Members of the staff of New-Bridge Integrated College attended the IEF 25th Anniversary Ball in the Europa hotel on Saturday evening. Baroness May Blood and actor and comedian Tim McGarry spoke of the wonderful work of the IEF adding they are recognised as a leading charity in Ireland and the UK for the work they do and they money they raise to ensure that more children have the opportunity to avail of the choice for an integrated education.
The highlight of our evening was our meeting with past pupil, Leah Downey. Leah attended Bridge Integrated primary school prior to completing seven years secondary education at New-Bridge Integrated College. We were delighted to catch up with Leah who now holds a permanent teaching post in Rowandale Integrated primary school. Leah said she cannot speak highly enough of her integrated education experience and said she was determined to pursue a teaching career in the integrated sector. We are very proud of Leah’s achievement and commend the work she is doing to promote integrated and all ability education.
New-Bridge Integrated College has been greatly supported by the Integrated Education Fund. In recent years Mrs Anderson, Principal, applied for funding to enhance the curriculum provision for Sixth Form students. Our application for a state of the art, media suite complete with a class set of apple mac computers was granted and many of our students and those involved in the Banbridge Area Learning community have benefited from this provision.
The IEF also assisted us with funding in relation to our 20th Anniversary in 2015. We used the money to produce 20 pop up’s of archive photos, one for every year of the school.
Many of our students have been given the opportunity to avail of the Carson Bursary Award in conjunction with the IEF. The Carson Awards are named in honour of the legendary Northern Ireland comedian Frank Carson who was a passionate supporter of integrated education. The Carson Awards aim to support students who are interested in demonstrating ‘what integrated education means to them’ through their creative talents. We are looking forward to hosting the Carson Awards next month in the College and to welcoming participating schools, members of the Carson family along with Baroness May Blood and actor Dan Gordon to the College. We are extremely grateful to the IEF for their continued support and we were delighted to celebrate their 25 Anniversary with them at their Gala Ball in the Europa this weekend.