Warm welcome for Education Minister

SACRED Heart College in Omagh gave a warm welcome to the Education Minister, Michelle McIlveen, when she visited the school this week.

She was greeted firstly by members of the junior and senior student leadership teams, as well as members of staff, all too keen to give her an honorary tour of the school facilities.

The tour demonstrated how the Sacred Heart has grown into a space much richer than any straightforward academic institution, concerned only with testing and grades.

Instead it showed that the Sacred Heart is a place where staff try to help students grow into the healthiest, happiest, most well-rounded versions of themselves they can be.

Soon after arriving through the school’s famous blue gates, the Education Minister was treated to some uplifting music from the school traditional group, and then was serenaded in song by the vocal and ukulele groups.

Minister McIllveen then saw first hand the investments the school has made in establishing robust health and wellbeing services and therapies for its students.

She then visited the nurture unit, a space specifically designed to help those pupils who find the transition from primary school to secondary more difficult.

One person who staff and fellow pupils were over the moon for the Minister to meet was first year Meave Corry, who, undaunted by her audience, sang and signed the song ‘This Little Light of Mine’.

Before the visit could conclude, the Minister spoke with Pauline McAnea, the English and Foreign Languages Coordinator, as well as some of the Syrian students.

Among other more light-hearted topics, they spoke about integration into the school and wider community, the importance of health and wellbeing, and how they manage their own mental health.

School principal, Michael Gormley, said, “We were delighted to be able to showcase to the Minister the work that we have been doing to meet the needs of all children. In particular, the Minister was keen to see for herself our recent work in supporting pupils overcoming the worse impacts of lockdown.”

While she was in Tyrone, the Minister also visited St Colmcille’s PS Carrickmore, Artigarvan PS Strabane, and Omagh Academy.