New Catholic school option for Lisburn

Parents, teachers and pupils are now being asked to respond to the consultation which is being carried out as part of the plans to end selection in the Catholic sector and to prepare schools for falling numbers of children and delivery of the new Entitlement Framework which will offer a wider choice of subjects.

The NICCE has put forward two options for the Lisburn and South and West Belfast area.

Option One is a new post primary school that will serve around 1,000 children in Lisburn/Crumlin and Glenavy.

It would be one of eight sites including Rathmore Grammar, St Colm's in Twinbrook, De La Salle College, Edmund Rice on the Glen Road, Dominican, St Genevieve's, and St Louise's.

The new school would cater for pupils from the area currently served by St Patrick's Academy in Lisburn along with other pupils from the Crumlin and Glenavy areas.

The second option does not include a new post primary school but still offers eight 11-19 education sites, this time including Corpus Christi College. The main implication of that option will be that trustees would work with the staff parents of St Patricks Academy to develop a strategy to provide education for their pupils in partnership with other schools.

NICCE says the options for the Lisburn area have been decided over a lengthy period of time working closely with principals, governors and Trustees in schools in the area. They say the parishes in the Crumlin/Glenavy/Lisburn area contain enough children to sustain a post-primary school in the area with around 1000 pupils and have already identified a site - although they don't say where that is.

They also point out that educational professionals feel 11-19 schools need at least 900-1000 pupils to deliver the full Entitlement Framework curriculum with an acceptable level of collaboration.

Currently St Patrick's Academy has 384 pupils and St Colm's 710. Only six of the existing 11 schools have over 1000 pupils. Gerry Lundy, Director of the Post-primary Review, said: "The post-primary sector faces a number of significant challenges including declining demographics, the debate over the ending of academic selection, changes in the curriculum as well as the development of area-based planning. This consultation, which is the biggest ever undertaken by Catholic Trustees in Northern Ireland, includes options which will help address these challenges."

He urged all stakeholders, parents, teachers, pupils to respond to the consultation.

"This document outlines the options which the Commission would ask the local community to consider," he said. "This is an opportunity for all those interested in post-primary education to have their say and it is vital that we receive as much feedback as possible. "Once completed the outcome of the consultation will be shared with our schools and their communities as well as the Department of Education and other education stakeholders," he added.

The consultation period will last until May 31 and once completed all responses will be analysed and a report provided to Trustees. It is expected that all reports will be completed and made available by early autumn .

Copies of the document will be shortly available through local Catholic managed post-primary and primary schools. It can also be downloaded at www.pprce.org. A parallel consultation with post-p