Making the most of a new building
‘Learning from Each Other’ – since 1994
In 1994, when Shimna was being built, a quirk of curriculum development meant that provision for home economics was not included within our accommodation. Rebecca Murphy did heroic work with electric frying pans and juicers providing some experiences of cooking for our students. Kevin Lambe ran an afterschool cooking club, culminating in a mini-banquet for the chefs’ parents.
Eventually, home economics became a statutory requirement again, and the Department of Education stepped up to provide Shimna with two full suites of classrooms, prep rooms and planning rooms. VAT restrictions to funding meant a separate building, a site was identified beside our canteen and digging began. We lost a piece of play space while the steel went up, but we all had the opportunity to watch the building take shape. The clean lines of the building were designed to blend in perfectly with our original building, and it was a wonderful experience, for the first time, to have the building fully fitted out without all the fundraising and project management which had been the day-to-day experience for all our previous building work before DE funding was provided.
But of course, Kevin Lambe, as ever, wanted to make the most of every potential space. We benefited from our sloping site in that the new building was originally conceived as balancing on pillars, but which created the unfortunate effect of an underground car park. Kevin spotted the potential for a ground floor classroom space, and much needed additional toilet facilities. He approached the ever supportive Integrated Education Fund, and, on the basis of our growing numbers, secured funding to create the lovely English classroom, which served so many other uses both for the school and for our community partners. Who can forget NCC’s showing of ‘The Breakfast Club’, one Saturday morning, with bacon sandwiches provided from home economics upstairs!
We were delighted to host Minister of Education John O’Dowd for the official opening.
Following the death of an inspirational chair of governors, Jean Forbes, and a generous donation in her will, the building was named in her memory. Jenny Temple, the chair of governors who succeeded Jean, represented Shimna along with Kevin on the Project Board with the Department of Education, thoroughly enjoyed the experience and did an excellent job.
