Magnificent new £56m St Ronan's College, with 1,800 pupils, is like a small village within Lurgan, says principal Fiona Kane

State-of-the-art facilities include 5 tennis courts, 3 pitches, high technology throughout with immersive audio visual rooms, sensory rooms, specially designed science rooms and much more.

Arriving at the enormous building on the Cornakinnegar Road may be daunting at first glance but when the doors open to the large double height Linen Lobby, complete with coffee lounge, it oozes welcome and safety.

The school flows easily around with a large multi-use assembly hall off the main lobby. Classrooms are fully equipped with tech points and state-of-the-art teaching aids.

There is a high tech immersive room which can transport pupils to inside the human body during a biology lesson or into the trenches of the First World War in history.

All students have access to the AE Russell Reading Room, a nod to a son of Lurgan which is close to a huge study room, which cocooned quiet areas and scores of desks and plug in points for laptops.

Principal Fiona Kane said: “It feels like a small village at times," said Mrs Kane, who has 200 teachers and staff working at the school. She also revealed there were guide books and map books for pupils to help them negotiate their first days at the new school.

Mrs Kane said staff were thrilled already that they had only one site to work on after several years working across 3 sites in various parts of Lurgan. “They were seeing each other and didn’t have that time for joint planning. It’s very natural and organic now.

"To have our own playing fields on site will be an amazing resource for us,” she said.

“There are other things in the design that we have never had in our school, like our sensory room. It’s been sponsored by Smurfitt-Kappa. We have been able to fit that out and it has been absolutely outstanding. We have an Immersion Room which was sponsored by a local businessman and a parent. It’s unbelievable,” she said. “We know it’s going to have a huge impact on learning and teaching.

"We have a whole facility called Eden with a host of services. It’s where our additional needs area will be. Lots of parents’ spaces there, a social worker, a youth worker, a medical assistant will all be working out of that facility,” she said. “That’s for every child to access from Year 8-14 depending on their needs. It could be a child who is bereaved or someone who is off ill and catching up on coursework.

"It could be for learning support or for our newcomers. It’s going to be that wrap-around service. We put that in ourselves in the design of the school,” said Mrs Kane.

Teacher Mrs Eimear Brock revealed: “The excitement is filtering through everybody, the enthusiasm and optimism. We have waited a long time for this. It’s just exceeded everybody’s expectations.”

Sports facilities for some of the pupils were the most exciting part of the school, with the 3g pitches. “If you go to the Hill Top Cafe (in the school) the views the students have of the sports facilities and the local area, it just feels like we have picked the perfect spot,” she said.