Larne Grammar '˜established as one of the top performing schools'

Eve Black; Sara Jedrzejewska; Rebecca Lyle; Ilaria Magee; Emma McCullough and Sarah McMullan were form prizewinners.

Speaking at prizegiving in the school, Mr. Wylie reported that Larne Grammar has “obtained best ever GCSE results in 2015 and again in 2018 and best ever ‘A’ Level results in 2016, 2017 and 2018”.

Mr. Wylie described this year’s GCSE success as “unprecedented”.

The percentage of pupils achieving 5 A*-C (100%), 5 A*-C including English and maths (99.1%), 7 A*-C (98.2%), 7 A*-C including English and maths (97.3%), 7 A*-B (73.6%), 7 A*-B including English and maths (68.2%), percentage of entries awarded A*-B (82.0%) and percentage of entries awarded A*-C (95.7%).”

Form prize winners were Alex McMahon, Katie Allen; Keeva Bell; Anna Campbell; Olivia Sloan and Rhianna Taylor.

After the distribution of the junior and senior prizes Mr Logan introduced Bill McCallion to the pupils and parents present.

Mr. McCallion, a former head boy of Larne Grammar School is a consultant paediatrician at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast.

He specialises in reconstructive surgery for babies born with congenital heart defects and, in his spare time, enjoys playing golf and also plays guitar in a rock band.

He noted that schools in Northern Ireland have outperformed their mainland counterparts for many years and encouraged the pupils present to recognise that they are among the best in the UK.

Year 11 prizewinners Rory Madden, Amy Campbell and Eva McGeown.

He told the assembly that he was “not an exceptional pupil” at Larne Grammar School.

Indeed, he “struggled most of the way through his school career and, despite excelling at rugby and being made head boy, left school with very average A-Level results”.

He went on to say that it was during his time at university he was reading an article to a group of friends when one suggested he may have dyslexia.

He explained that it was this realisation that led him to develop learning techniques that enabled him to achieve success at university.

Year nine pupils Sam Drummond and Asia Haraburda won the John Blair prizes.

He urged pupils interested in medicine to “think seriously about how difficult the job is before they embark on a career in medicine”.

He did, however, go on to give examples of how the work that he does has “positive, life changing, consequences”.