The Education Minister has been given over 1,000 letters written by pupils at a West Belfast school, who have called for the building of a promised new sports complex.
St Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School, on the Glen Road, was included in an announcement in 2019 by the Department of Education under the school enhancement programme for a new state of the art sports hall. The green light was given for £40million investment in 16 schools.
Paul Givan was asked about that programme during a visit to the school on Wednesday afternoon. He was given two folders, containing letters written directly to him, by St Mary's pupils. Speaking to Belfast Live, St Mary's principal Brendan McComb said the visit was one of positive conversation.
"It was hugely positive for us to have the Minister come to the school today. The focus of the visit for us was about our sports facilities.
"We are a School Enhancement Programme at the minute for a new sports hall and we want to make sure that our sports hall is the priority, when we finish the planning stages for the Department. The original sports hall was planned to be developed back in 2019, but we only received our business case approval in July of this year.
"The post-project evaluation is due to be completed by November 2027 and we doing everything we can to make sure that the project becomes a reality. From a personal point of view today, I really wanted to demonstrate to the Minister not only the school need, but the community need for this sports hall.
"We are in the heart of West Belfast. It is an area of significant social deprivation and we need more facilities to improve the health and wellbeing of our students and of the wider community too. We want this sports hall to be a community hub. At the minute we don't have the capacity to facilitate the requests from within the community. We want to change that because we are having to turn people away."
Mr McComb also went on to hail his teaching staff team and the 1,200 pupils of St Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School, who went to the efforts of writing letters to Paul Givan. They wrote about their own personal stories, and why they feel they need this new sports complex.
"The pupils put forward their own personal reasons for wanting this development," Mr McComb added.
"Some pupils highlighted their desire to use facilities as a pupil, but also within groups they are invovled in outside of school life too. We are traditionally very strong in GAA, but we want to develop basketball within the school and welcome community groups outside of West Belfast too.
"The meeting with Minister Givan was hugely positive, and we are trusting him to take our comments back to government. He listened to us, and we are trusting the Department for Education to advocate on our behalf. This is a huge priority area."
Speaking following his visit to St Mary’s Christian Brothers’ Grammar School, Education Minister Paul Givan said: “It was a pleasure to visit St Mary’s Christian Brothers’ Grammar School and meet with Principal, Brendan McComb, pupils, staff and members of the wider school community.
“St Mary’s has long been associated with sport and it was great to view and speak with some of the pupils playing sport today and hear how much they enjoy playing and participating in various sports. The School Enhancement Programme (SEP) project for the provision of a new sports hall, gymnasium and PE facility at St Mary’s Christian Brothers’ Grammar School has received Business Case approval and is currently progressing through the design stages.
"Approval for the project to proceed to construction will be taken on a case-by-case basis, dependent on the availability of capital funding at that time, however, I will continue to bid for additional capital funding and make the case for increased investment in the education estate.”
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