Oasis of learning and growth

He took his first tentative steps on the learning curve in 1961 - the year after the school opened on the current site. A great sportsman, he admits he was not so interested in academics, and his love of sport and outdoors has translated into a curriculum at Ebrington that places high value on activities and learning through play in addition to the magic that happens in the playground.

"We have a lot of activities happening in Ebrington Primary School, both after school and just in general. The emphasis now is just on good healthy outdoor play and PE, sport - all of those things just thrive at Ebrington and it is just so good for the children. It is a release and it is something that is not always there in their own homes because we tend to cosset them more and they maybe tend to play more on their video games and their bedroom is their den, of course. The bedroom is a whole media centre now, but here we just like to ensure that children get lots of outdoor activities," he says.

Asked what he thinks are important aspects of the current curriculum, he says: "I think the important things today are the thought processes around the whole 'foundation stage' and that is that you don't need to rush children through the whole education process, it is OK to allow them to enjoy it. All children are different and come to school with different experiences, and that has to be recognised and the foundation stage really is what it says - it gives them a really strong foundation for the rest of their schooling and hence they will learn through play. They will start to learn to read and have an understanding of literacy and numeracy."

The days of children not being allowed to talk and copy from each other have gone, as have all the strict 'learning my rote' models of learning. Nigel sees that as a good thing.

Collaborating

"The curriculum is much more active, the whole idea is to get children collaborating, children working in groups, all of that is very important, the whole emphasis is on connected learning and that they see the connection from one area to another. There is a huge emphasis on PDMU as it is called: Personal Development Mutual Understanding, there is huge emphasis on the world around us and on pulling the geography, the history and the sciences. In other words, connecting all of those up to make connected, active learning, and that should continue right throughout the seven years. The is certainly less emphasis on sitting in your seat and not moving."

One of the first pupils on the new site, Nigel remembers picking his brother up from school on Iona Terrace and he distinctly recalls the large tin gates.

"I remember standing with my mother and Iona Terrace being packed with other parents waiting for the gates to open and the large tin gates opening and all the children rushing out. We would have picked my brother up and walked down Bonds Street. The biggest shock, I think for me, is the fact that probably for those who knew me growing up is that I am back as principal! Little did I think then, as I was running down Bonds Street carrying my football boots that I would come back."

Many of his teachers stood out for Nigel, including his P1 teacher, but he distinctly remembers Miss Galbraith and Ruby Miller: "she was a young teacher, probably three or four years out of Stranmillis and very interested in sport and I also remember Mr Buchanan my P7 teacher, Mr Morgan my P6 teacher and, probably mostly someone who came to the school, Issac Wilson. He had just arrived back from New Zealand, and he regaled us with his stories of New Zealand and various Maori dances and tunes and he was just a larger than life character, often showed off a little, keeping the ball up in the air with his head. I aspired to try and keep the ball in the air, just like him, but he did take a great interest, along with the principal, Roy Ramsay, in boys football. It was a really big thing and they would have spent an awful lot of time taking practice matches, taking us away for matches and the principal would have often just as you were walking in from the line, would have taken you hand and said 'Stay here a wee minute, you are playing this afternoon. Tell me how you are going to kick that ball. Pretend that stone is the ball now, show me how hard you are going to kick the ball'. He took a real interest in the sport," he said.

Former principal

Nigel's predecessor, Roy Wright, was principal at Ebrington for 25 years, and is remembered as the man who introduced a new system of learning at the school, moving away from the authoritarian, learning my numbers system.

Indeed, Nigel credit's Roy with "putting Ebrington on the map" in terms of teaching techniques and positive learning systems.

"Roy took Ebrington into the modern age, I would say, and really stamped Ebrignton as a school and I was lucky enough to learn the ropes from him for six years as vice-principal before I came back from Drumahoe and took over from him."

Roy was 'an outsider' - a blow-in from the Model Primary School, where he was vice-principal, he applied for the principalship in Ebrignton and the rest, as they say, is history!

"I came in and took over from Robert Ramsay. The only link I had with Ebrington before that was when he Model Football Team played against Ebrington. Invariably Ebrington won," he laughs, adding: "I'm not just saying that. Ebrignton was the school to beat, although the Model School was a big school in those days. There were 697 pupils at the Model. The reason I know there was 697 is because I often wondered if we would get another three pupils to make it 700. I was in charge of statistics in that school."

It was a bit of a change to come to Ebrington, which was a much smaller school.

"I don't remember the exact number, but I think there were around 350 to 400 pupils here. That also coincided with the big drift of the Protestant population from the Cityside over to the Waterside. I can remember in the Model School we had lots of school buses coming mainly from Belmont estate. There were a lot of policemen out in Belmont estate and then, when 'the Troubles' escalated, the numbers from there dwindled and with the movement of the population from the Cityside, the numbers plummeted but that created a problem for the controlled schools in the Waterside. This created problems here within the school and we ended up having many temporary classrooms at Ebrington. The number I couldn't really say - around about 10, maybe, and you had large class numbers, a small assembly hall and small dining area, but it meant if you were going to have meetings in the evening, because the food was served in the assembly hall, the smell, particularly if there were onions or fish, lingered and was not conducive to holding productive meetings," laughs Roy.

The pressure led to a massive remodelling of the school that resulted in a fantastic suite of rooms that included a superb music room.

Roy goes onto recall there were two other primary schools in the Waterside at the time: Rossdowney Primary and Clooney Primary School and they ultimately merged to become Lisnagelvin Primary. It was in or about this time that the new common curriculum came into being.

Roy recalls: "The big headaches were, possibly, convincing teachers that a free, more hands-on situation in the classroom could bring good results."

There was no place for stern disciplinarian attitudes in Roy's haven for children.

"I recall calling teachers by their first name and the sense of shock, everyone was known as 'Mr' or 'Mrs', some found it a shock to the system having taught for many years in a particularly style, and to change style was totally alien to them," he said.

Roy also recalls the phasing out of corporal punishment in schools, and both he and Nigel are delighted that none of their children were ever hit in school.

"I can remember in another school there were stern disciplinarians, and I can remember another teacher and I, we were in the top end of the school, in P7 and I can remember the two of us deciding not to punish any of our children with the cane and so on. Goodness me, whenever this eventually filtered into the rest of the staff it was a shock to the system. But, we stuck by it," he says proudly.