Friends' and Rathmore named among Northern Ireland's top 10 schools

According to the Sunday Times Parent Power guide, due to be published in The Sunday Times and online this Sunday, November 27, Rathmore Grammar is Northern Ireland’s “top performing state secondary school” this year, taking over the number one spot from Lumen Christi College in Londonderry.

Rathmore was last year’s Sunday Times Northern Ireland Secondary School of the Year.

This year it had the best A Level results in Northern Ireland, with 84.5 per cent of entries achieving A* to B grades.

At GCSE level, 63.7 per cent of exam entries attained A* or A grades.

The school is number 38 in the UK national rankings - an improvement of six places from 2015.

Friends’ School is ranked number seven in the list of top performing post-primary schools.

At A Level this year, 74.3 per cent of entries achieved A* to B grades, while 63.4 per cent of GCSE entries scored A* and A grades.

The school’s overall national ranking is 79th - an improvement of 14 places from 2015.

Rainey Endowed School in Magherafelt has been named The Sunday Times Northern Ireland School of the Year for 2016.

The Parent Power guide, which can be found at www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/parentpower, contains the top 2,000 state and independent schools, searchable by postcode, town, local authority and name of school.

As well as assessment of all academic results on a school-by-school basis, Parent Power enables parents to compare the performance of a given school with other schools in the same town, local authority or nationally. There are also live links to school websites and schools’ most recent inspection reports.