Northern Ireland

School to hold massive fundraiser in fight against cuts

P3s at St Columba's in their work area.Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
P3s at St Columba's in their work area.Picture by Margaret McLaughlin P3s at St Columba's in their work area.Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

A school facing the challenge of massive cuts is planning an ambitious fundraiser to make sure it breaks even.

St Columba's PS in Straw, Co Derry is hosting a gala event, which it hopes will raise enough cash to keep it out of the red.

Schools across the north are struggling with their budgets. Savings of almost £200 million must be made across the education system in 2015/16.

Principal Fiona Kennedy said her school had been in a healthy financial position but she was staring at a deficit of about £8,000 next year, unless additional funds were found.

The new parent-teacher association hopes to raise cash at an event this Friday.

It is hoped it can invest in materials for the accelerated reading programme and sports equipment. Additional resources would also be provided to those with special learning requirements to help support their challenges.

Ms Kennedy said the school also wanted to see all children benefit from learning through new technologies.

"No longer is the money we raise for nice things like trips, it is now about sustaining the school. In the past, none of the children had to pay for anything," Ms Kennedy said.

"We are trying to think outside the box so the school runs efficiently and children are happy."

St Columba's, which has been delivering education to the children of the parish of Ballinascreen for more than 50 years, moved into a new £2.69m building in 2013.

While the building was designed to accommodate 175 pupils, it has just six classrooms. The school has more recently moved from having composite classes to having one class for each year group from P1 to P7. This means one group is taught instead in a shared resource area.

When the school building project was approved, there were 136 pupils. Numbers have grown every year since and the enrolment was 161 last year.

The Department of Education said should there be an accommodation deficiency, the school authority could submit an application for a mobile classroom for consideration under the department's minor capital works programme.