Rathmore Grammar School

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This article is about the grammar school called 'Rathmore'. For other uses see Rathmore (disambiguation)

The Rathmore Crest

Rathmore Grammar School, normally referred to simply as "Rathmore", is a Catholic grammar school in Finaghy, Belfast, Northern Ireland. The current principal is Sr. Ursula Canavan.

Rathmore is situated in Kingsway, Finaghy, Belfast, behind the St. Anne's "complex", consisting of St. Anne's Primary School, Parish Church and Parish Centre. It is hidden from view from the nearby Lisburn Road.

[edit] History

Rathmore began merely as a stately home, built by Belfast businessman Victor Coates for his family, but the house was passed to the local Bishop who in turn sold it to the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. The RSHM used the house as a convent, where they began a school for girls. Sometime later, a major development project surrounded the convent with school buildings.

[edit] School Crest and Motto

The school's motto is "Ut Vitam Habeant" which is Latin for "that they may have life"

[edit] New Era

The new courtyard, the central part of the school. The Drama/Lecture Theatre is situated here, and can be seen in the background.

More recently, a new school building was designed by a past-pupil of the school. The new building was complete in time for the school year beginning September 2005. This project included the restoration of the convent, which now houses History, Politics and Religious Education.

With the new building, a new C2k computer network was installed, along with interactive whiteboards in every classroom. Each member of staff and pupil has their own user account account with email, and can access their personal files and email from home, via the C2KNI.net website. It is a Promethean Centre of Excellence, one of two in Belfast.

[edit] Recent Events

Rathmore made headlines in the Irish News in September 2006, when statistics showed that it had the highest A-Level results for a grammar school in Northern Ireland - ahead of 69 others. GCSE Results were used as a tie-breaker in the report.^{[citation needed]}

In October 2006, past pupil Maeve Kilpatrick won the UK Multimedia Presentation category of the DYP 2006 competition, with her Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation about her Art campaign in the school the previous year. The Presentation incorporated pictures, music and dialogue which she performed herself. Maeve and Mrs Keag, the Art teacher who oversaw the entry, go to Brussels in November 2006 as part of their prize. Rathmore has also had significant success in the Sentinus Engineering Education Scheme working with local company Phoenix Natural Gas and run by Physics teacher Mr Kieran Doherty. In 2005 the team sweeped the Seagate young innovators competition winning, most noteably, the Intel award of excellence and going on to win a trip to the United States to represent Ireland in the next stage of the competition. They also had success in 2006 winning the Young engineers for Britain competition for 17-19 year olds.

[edit] Notable alumni

• Tracey Magee, UTV news reporter.^{[citation needed]}
• Damien Johnson, member of the Northern Ireland football team.^{[citation needed]}
• Vivian Campbell, Guitarist with the rock band Def Leppard (expelled at 16).^{[citation needed]}
• Mairéad Farrell, Provisional IRA member killed by the SAS.^{[citation needed]}
• Donna Marie O Prey Ulster 800 metres freestyle swimming champion

[edit] Notable former teaching staff

• Bairbre de Brún, Sinn Féin MEP .^{[citation needed]}
• Davy Hyland, Former Sinn Fein MLA.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] External links

• Official Website (currently under construction).
• The Pond Project - a site created by one tutor group at the school, following their efforts with the restoration of the school pond.
• Promethean Centres of Excellence.