Title: Board of Education (N
Author: Michael Graham
Company: Drogheda Union of Parishes

Board of Education (N.I.)
Rev. Charlie Leeke,
Diocese of Derry and Raphoe Education Board (now Down & Dromore Reconciliation Development Officer)
Members of Synod as you look from this magnificent building you get an excellent appreciation of the scale of change in this city. Driving a considerable amount of that change is this community¹s involvement in information technology. Our traditional industries cannot compete against labour costs in developing economies or in areas where people are being exploited.
Information technology is not an option for Northern Ireland. It is a necessity. We pay tribute to Government, the Department of Education, the Area Boards, teachers, and our teacher training institutions for their lead in this area. Northern Ireland as a region has had more educational funding per capita in this area than any other in the United Kingdom. Twenty million pounds in all for the initiative in schools-based information technology. Teacher access to computers is one to three as opposed to one to five elsewhere. Changes in teaching methodology and new technology are inextricably linked as we shape the future. The General Synod Board responded to this challenge and obtained the ready co-operation of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Roman Catholic churches and for the first time in such an educational initiative, the involvement of the Jewish Community in Belfast. This greatly enabled a wider range of support to be obtained for our goal - a major website to resource Religious Education. This widespread support for which we are most grateful resulted in a successful application to the European Union s Peace Fund and the acquisition of substantial financial support.
The result is the Faith in Schools website which commenced operation in January last - nine months ahead of schedule. At the end of its first full month in operation it was chosen as the Guardian s Education Site of the Day . No mean achievement. In February the number of pages opened by users of that site totalled over 41,000 and in March over 52,000. The site is being used by people all around the world - but mainly by people in Ireland.
This Board has always accepted a responsibility to resource parishes as well as schools. For many years clergy received termly packages of worship resources. With one clergy person in three in the northern dioceses now being online, and taking consideration of the rising costs of postage, the Board decided to change its method of support for this area by once again using the internet. The result is the Parish Ministry website.
Clergy and licensed diocesan readers can obtain access to this site by contacting the Secretary.
The areas covered by this site include resources on prayer, preaching, pastoral care, parish administration and development. Basically we are developing a massive resource and support facility for our clergy and lay readers, which we can readily update at minimum cost to the Board and which is accessible from a home computer anywhere in Ireland. And that Your Grace, is only half the story of this Board¹s developments in information technology. This Board takes seriously the need for parish development and adult education. A third website Ministry for All is being developed at present and the first elements on it will support Conference 2000 - which is being held in September - on ministry with children. The Ministry for All site will cover ministry to children, youth, and families, and will resource those ministering in liturgy, church music and parish visitation.
It will also be flexible enough to support any further developments the Board will take in Adult Education. The Board and our Secretary Canon McKelvey are also making available online and free of charge to anyone, all the resource kits and publications, which have been written and published in recent years. They will be stored electronically in what we have decided to call the Cecil Francis Alexander Archives in memory of an outstanding educator of this Church of Ireland whose legacy in hymnology has supported the entire Christian community worldwide ever since. Her example is one which underlines the basic fact that Christian education and the worship of Almighty God, cannot but go hand in hand.
There are two other areas, for which this Board can give thanks to God for guidance in the development of resources for parish based activities. Last year this Synod approved a Children¹s Charter for the Church of Ireland which was presented to it in our Board¹s report. Since then parishes have had the opportunity to form focus groups to look at the Charter in their own parish context. The emerging findings of these groups are informative and challenging. To assist parishes, a series of implementation papers have been written by the Secretary working in conjunction with a Steering Group, of which I am a member. They have been circulated to parishes free of charge as they became available. In a short time these excellent resources will also be placed on line for use by any parish throughout our church. The papers address a number of areas that are critical to the development of society. For example, the major challenge of children bullying which has led to suicides in this city and community.
In accepting, upholding and resourcing a Children¹s Charter, the Church of Ireland is giving a major lead within the Churches of Great Britain and Ireland. There is to my knowledge no other church that has such a developed framework of theology with an attendant, coherent support system as that established by this Board with the approval of this synod. For that, under God, we can and should take credit. However, in celebrating such an achievement, let us also recognise the reality that the delivery of the Charter and the implementation of responses associated with it, is the task of clergy, parents and every church member in our parishes. It is in our parishes where ground is made or lost, where the real initiatives are taken or site-stepped.
Information technology and a Children¹s Charter process are only two of the area of Safeguarding Trust, once again this Board has been a trail-blazer in these islands in respect of child-protection measures, in accord with our Church s Code of Good Practice. The system of parish support developed by the Board, together with our bishops and with our dioceses is unique. We are attempting on a triennial basis to visit each parish panel, to listen to their enquiries and concerns, to agree with them a plan of action in the event of any deficiencies in the parish s approach being identified.
I am delighted to report that in the overwhelming majority of visits made just under 100 in the past year - that in less than 3 per cent of parishes were there situations of concern to both the panel and the visiting diocesan support team. We would like to thank most sincerely the rectors, their parish panel members and the leaders in parishes for their commitment to this process of affirmation and implementation of good practice. We would join that with paying a most sincere tribute to the members of the various diocesan support teams. These team members are all lay and are all voluntary. They give their time and in a majority of cases their professional experience free of charge, to enable their church to be a safe place for children and an environment within which adults can safely minister with children.
Before leaving these exciting developments in information technology, in parish development and in children s ministry, the Board wishes to place on record its gratitude to a number of bodies within our church. These developments on which we report cost money. They require financial resourcing. We exercise our financial stewardship carefully and we deeply respect the endeavours of those who provide us with the necessary means to make our visions become reality.
Our most sincere thanks to those responsible for gathering and allocating Central Funds; to those who organise and allocate from the Priorities Fund; to the dioceses and the parishes who respond annually to our needs: thank you one and all. We hope that as you share in the survey of our work as presented in the book of reports, that your too, under God, feel an affirmation for your stewardship, your involvement and a real sense of co-ownership in our achievements. You have been our faithful partners-in-ministry over many years. We value that deeply and we do not take either your efforts or your decisions for granted. I know that the Board would want me to express its deep gratitude to our hard working and very efficient secretary, Canon Houston McKelvey who is supported in his work by his wife Roberta and staff at the Church of Ireland Education Centre in Belfast. As you, Your Grace, have often commented, though it wouldn't be good for him to hear it, Where would we be without him? Your Grace, there are many other areas which I could have chosen to highlight :- - our on-going co-operation with other churches - our development of understanding with the integrated sector - our increasing involvement in working parties established by the Department - and the basic fact that all of these are set against a background of political change and flux.
However, I leave these to the will and wisdom of this Synod and simply but I hope profoundly, invite Synod to celebrate our major achievements in a variety of initiatives, by proposing the acceptance of this report of the stewardship of the General Synod's Board of Education (Northern Ireland) to our church and to our wider community.