St Paul’s High School, Bessbrook held its Annual Open Day on Saturday 29 January.  Prospective pupils from Primary 7 classes in our feeder primary schools, and their parents visited the school in large numbers, and were guided around the school by Year 8 and Year 9 students.

Principal Mr Oliver Mooney, spoke to parents and pupils.  Below is an edited version of Mr Mooney’s address:

Welcome to St Paul’s and I hope you had an enjoyable morning visiting the various departments. I know that either myself or Mr Burns or in some cases both of us have visited you in your own Primary Schools but this morning will have given you the opportunity to view all of St Paul’s wonderful facilities. I know that many of you have already been in St Paul’s on several occasions through our Science specialism or other programmes that St Paul’s operates with some of our feeder schools. As St Paul’s is your community school many of you will already have a brother, sister or cousin in St Paul’s and all of you will know someone who is attending St Paul’s.

We take great care to make sure that if you decide to come to St Paul’s in September that you have a safe and happy start to your year 8. You will have a form teacher who will look after you and senior students who will befriend your class and support you all the way through the year. Our chaplain Fr Dermot is with us on Tuesdays and Thursdays and our school matron is always at hand if one of those little injuries or illnesses crop up. I am confident you will enjoy St Paul’s and I hope that you took the chance to talk to your guide about what year 8 is or was like for them.

Every year things just seem to get better here in St Paul’s, our examination results continually improve and more and more of our young people are staying on to do “A” Level and going on to university courses in all the disciplines. Our Science specialism has allowed us to work with partner schools and we are now in a new initiative with more partner schools through Queen’s University and the Sharing Education Programme. We have study visits for students and staff to Sweden, France, Spain, Romania and Kenya as well as to other parts of the British Isles. Our PE and Sport Department is enthusiastic, forward looking and successful in a range of sports with great success in Boys’ Gaelic Football and Girls’ Gaelic football and Netball. Our Music, Drama and Dance departments go from strength to strength and back in October we presented “The Fiddler on the Roof” which so many of you supported. The orchestra has grown in size and excellence and we look forward to having some of our new students join the choirs and orchestra from September onwards.  St Paul’s is a really exciting place to work and to study and I know my days fly in as there are always so many great things happening.

On a more serious note last year we were very heavily over subscribed and some children who would have automatically been accepted to St Paul’s in previous years could not be offered places. Most schools in Northern Ireland would love to have the luxury of being oversubscribed at this time of falling numbers in many schools but it does bring its own problems. We would love to take all children who really want to come to St Paul’s as their first choice but realistically this can’t happen as we have limited space and must work within limits set by the Department of Education.

Last year’s difficulties over admissions came about because St Paul’s has an admissions number which is set by the Department of Education (DE) and which the school cannot exceed without DE permission.  We were required by DE, for every application received, to measure the distance from each child’s home to our school and then to rank them according to that distance. We were therefore forced for the first time ever to refuse places to children from within our core area. There was and is ongoing communication with the Department of Education on this matter. To avoid this happening again we have drawn up new criteria for entry to St Paul’s which reflect our wish to be loyal to our core area and do not depend on distance to the school and we will strictly enforce these new criteria. These criteria were published in the guidance book for parents issued by the Education and Library Board, who have responsibility for overseeing the whole transfer system. We are not yet aware of our admissions number for this year but it is likely to be lower than in previous years to allow for the huge growth we have experienced at “A” level.

Please read the admissions criteria carefully before filling in the transfer form as we will only be able to use the information you give us on that form to make our decisions. The reality will be that we are unlikely to be able to offer places to all those who apply and those children who express a first preference for St Paul’s and live within the core area, as defined in the transfer booklet, will be the first considered. We will also require that original documents be submitted to prove the child’s normal residential address. Without this proof we will be unable to offer a place and we are required by DE to verify the documents provided. Should it be discovered that invalid documents have been provided a place cannot be awarded and if a place has been provisionally awarded it may be subsequently withdrawn.

For the vast majority of you there will be no problem and I look forward to having you here next year. Whatever school you finally choose to attend I hope you are happy and successful there. Most of all enjoy your Confirmation Day which will happen over the next few months. Have no worries if you are coming to St Paul’s next year, we will do everything we can to make your transition from primary school as painless and enjoyable as possible.

Follow our video tour of St Paul’s High School.