In 2007, the then newly opened Bracken Educate Together School in Balbriggan was labelled ‘Ireland’s first black school’ by the global media. But today, the thriving north county Dublin school attracts more welcome attention. CATHERINE REILLY paid a visit
MARIAN GRIFFIN was at a wedding recently when a Balbriggan native approached the principal of Bracken Educate Together to give a piece of her mind about the ‘school for the blacks’, as it was first known. The woman was direct and to-the-point: “She says, ‘I’m hearing good things about Bracken up there,’” recounts Griffin, adopting the woman’s gruff, honest tone.
Whether it’s indicative of widespread opinion in the diversifying town, Griffin is not sure, but it does hint at a shift in perception towards a school born in a haze of negative publicity.
In August 2007, a shortage of school places in Balbriggan resulted in scores of immigrant families – predominantly African – having nowhere for their children to attend. Educate Together has suggested the children were primarily victims of local schools’ ability to legally refuse admission on the basis of religion, but some education sources in the town believe racial motives were at play.
Irrespective of this, Educate Together – which is Ireland’s only multi-denominational schools’ model – stepped into the breach at the Department of Education’s request, and met the parents with a view to establishing a school.
Paul Rowe, chief executive of Educate Together, remembers the occasion well. “We met at the hotel, myself and a senior department official, and I just looked at the audience, it was 90 per cent black. I just turned to him and said ‘We have a problem here’,” says Rowe, of the very specific concentration of affected families. “If things had been even and equal, you’d have expected a mix.”
For an area undergoing rapid expansion, often without accompanying infrastructure, the proposed school briefly became a symbol of all that was going wrong in the town – and some local politicians were quick to stir up tensions.
Nevertheless, the emergency school would open its doors that September, temporarily housed at the town’s Sunshine House, a facility best known for accommodating inner-city children during their summer holidays in the seaside town. All of the 78 new enrolments, according to Rowe, were Irish-born, despite the media emphasis on these ‘immigrant’ kids in this ‘immigrant’ school.
Fast-forward two years, and plenty has changed. Bracken Educate Together now has a permanent two-storey school building which opened in September 2008 – a 16-classroom state-of-the-art complex whose only real moot point is a lack of a communal assembly hall. Otherwise, it is well equipped, bright and roomy.
The school population now stands at over 270, with some 13 classes. Around 90 per cent of the children are of immigrant parentage – and according to statistics supplied to Metro Éireann, just over half are of African background, but are predominantly Irish citizens. Pupil withdrawals are uncommon, says Marian Griffin.
“We’ve been getting more Irish children in the sense of the indigenous population coming, and we’ve been getting more people who specifically want Educate Together,” she says of a school population that is liable to increase by the week, let alone the term.
“Parents here come and say they like the way the school is moving along, and they also like that our classes are small.”
Griffin adds that her teaching staff – which includes six language support teachers – are of “excellent calibre”, and some even bring prior backgrounds in science and veterinary medicine to the table. She also proudly refers to another who’ll attend his graduation from Mary Immaculate College Limerick this week, first class honours across the board.
A WALK through the corridors and a peek into classrooms, and you get the impression that Griffin isn’t offering faint praise. The teachers perform confidently, and the children seem content.
In Rosemarie Stynes’ first class, where a striking majority are of African descent, a rendition of the song Is Féidir Liom is underway, and when asked if they participate in local clubs, hands shoot up – including that of a young GAA player of the year (a local musician of the year, of Hungarian and Chinese parentage, is in sixth class).
A host of after-school activities, from French lessons to basketball, are up and running, and Griffin – a local herself – is particularly eager to link with community organisations like the nearby golf club.
The corridors pay homage to various religious festivals, proud school moments in sport and art, and special projects such as Black History Month. And a new student council is being elected, one that will make representations to staff and the board of management on issues as divisive as ‘no homework’, if their predecessors are anything to go by.
Certainly, the intoxicating – if that’s the right word – diversity is never far away. Visit fourth class, and it emerges that the 14 students present can speak some 11 foreign
languages between them: German, Eritrean, Arabic, Polish, Russian, Persian, Romanian, Latvian, Yoruba, Zimbabwean and Lithuanian.
This wealth of diversity is indeed “a huge educational resource”, as Rowe describes it, but surely it also presents its challenges. What of the feeling among some indigenous Irish parents that placing their child in such diverse classrooms would slow down their progress?
“No,” says Griffin, “I wouldn’t think so at all.” She feels English language support teachers deal adequately with those falling behind – predominantly new arrivals into the country and children whose parents speak no English at home – and adds that on an overall academic level, results in entrance assessments for local secondary schools suggest the students are performing very well, especially in Irish.
“We try our best,” says Griffin, of the school’s continuing development, “and I do think we try and live out the Educate Together ethos. Anyone that walks through the door, we’d always try to communicate a welcome and a respect for every single person regardless of who they are. And we’d always communicate that to the children.
“Even when they’re participating in sports, win, lose, or draw, what is the message you’re giving out and what way do you behave? It’s all about participation. We are trying to live out the ethos.”
Educate Together continues to grow exponentially in Ireland, with some 56 primary schools countrywide – and in a similar way to Bracken itself, it is slowly gaining more acceptance. Yet it still has that ‘new kid in the playground’ image, and some treat it as such, keeping their distance and speculating about its motives.
Prominent educational leaders “who’ve never darkened the door of an Educate Together school” feel free to spread “misinformation” about the body, says Rowe. “There are a lot of misunderstandings about Educate Together,” he continues, “that it’s somehow anti-Catholic, somehow different from the national school system. We still have to deal with quite a lot of prejudice from the educational establishment.”
Ultimately, Rowe believes Educate Together is “very simple”: child-centred and not promoting any particular faith over another (Educate Together schools typically provide space for after-schools groups, initiated by parents, for specific faith instruction if they so wish). Students do learn about all the major faiths within class time, clarifies Rowe.
Many challenges remain for the patron body. One, which chiefly affects Educate Together teachers, is the lack of training in cultural diversity issues at teacher training colleges, leaving some educators scratching their heads when it comes to giving accurate information on faith festivals such as Islam’s Ramadan, for example.
It’s a “big issue”, says Rowe, who points out that the State only funds education of teachers in the Catholic and Church of Ireland curricula. He says Educate Together has “a big development” coming on stream, which will improve in-service training in this regard.
Another hurdle is the establishment of second-level Educate Together schools, the first of which is earmarked for Lucan, but which has yielded “no substantial engagement” from the Department of Education, according to Rowe.
MEANWHILE, the school day at Bracken has drawn to a close, and parents are waiting at the gates to collect their children. A well-dressed African woman stands near a man with an Islamic style-beard, while a track-suited mum who seems Irish waits beside them. What’s most striking about them is that their cordial distance is a world away from the easy diversity that’s second nature to their children.
