Creative collaboration - The Maine Event  

Derryboy Primary School, County Down and Culcrow Primary School, County Londonderry have been collaborating on a unique venture that showcased a creative and vibrant style of learning. 

Derryboy PS presentation

Through a live video link between the children and members of the Maine Ulster-Scots Project USA set up by the Ulster-Scots Agency, they were able to see the ancestral home of the McFadden family. In 1718 the family left Ulster as part of the first organised migration of Ulster Scots to America. The children were excited to meet and talk with Brad McFadden, a living descendant, and were fascinated by what they learned from archaeologist Pam Crane about the excavation of the site. 

This experience developed as part of a wider project called ‘The Land of Promise’. These schools alongside Hezlett Primary School and The Buick Memorial Primary School, Cullybackey learnt about early Ulster-Scots migration to America in the eighteenth Century. 

This project was developed by the Ulster-Scots Agency and includes a multi-media teaching and learning resource telling the story of the McFadden family.

This was a truly wonderful opportunity for the children to experience living history!  

Dr J Harper, Principal, Derryboy Primary School said, 

“The initiative is curriculum-based and designed for schools in Northern Ireland. This beautifully crafted and meaningful resource which serves as a vehicle for delivering many aspects of the NI Curriculum and enables us to embed learning in a sustainable and readily identifiable way in our planning and in our day-to-day class teaching.” 

‘The Land of Promise’ website includes downloadable teaching resources for teachers. It is supported by more than 20 interactive curriculum based activities. 

 

7 October 2020