Mary Harbinson

St Mary's PS, Divis Street 

www.stmarysdivisstreet.com

Subject or Primary School Year: Principal

Place of Birth: Belfast

Where you studied: St Mary's University College, UU, QUB

What was your first job? St Paul's P.S., Cavendish Square

What did your first job teach you? It taught me the importance of letting every child know that you are on their side and that they are unique and talented individuals. For children to develop transferable learning skills that contribute to making them life long learners they need to be nurtured and educated to be active in their own learning and have the ability to make their own choices. I learned that great relationships, perseverance and enthusiasm make a school great and that a school really is a learning community when the barriers to education felt by many groups in society are confronted and overcome. 

Family/Status: Married to Martin, and Mummy to three fabulous children.

Best advice you would give to someone thinking of a teaching career: Be passionate and love every minute. It is an all encompassing role that requires one hundred percent commitment everyday. You are shaping lives and you can never stand still. Be a learner, improve your skills and develop new ones. Work with your colleagues to recognise best practice and make it your own. Understand that for some of the children you teach you are their only role model, be the best one you can be. It is hard work but a tremendously rewarding career. (I probably should warn them about the many hours of preparation and marking after school, but why spoil it?) 

Mary is very proud to be the Principal of St Mary’s P.S. Divis Street, especially as she was born just off Divis Street. Having attended St. Comgall’s P.S., St. Dominic’s and St. Mary’s University College she took up her first teaching post in St. Paul’s P.S., Cavendish Square. The pupils at that time were all drawn from the local Traveller community and it was a tremendous experience to learn about cultural traditions and see how they could be celebrated in the curriculum in a really meaningful way.

This led to Mary spending several years as an education advisor with the local education authority and as a lecturer for both Stranmillis University College and QUB. She became Principal of St. Mary’s in 2012 and feels blessed to work with some of the most enthusiastic and hardworking teachers, assistants and support staff anywhere. The school is a truly intercultural school where children from a wide range of cultures and traditions learn side by side in an atmosphere of joy and celebration (almost 70 per cent of the pupils are drawn from the newcomer, refugee and asylum seeker communities in Belfast).

The school welcomes student teachers on placement from partner institutions in a huge range of countries, including Germany, USA and Canada. The school is a recent Aisling Awards finalists for its cultural traditions project with CRJ Ireland and Mary is delighted that St Mary's is working in partnership with parents to make everyone active members of the learning community.