School of SSESW colleagues Tony Gallagher, Gavin Duffy and Gareth Robinson have been working with the Center for Education Technology (CET) in Tel Aviv for five years on school collaboration. During that period a number of school partnerships involving Jewish and Arab schools in Israel have been supported by CET, working with an adapted model of the Shared Education approach developed in Northern Ireland.

For the past four years the SSESW colleagues have been working collaboratively with the Education Authority in Jerusalem to support school principals from Arab, Jewish and Orthodox Jewish schools who are interesting in exploring opportunities for working together. A third cohort of principals from Jerusalem are taking part in a week-long visit to Northern Ireland to learn more about the Shared Education model and to visit school partnerships to see how Shared Education works in practice.

They are visiting primary and post-primary schools in Derry/Londonderry, Limavady, Antrim and Ballynahinch. They also had a tour of Belfast and of Queen’s, and heard presentations from our Centre for Shared Education and the Education Authority. Our visitors say they always draw inspiration from the example provided by principals, teachers and students in Northern Ireland. Our local schools, in turn, find inspiration in this international interest in and recognition of their work in developing shared education partnerships.

School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work

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Prof Tony Gallagher at am.gallagher@qub.ac.uk