Academy Head awarded OBE

For fourteen years he has been moulding minds as head of the ever-successful Banbridge Academy, which consistently tops exam results polls across Northern Ireland. But now Mr Pollock himself has made it onto the Queen’s OBE list for his services to education in Northern Ireland.Speaking after the award was announced at the beginning of the New Year, Mr Pollock, who has an Honours Degree in Chemistry from Queen’s University, said he is both “humbled and stunned” and more pleased for his family than himself.

The Academy principal initially worked with the Department of the Environment as a scientific officer before beginning his teaching career at Wallace High School in Lisburn.

After two years working at the Friends High School, Mr Pollock took up the reins at the Academy in 1995.

Mr Pollock, who spent two years in Brussels with the Baptist Church, is a member of the Northern Ireland Association of School and College Leaders.