Ms Charmain Jones:

There are many preschool and Sure Start programmes in Northern Ireland that bring young children together from the age of two or three to interact before they move into nursery schools and primary schools that have shared education programmes. The difficulty is once they hit 11 years of age and move into secondary school, and grammar school at the age of 14 or 15, the opportunity to participate in a shared education programme almost disappears. My young children have gone through two programmes, but once my child hit 11 and moved to the junior high school, all her contact with the Catholic school in Portadown stopped. It is up to me as a parent to seek out the children and their families with whom she has made friendships to rebuild those connections. That is a failure in the Northern Ireland system, whether the programme is integrated or shared. Once a child hits 11 years of age, the opportunities to connect disappear until they go to university or into employment, when the opportunity for cross-community engagement occurs again.