During the last week of term, on Monday 18th December - Wednesday 20th December, 4 pupils from 9D accompanied by Miss Magee headed off to Dublin on a Residential with 5 other schools as part of the Shankill Shankill project.

The Boys Model, St. Gabriels, St. Patricks, Our Lady of Mercy and Mount Gilbert took part in this cross community programme, which was aimed at pupils from North Belfast Schools. The pupils had already met on 4 occasions before going to Dublin, so they knew each other really well.

We left on the Monday morning and travelled by train to Dublin. When we arrived we had lunch then attended the Dublin Exhibition, which was about Vikings and Medieval Life in Ireland. We took part in a guided tour and saw the changes which have taken place in Dublin over a number of years. We then visited Christchurch Cathedral and took a tour stopping off in the Dungeons, where we managed to lose a teacher from St. Gabriels!

Our hotel in Bray was fantastic, everyone had their own separate rooms with TVs!

On Tuesday we went to visit 2 schools to see how different they were to ours in Belfast. We listened to a brilliant carol service at St. Joseph‘s and we visited a new school which only opened 3 years ago. We finished of the day with a trip to the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, it was huge!

Wednesday was our last day and we had a very special visit arranged to the British Embassy. We went on a tour of the Embassy and were shown how passports were made. We received lunch and participated in a quiz, with HMV vouchers up for grabs…we are still waiting to find out who won the vouchers!

We travelled back to Belfast at 1pm, we had an amazing time and we cannot wait until we see all our friends again!

I am really excited to be part of a project that runs for two years. I have really enjoyed every second of it so far.

Jeanette Duff 9D

My favourite part about the Shankill Shankill project was meeting new people and lots of new friends.

Natasha Johnston 9D

Some of the pupils there thought that we were models because of the name of our school.

Nicole Gorman 9D

The two communities bond very well together and the project aim to bring hope and peace for the future.

Rebecca Verner 9D