Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACE..
Top school leads prestigious Ulster list for second time in six years
THIRTEEN schools from Northern Ireland have been ranked among the UK’S top 100 in a leading education guide.
Friends’ School in Lisburn was named the region’s Secondary School of the Year for the second time in the Sunday Times’ Parent Power supplement.
The guide uses exam results to rank the highest achieving schools in the country.
Lumen Christi College in Derry was again rated the best performing school in Northern Ireland with Our Lady and St Patrick’s in East Belfast second.
Friends’ came in third with Strathearn fourth, followed by Rainey Endowed in Magherafelt, Co Derry, Rathmore Grammar in Dunmurry and St Mary’s Grammar, also in Magherafelt.
Completing the top 10 in Northern Ireland were Dalriada School, St Louis Grammar and Methodist College Belfast.
Stephen Moore, principal of Friends’, which also won in 2012, heaped praise on the pupils behind their results. He said: “We have good raw materials to begin with in the excellent pupils that come into the school.
“Really it is about how to make a difference to those pupils.”
Parent Power editor Alastair Mccall said: “It is rare for a school to win one of our awards twice, all the more so when a second title comes just six years after the first as has happened at Friends’.
“The award is indicative of the sustained success the school achieves with and for its pupils. But it is no examination factory.
“Children are encouraged to ‘live adventurously’ and they achieve success in sport, music and drama to complement their prowess in public examinations.” As well as assessment of all academic results on a school-by-school basis, Parent Power enables parents to compare the performance of a given school with other schools in the same town, local authority or nationally.