It is with a great sense of satisfaction that we introduce the work of our school. Our Lady of Lourdes School provides a quality Catholic education, taking our inspiration from the vision experienced by St Bernadette, who saw the future, touched the hearts and minds of people and, in doing so, changed the world.
At Our Lady of Lourdes School, we focus on: nurturing core Gospel values in an ethos of care, courtesy, respect and responsibility; establishing a culture of firm and fair discipline and high expectations; developing leadership at all levels in the school; providing a positive and rewarding learning environment; and improving the quality of the pupils’ learning and their achievements.
This school, in striving to meet the challenges of providing a quality education in the 21st Century, has a clear and progressive agreed, purpose and vision, which is Caring Sharing Learning together to meet the future. We provide a stable and loyal leadership and a cohesive, unified staff. As a consequence, Our Lady of Lourdes School Ballymoney was honoured in June 2004, December 2007 and 2011 with the prestigious award of Investor in People.
Our Lady of Lourdes School is growing steadily in terms of pupils joining the school. The school continues to attract pupils from across the whole ability range, and boys and girls of all abilities are thriving in our distinct small-school ethos and in our vision of enabling each individual pupil to bring light and dignity to the world – no child held back nor left behind.
We are proud of our pupils; their appearance, their conduct, their respect for themselves, others and for the school property. These are all sources of great encouragement in the present and of good hope for the future. Furthermore, their attendance is superb maintaining the position of the school in the top 5% of its kind in Northern Ireland. The pupils continue to grow in wisdom and flourish under the daily guidance and inspiration of a very able and extremely hardworking staff.
We place a strong emphasis on providing our pupils with a wide range of extra-curricular opportunities; for example, Ski Trip, Hurling, Netball, Gaelic Football, Soccer, Camogie, Athletics, Dance, Drama, Glee Choir, Irish Dancing, Table Tennis, Rugby, Hockey and Music play a significant part in the life of the school, as do a variety of educational outings and inter-school activities.
As an all-ability school, we are particularly proud of our excellent examination achievements; our pupils met or significantly outperformed the Northern Ireland non-selective school examination averages in every respect GCSE for the last two years.
Finally, the Education and Training Inspectorate undertook a standard inspection of the school in September 2015 and we were delighted that their findings are that: the quality of education provided by Our Lady of Lourdes School Ballymoney is very outstanding; and the school has a high level of capacity for sustained improvement in the interest of all the learners.
Our Lady of Lourdes is a happy school where pupils are expected to work hard and play hard, where they will find friends, lifetime experiences and be contented.
Mr S. Smyth
Principal
