schools across Northern Ireland the chance to work with us on a pilot project to make them more inclusive. This partnership will involve the whole school including parents, children and key agencies.

Watch our short animated film, Inclusion.

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Improving education for Traveller children

There are up to 2,500 Travellers in Northern Ireland and about half are aged under 16. Many Traveller families live by the roadside and the few official sites that exist have poor sanitation and no electricity or water.

Traveller children aged ten and under are ten times more likely to die than other children. This is because they are more likely to suffer accidents and preventable diseases. They are also three times less likely than settled children to attend preschool.

We are working to increase Traveller children's pre-school enrolment.  As part of this, we are working in partnership with NIPPA - The Early Years Organisation on Toybox (PDF 1,700KB), a project that helps enhance the development of Traveller children aged under four through play activities in their own homes.

Toybox has helped more than 250 Traveller children gain better social, physical and emotional skills. Their parents' confidence in playing and helping their children to learn has also grown.

Significantly, more Traveller children are now enrolling in pre-school and local schools are more positive towards their culture and rights.

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Tackling bullying in school

Bullying breaks children down. It is shameful, humiliating and frightening, and young people often feel powerless to stop it. Sometimes the thought of going to school is so terrifying that children pretend they are ill or refuse to attend. Their social lives and educational achievements are damaged. A few find life so unbearable that they attempt suicide. Many more carry the effects of bullying long into adulthood.

In 2001 research among Year 6 pupils in 60 primary schools across Northern Ireland showed that bullying is a huge problem. 40 per cent reported having been recently bullied at school and more than a quarter had experienced occasional bullying.

We are working to stop children underachieving in school because of bullying and exclusion. We are also focusing on reducing discrimination by addressing racist, homophobic and disability-based bullying.

Northern Ireland Anti-bullying Forum (NIABF)

We established the Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum (NIABF) to bring together over 20 statutory and non-statutory organisations with the aim of reducing bullying and creating a safer environment for pupils at school. The Forum is chaired by Save the Children and we represented it on the British and Irish Anti-Bullying Forum.

Something to Say - Listening to Children

Something to Say, our ten-week programme implemented in 12 primary schools in County Derry, used art, drama and other creative methods to help children explore why bullying happens, how it feels and ways of tackling it. Pupils came up with ideas for making schools safer, and teachers gained knowledge and skills for tackling bullying.

We published the classroom resource Something to Say - Listening to Children (PDF 3,735KB) and gaive a copy to every primary school in Northern Ireland.

Anti-Bullying Week, 19 - 23 November 2007

Further information on how you can get involved will be available later in the year. In the meantime, find out what we did during Anti-Bullying Week 2006 (PDF 390KB).

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Children excluded from school

We work with schools, parents, alternative education providers and the Department for Education and Skills to develop better ways of tackling school exclusions. We want to ensure that young people who cannot attend school nevertheless achieve a good-quality education within their community.

As part of this policy, we support the Education By Choice project in east Belfast. Based in the community, the project is attended by 14 - 16 year olds who have been excluded from school. For up to two school years, the pupils spend 25 hours a week working towards recognised qualifications with a view to getting a job. 40 graduates have already gained a range of qualifications - an achievement that they would previously have considered impossible.

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