Catholic schools top NI leader board with ‘body, mind, soul’ focus

Catholic education has built a “reputation of success” because of its ethos and sense of belonging, an academic has said after Catholic schools topped Northern Ireland’s leader board.

A performance guide which focused on the amount of top marks students received for the 2017/18 academic year found nine out of the top 10 schools were Catholic.

Dr Niall Coll of St Mary’s University in Belfast said that Catholic schools have a long experience of providing for the needs of a population who have “generally not been privileged socially and politically”.

He said the style of education has brought about “tranches of well-educated, confident and articulate Catholics”.

“Catholic schools have built up a reputation for academic success because of an ethos and sense of belonging which in turn leads many young people of the second and third generations to attend particular schools or colleges.”

Confident

He continued saying that the schools are confident in their high academic standards “and ability to form well-rounded young people”.

The guide was published last week by the Belfast Telegraph and focused on every post-secondary school in which pupils undertake A-levels.

Coming in first place was St Louis Grammar School in Ballymena, a voluntary grammar school, in which 95.4% of pupils achieved three or more A-levels at grades A*–C.

St Brigid’s College in Derry came third. It achieved the best results of a non-grammar school with 92.3% of pupils obtaining three or more top grades. Last year the school came 43rd in the ranking. Two-thirds of students in the school are entitled to free school meals.

Dr Coll said that there is a strong commitment in the North’s Catholic schools to tackle disadvantage. The focus on Catholic social teaching, with “its emphasis on the dignity of each person and insistence on the importance of community and solidarity”, he said, informs the life and curriculum of the schools.

“The 30 years of the Troubles in the North meant that Catholic schools, especially in disadvantaged areas, were oases of order and calm in the lives of many young people who otherwise encountered violence on the streets and chaos at home.”

He added that in an increasingly secular society there is a growing realisation that the spiritual dimension of education can’t be taken for granted.

“My work in teacher training at St Mary’s University College, Belfast, brings me into many schools, both primary and post-primary throughout the North, and I’m always delighted to meet teachers who are committed to the education of the whole person: mind, body and spirit.”