On Monday 9th of February, members of the Science and English Departments gathered in the Lecture Theatre for an informative and helpful meeting with Dr Joy Alexander and Dr William McClune from the School of Education at Queen's.

Dr McClune and Dr Alexander are currently conducting a three-year research project into how pupils learn to think critically, and St Malachy's is one of the schools involved in this project. At the afternoon workshop, teachers from both departments learned about some of the key ways in which they can encourage active critical thinking in our Science and English classrooms, using simple but effective techniques such as the "News Bug" and "Reader Response Rating Activities". Dr Bailie (Head of English at KS3) said that ‘we look forward to continuing to work together with Queen's throughout this term, and we are very grateful to Dr Alexander and Dr McClune for so generously sharing their time and expertise with us’.