Click on the links below to view the scenes from a DVD made by Jerome Quinn on our Year 8 Ulster Colleges C Blitz winners in June 2008.

  High quality

Year 13 organised and delivered a Study Skills morning in school last Friday, this was a fantastic day and the students who delivered the presentations were brilliant.

Click the link to view images and learn more.

Children at Aquinas Grammar School in Belfast are at the forefront of using information and communications technology (ICT) to enhance their work, and that’s official!

Click on the ICT Mark to find out more.

Congratulations to year 14 students Maeve Cowan and Aine McGowan who have successfully completed the final unit of the BSL Sign Language level 1 qualification.
This QCA endorsed qualification is administered by the Council for the Advancement of Communication with Deaf People [CACDP] and under the expert tuition of Ms Elizabeth McAughtery, herself a member of the Deaf Community, the students studied three units, introductory sign language, conversational sign language and sign language at home and in school to achieve this level.

On Thursday 16th October 2008, year 13 pupils that are participating in the Bar Mock Trial competition and year 12 GCSE LLW pupils visited the Belfast High Court, hoping to gain a greater understanding of court procedures and the Northern Ireland legal system. Many pupils gained the opportunity to observe barristers and judges and, perhaps for some, see where their future career paths take them. Click on the image below to find out more.

Davey Philips of the Belfast Giantscame to the school to speak with the Year 8 pupils about Healthy Eating, Exercise and what it’s like to be a Giant.To read more about the vist and view images  click the link below.

GCSE: 

1ST in Business Studies – Christina McCloskey
2nd in French – Jennifer Clarke
1st in German – Jennifer Clarke
3rd in German – Martin McBride
1st in Maths – Conn McGrath
2nd in Physics – Conn McGrath

A level Top Candidates
3rd in Art – Megan Quigley
1st in English Literature – Dermot Dignam
2nd in Spanish – Ronan Tansey

Click the image below to view the top GCSE candidates

This year we were absolutely ecstatic to secure a visit from the much-sought-after author Darren Shan.  Horror readers will know he is the bestselling writer of The Saga Of Darren Shan and The Demonata Series.  His books have been translated into twenty languages in twenty-eight different countries and have sold over 9,000,000 copies worldwide.

Click on the image below to find out more

Congratulations to the six teams who successfully completed their Silver Award qualifying expedition in September.  The qualifying expedition was the culmination of eight months of training and preparation by the pupils. 

Click on the image below to read more and view photographs from the expedition. 

Congratulations to Maeve Mc Quillan who has been selected, for the second year, onto the Northern Ireland under 17 netball squad.

Congratulations to the following girls who have been selected onto the under 15 regional development squad; Claire McVeigh, Rachel Goldsmith, Rachel Ferguson, Moya McQuillan, Orlaith Downey, Aoife Sheridan and Amy Mc Cormick

To view some pictures from the successful event click the image below: 

Thank you for all the votes for Aquinas on the ‘Join Our Team Website’. We will let you know the outcome as soon as it is confirmed.

Click on the picture below to view images from the afternoon.

This is the presentation ceremony for the STAMP (Asthma Awareness campaign) team who completed a one year course so that would be qualified to teach their peers about asthma.  There were four schools involved in the scheme Lagan college, Aquinas Grammar School, Wellington college and Newton Breda High School. Click on the image below to view larger.

Aquinas Grammar year 8 Gaelic football team won the Ulster Colleges year 8 Football blitz Bro J M Murphy Cup and their first ever Ulster Colleges title after 15 years of trying. 

Clicck on the image below to learn more about this momentous occasion.

This is a school based competition run by the Norwich Union.  The winner of the competition is the school with the highest number of votes placed by the extended school  community. Pass this site information to family and friends. Hopefully we will be lucky enough to win the money and use it tocontribute to upgrading Physical Education facilities.Click the link below to view details of our scheme

or click on the button to place a vote

Click on the image above for more details of the Visit.

Click on the picture to see the Pi Day story unfold

Ben Horner (Year 12) & Joe Burns (Year 13) have both been selected to play for Ireland in the U16 & U18 European Basketball Championships this summer.

They have been training with their 18 player squads since January 2007 and both made their 12 man panels that were announced last week.    

The U18 championships take place July 25 to August 4 in Hungary while the U16 championships take place 15-24 August in Bosnia.  Each team will play 9 games in the European Championships.

Ben is also flying to Birmingham on Saturday 3 May to play England with the U16 team.

The Austrian resort of Axamer Lizum (near Innsbruck) was the venue for 2008 Ski trip. Click on the image below to read more and view images from the trip.

 

Click on the image below to read all about our adventures…

Aquinas hosted its Senior Celebration of Achievement on 20th December. The evening was a terrific success. To view some pictures from the event click on the image below.

The 2007 edition of the Winter Nwsletter is available to view online or download now. Just click on the links below on your version of choice.

 Download

 View online

Aquinas secured a 2-11 to 2-10 win over a young talented St Joseph’s Crossmaglen
Team in their opening game in the Ulster Colleges Bro Nolan senior C competition at the college pitches in Armagh. 
During the game Aquinas shot 20 scoreable wides which nearly cost them victory.  A small Crossmaglen team who played a short, fast passing game caused Aquinas many problems.  However, with steady performances from Thomas Artherton, Dermot Dignam, Conal Mahon O’Neill and captain John Mckenna.  Aquinas steered to a narrow victory.

Aquinas 4-8 Edmund Rice 1-6
Aquinas Grammar faced a determined Edmund Rice team who caused Aquinas lots of problems with their physicality.  Not until the last 15 minutes did Aquinas finally get on top of Edmund Rice.
Conal Mahon O’Neil, Dermot Dignam Matthew Hollywood and John McKenna were very strong for Aquinas.  Star of the game was Darragh Brownlee who turned in a McCrory standard performance.

After this win Aquinas will meet either St Malachys, Belfast, Lumen Christi, Derry or Glen Road CBS in the semi-final.

Aquinas will be training on the county Down sand dunes over the Christmas period.  Good Luck lads.

There are two galleries from The Wizard Of Oz production online for you to view.

Gallery 1  or  Gallery 2

Year 8
1st - Katherine Nevin
Runner Up - Chris Madden McKee
Year 9
1st - Emma Bogues
Runner Up - Laoise Hunter Martin
Year 10
1st - Naomi Morris
Runner Up - Rachel Goldsmith
Front Cover
Amy McCormick - Year 10
Back Cover
Claire McKeough - Year 10

Follow the Yellow Brick Road to view the winning entries.

Mrs Press, Mrs Guiney and Miss Maguire attended a conference in Johannesburgas part of the Dreams and Teams programme which is run by the British Council and Youth Sport Trust. Click on the image below to find out more and to get a flavour of their visit.

For the latest Basketball News click on the basketball.

Read one pupils account of the French Exchange trip and view  some images from the galleries by clicking on the image below. 

The Aquinas Senior Gaelic team played in the Queen’s Invitational Sevens tournament on Friday 29th of September.Click on the image below to view some pictures from the day and to find out how the team got on.

Details of the first terms Sporting Extra Curricular Activities can be found by clicking here

To view some images from the latest Silver Award expedition click on the image below.

June 19th saw the successful completion of the British Sign Language unit 2 [conversational sign language] assessment. 

Under the expert tuition of their tutor Mrs. Elizabeth McAughtery, the year 13 & 14 students, Laura Dornan, Paddy Early, Aideen Giffen, Ciara Moore, Rachel O’Hare and Dervla McParland have now completed units 1 and 2 of the BSL level 1 sign language course.

Dear Parents

As you will know, there has been a great deal of media coverage recently about the rapid increase in abuse of the internet.  In order to support you, our parents, in this area we would like to invite you to an evening meeting in the school. The meeting on Wednesday 9th May will last from 7.30pm until approximately 9.15pm.

As well as covering this topic we have invited a guest speaker who will be talking about the use and abuse of alcohol among young people. 

The evening will be an informative one and there will be opportunities for questions and answers at the end of each of the two sessions.  We hope you will be able to attend as these are two areas which can be causes of concern for parents, educators and young people.

Yours sincerely

Mrs G. Gibson
Vice Principal

The Cook Islands U19 Rugby team took time out from the U19 World cup to visit Aquinas. During their visit the team met with members of the Aquinas squad and put on a display of their world famous Haka. To view images from the visit click on the image below or click on the icons below to view or save a video clip

 or