Last month was a hugely successful one for the school’s basketball teams. 18 pupils travelled to New York and Orlando for ten days where they played 5 games and caught two NBA games. Click on the image below to find out more and view photographs from the trip.

Dear Parent/Guardian 

Once again we are devoting Monday 29th, Tuesday 30th and Wednesday 31st March (Holy Week) to revision classes for our examination pupils.  Year 8, 9 and 10 pupils will not be in school.  Years 12, 13 and 14 who face a season of GCSE’s, AS and A2 exams must be in school for all three days.  Your son/daughter will receive their time-tables and will be asked to sign up for extra classes, where appropriate.

These days have been planned to be of maximum benefit to all our students who are about to embark on public examinations.  We ask for your support in ensuring full attendance.

Yours sincerely

Mrs G. Gibson
Vice Principal

On 15th January, we welcomed Year 10 pupils, their parents and pupils from St Joseph’s college to the Aquinas STEM careers workshops.  The aim of this initiative was to inform and educate our pupils about career opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, to help them make informed decisions about their subject choices and future career paths.To find out more and view photographs from the event click the image below.

Aquinas pupils headed into their Silver Award Qualifying Expedition.  A 3day, 2 night trek through the mountains.  They would camp wild and be totally self sufficient for the entire expedition. To find out more and view photographs from the expedition click the image below.

Joni Gallagher from Year 11F met the Belfast Lord Mayor Naomi Long today at the launch of the “Stealing is Wrong” poster campaign which has been set up in conjunction with the Belfast City Centre Management, PSNI and Belfast Camber of Commerce. The Lord Mayor helped launch the poster campaign today at Castle court shopping Centre. This poster was produced in response to a competition that was advertised in the City Safe Magazine that was produced by Belfast City Centre Management. Lord Mayor Naomi Long congratulated Joni in her hard work and commented on her creative flair in producing such an eye-catching poster which effectively highlights such a serious issue that affects many shops and businesses in the Belfast area. Click on the image below to find out more.

Click on the link below for all Transfer Arrangements and Updates

Seven Aquinas pupils from Year 13 have been selected from over 100 applicants to take part in the Belfast Saphara Team to India July 2010.  Eimear Devlin, John Doherty, Ben Lambon, Elizabeth Murphy, Ciara Power, Dermot Sharkey and Peter Stewart are all preparing for their trip. The students have been raising awareness within our school, click on the image below to find out more.

Copies of the Aquinas Annual General Report can be downloaded using the link below. Note that the file is in PDF format.

The Co Down Cross Country Championship were held on Tuesday 2nd February at Delamont Country Park.

Minor Boys Team winners – Christopher Kelly, Mikal Zoboroski, Ronan Quinn, Nicholas Kearney, Dairmuid Mc Nulty, Nathan Kelly, Kaelan power, Declan Mc Crory.

Minor Boy – Christopher Kelly came 6th out of over 100

Minor Girl – Laura Reid came 7th out of 100 girls! 

Intermediate Boys Team 3rd – Michael Robinson, Owen Lavery, Ryan Mc Kee, Kevin Dornan.

Intermediate Boy – Michael Robinson came 6th out of 100 boys!

Intermediate Girl – Ellen Gracey came 7th out of 100 girls! 

All of the above runners have qualifed for the Ulster Cross Country Championship on Wednesday 24th February at Mallusk Playing Fields. Good Luck.

Click on the image below to see some pictures.

U19 All-Ireland Play-offs National Basketball Arena, Dublin

Aquinas 54        Abbey Donegal  45

Aquinas 59        Knockbeg College, Carlow 21

All-Ireland Quarter Final

Aquinas 54        St Fintan’s Sutton 57

Aquinas students will soon be going on a USA Basketball tour to NYC & Orlando. The team will be leaving on Friday 5 February, returning on Monday 15 February and playing 5 games and going to two NBA games.

On Friday 4th December four students currently studying A2 Level Art and Design at Aquinas were providing the Interval entertainment at the Waterfront Hall on the night which saw the union of the five Education and Library Boards across Northern Ireland through Culture and Creativity. Click on the image below to see photographs and find out more.

Aquinas Senior Gaelic Football team meet fierce rival St Patrick’s Knock in the quarter-final of the O’Doherty cup on the week beginning the 8th February.

Aquinas completed a very competitive McLarnon campaign in which they lost narrowly to La Salle, Belfast, St Louis, Ballymena and St Louis, Kilkeel in the group stages.  Aquinas were well beaten by St Peter’s Lurgan, one of the favourites to win the McLarnon this year, in their last group game.  Aquinas achieved a walk over against Ballyshannon.

Aquinas had played four warm up matches before the campaign drawing with St Patrick’s Knock and St Malachys Belfast and losing to St Patrick’s Downpatrick and Rathmore.

Aquinas have stepped up a level after last year’s senior Brother Nolan success and  the all-Ireland C final against Strokestown, Roscommon.  This has been a tough but rewarding year.  The players have proved they can compete at this level but the results unfortunately did not come.  However, this team has set the bench mark for future years. 

The quarter-final in the O’Doherty cup is intriguing as Knock and Aquinas seem to be at a similar level this year which will add to the excitement of this game.

Aquinas players need to get back to training on Monday 24th January if they are going to be able to compete with Knock.  Training begins at 1.00pm, all players to be in the sportshall changing rooms for 12.30pm.  This has been a difficult time to get to training due to examinations but Mr Evans hopes that there will be a good turn out on Monday.

Aquinas student beats 250 entries to win Belfast City Centre Management “Stealing is Wrong” Poster Competition

Click on the image to find out more.

Seven of our Year 14 students have gained entrance to Oxford and Cambridge colleges for September 2010

3 students will study Medicine.
1 student will study History.
1 student will study English Literature.
1 student will study Mathematics.
1 student will study German and Arabic.

The training and expedition will be carried out and supervised by The Outdoor Fox Company.To find out more click on the image below.

To view some photographs from our Senior Celebration Of Achievement click  on the image below.

Click on the link below to view the Timetables for the January Internal exams

No adjective could ever fully sum up the Saphara 2009 India journey. “Amazing”is too bland; “unforgettable” simply states the obvious. But as the weeks since our return to NI fly by, one word that sticks in my mind is “awakening” – for that is what our indescribable experience in India proved to be, an awakening in all senses of the word. Click image image below to find our more.

Laura McAllister celebrates her success at the Futurechef cookery competition in Magherafelt. Laura achieved 1st place in all categories. Click on the image below to find out more.

Earlier in the year Aquinas took part in a French exchange with our partner school Lycée Maguerite de Flandres in Lille. It was an amazing experience and we all have some great memories from it. Click on the image below to find out more.

The Annual Carol Service in Aquinas was a magical event. Click on the image below to view photographs from the event.

 

The Knights of Columbanus in conjunction with Aquinas Diocesan Grammar School held a mock interview evening on 2 December 2009. Thirty three year fourteen students were interviewed by more than twenty professionals. The students all received written feedback. The students interviewed require an interview as part of the selection procedure for the course or college they have applied to. The areas covered included Medicine, Teaching, Nursing, Law, Engineering Art and Design and all those applying to Oxford or Cambridge. The evening was a great success for all pupils and interviewers commented on how impressed they were by the quality of Aquinas pupils.

The Year 8 boys came very close to achieving a famous victory against the Year 9’s on Wednesday. A brilliant first half performance saw the younger team lead with goals from Chris Kelly (2) and Brendan Stewart (1). The pace of the Year 8 attack led by Ryan Donaghy and Stewart was causing serious problems for the Year 9 defence. The Year 9 team came out fighting at the start of the second half and despite excellent defending from Michael Brown and Brogan MacAibhstin they managed to draw level. The last 10 minutes were extremely tight with Ruairi Shirlow somehow managing to keep out the Year 9 attack. The game finished 3-3 but all the Year 8’s should be proud of their performances. Best on the day were Brown, Kelly, Stewart, Morrison and Donaghy.
Year 8 Squad

McMeekin, Shirlow, Doherty, MacAibhstin, Brown, Curran, Morrison, Rylands, Bradley, Kelly, Madden, Armstrong, Donaghy, Stewart, McBrien, McSorley.

Congratulations to all The girls that have been selected for the Belfast U13 Netball Regional Squ

The following girls have been successful ,

GA  Jeanette Black
GK  Niamh Kelly
GK  Joanne Madden McKee
WD  Eimear Magee
GS  Catherine Melotte

Thanks to the fabulous generosity of our students we have had a superb response to our annual Shoebox Appeal. The Charity prefects in Aquinas take their job very seriously and you can witness this by clicking on the image below

When the Aquinas Bar Mock Trial Team of 2009 was recruited from year 13 pupils in September it soon became clear it meant business! Click on the image below to find out more.

Additional Documents have been added to the Transfer arrangement section of the Website.

Click the image to view updates.

To view the external examination results for Aquinas click on the link below or click on the link on the menu to the right hand side.

This year the theme for National Poetry Day was ‘All about Europe.’ There was of course our annual poetry competition with categories for junior, intermediate, and senior school entries, as well as a staff section. Click the image below to view the winning entries and find out more.

On Saturday 18th October Amy McCormick (Yr12) and Aoife Lavery (Yr 9) represented Aquinas in the Ulster Schools’ Show Jumping competition in Knockagh Lodge equestrian centre run by the Belfast Royal Academy.

Click on the image below to find out more

The election for the Parent Representative of the Board of Governers has been completed.

Mrs Paula DurKan was elected.

We would like to thank the large numbers who participated in the election.

Aquinas 83 (48)   AVS, Donegal 53 (23)

Aquinas continued their good start to the season click on the link below for the match report

To view some photographs from the superb show click on the image below:

The Year 12 Parent Teacher meeting that was due to take place on Wednesday the 21st of October has been rescheduled to Thursday the 12th November.

The Department of Education Independent Counselling Service for Schools in co-operation with New Life Counselling will be available in Aquinas. To find out more about the service click on the link below

Congratulations to Frances Hewitt (Yr11), Catherine Conaghan (Yr11), Aideen Murphy (Yr11) and Aislinn McFarland (Yr10) who have been selected onto the U15 Regional Academy Netball Squad which will be playing in the Youth Games in May 2010.

The annual Macmillan coffee morning was a great success raising £708. Many thanks to all staff and students who supported this event. Images from the event can be viewed by clicking below.

The break down of the 2009 External exam results can be viewed by clicking the link below.

The Junior Celebration of Achievement was a tremendous success. To view pictures from the event and of all the winners click on the image below:

To mark the start of the Ulster Project bishop Farquhar celebrated mass with the families and young people going to America. Click on the image below to view pictures from the event.

During May, another 10 more year 13 & 14 students successfully completed the BSL Sign Language level 1 qualification.  This was the culmination of 20 months of weekly classes to learn introductory sign language, conversational sign language and sign language at home and in school.

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 McAghtery, herself a member of the Deaf Community.
Congratulations to all of the students who completed their BSL Level 1 qualification during 2008/09

The Sports day in Aquinas started exceptionally well and some images can be fround by clicking the image below:

But after break the weather broke, click on the image below to view pictures:

Concern received over 800 entries from places far and near: Japan; Niger; Liberia; India; USA; UK and Ireland.  Entrants were asked to let them know what they would write in a letter to President Obama on one of three critical issues: world hunger, climate change in the developing world or child labour.

Aquinas had tremendous success in the Junior Competition with first prize going to Eoghan Curran (Yr11) and Joint second prize going to Anna Lyttle (Yr11).

Congratulations!

You can find out more about the competition and the issues highlighted by clicking on the image below:

(external link)

The Fine Art work by two Year 14 students has been selected by the panel of judges and both where awarded ‘Special Merit Prizes’. The work by Emma McCaugherty (The Teapot plus Reflection) and Katie McCullagh (Old Man Praying) will now go on tour around Ireland . Click on the link below and follow the exhibition as it visits many venues over the next 12 months.

The talented artists from years 8,9,10 took part in the celebration of the Cultural Olympiad, Going for Gold - Art competition. Click on the image below to find out more and view the entries.

The French department has secured funding from the British Council Lefèvre Trust for a joint exchange project with our partner school the Lycée Maguerite de Flandres in Lille. Sixth from students will produce a comparative project on the regeneration both areas, with a focus on the Titanic quarter in Belfast and the mining villages in Nord –Pas –de Calais.  French students will visit Belfast in September 2009 and students from Aquinas will travel to Lille in March 2010. More details will follow.

The Registration Pack and Timetable for Transfer is now available. Click on the icon below  or use the siidebar navigation to access the documents individually or as a compressed pack.

Recently as part of our World Book Day celebrations, 5 budding writers from Year 8 took part in an E-book project with 4 other schools throughout Northern Ireland. The book was written over 5 days with each Year 8 team contributing a chapter per day of 300 words and then e-mailing it on to the next school.

 Click on the image below to read our E-Book. We hope you enjoy reading it, as much as we enjoyed writing it.

The annual Aquinas Spring Music Concert was a tremendous success. Click on the image below to view some pictures from the event.

Pi Day 2009 was a great success.  Not only was it a bundle of mathematical fun, but it also contributed £183.43 to Trócaire. Click on the image below to find out more.

Having fallen at the semi-final stage last year the Year 10 footballers went one better yesterday by reaching the Final of the BT Ennis Cup. Click on the image below to find out more.

The Aquinas Bar Mock Trial team set off to London, Friday 27 March to take part in the much coveted UK Final of the prestigious competition, in the impressive surroundings of The Old Bailey. Click on the image below to find out about their success.

The talented artists from years 8,9,10 took part in the celebration of the Cultural Olympiad, Going for Gold - Art competition. Click on the image below to read about their success.

Throughout the year a group of nineteen year 13 students have been taking part in the Young Enterprise Company programme. To find out about the progress of the award winning company click on the image below.

Read an indepth report on this momentous victory by clicking the team below.

Click on the School crest below to read about the history of Gaelic footbal at Aquinas.

To view some of the great GCSE Home Economic practicals click on the image below.

Aquinas U19s lost out in the final of the U19A plate final to 57-50 Colaiste Eanna in Dublin on Thursday.

A-Level Art and Design students have taken part in the West Coast Cooler, Belfast Fashion Week.Click on the image below to find out more and view photographs of the garments.

Aquinas U19 Basketball Team scored a huge slam dunk with printing company Graham & Heslip who have provided the team with track suits.

The Ravenhill Road school travel to Limerick this weekend for the U19 ‘A’ All-Ireland play-offs and face teams from Killarney, Galway & Sligo.

The team have had a lot of success over the last few years playing at the highest level of basketball in Ireland and are hoping to reach the semi finals scheduled for the end of March.

Diarmuid McGarry, Managing Director ….We are delighted to support a local school, recognising the effort of Mr McAufield in coaching the team. To have our logo on the track suits gives us great exposure wherever they travel and we wish the team the best of luck in the up-coming tournament.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE JUNIOR BOYS TEAM

The Team placed 2nd in their section and will be running at the Ulster Cross Country Championships on Wednesday 25th February at Mallusk

Michael Robinson 2nd
Donal McKeever 11th
Owen Lavery 14th
Ryan Murray 38th
Nathan Kelly 100th

Congratulations to Katie McGrath Year 14 who came 4th in the Senior race. Katie has also gained a place in the Ulster finals at Mallusk.

Click the image below to view pictures from the day.

Aquinas beat a well – drilled Lumen Christi team 2-12 to 1-8 in the semi-final of the Bro Nolan cup on Wednesday 4th February under lights in Cookstown. 

Click the image below to find out more

On Tuesday 16th December our new Bishop, Dr Noel Treanor, paid a pastoral visit to Aquinas, one of the four Diocesan Colleges in the Diocese of Down and Connor.

Click on the image above to view pictures and find out more.

As part of the Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration activities within Aquinas a special assembly was held. The pupils gave an excellent presentation including the reading of a poem found in a Jewish hiding place during the Holocaust.

I believe in the sun,

Even when its not shining,

I believe in love,

Even when I cannot feel it,

I believe in God,

Even when God’s silent

To find out more from the assembly click here

To find out more about Holocaust Memorial Day click here

Click on the link below to access the 2008 AGM report.

 filesize: 136kb .pdf

If you require a hard copy of the report you can request one by emailing the school here.

• Monday 26th January is a Staff Day and so pupils will not attend.  
• Half-term will be from Thursday 12th February until Monday 16th February, inclusive so school will close on Wednesday 11th February at the usual time of 3-40 pm.  
• We will reopen on Tuesday 17th February for all students.
• The school term will finish for Junior School pupils on Friday 3rd April at 3-40pm. 
• The following week there will be three days of revision classes (Monday 6th, Tuesday 7th and Wednesday 8th April) for all Year 11, 12, 13 and 14 pupils.  These will be full school days for those students and all are expected to attend. 
• Classes will resume for all year groups on Monday 20th April at the normal time.

Finally I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that the school’s Annual General Report will be posted on our web site from Monday 26th January.  It will also be available in hard copy from the General Office from that date.

All students have been provided with a hard copy of this information. To download in this format click the link here.

Peter Norris in Year 12 has just returned from a trip to London where he participated in the world renowned Ruta Quetzal competition. Peter was one of only 30 students of Spanish selected from throughout the United Kingdom to represent Aquinas. Click on the image below to find out more.

At Christmas we try to help those in our local community.To catch a glimpse at just one of the initiatives within the school click the image below:

Throughout the term a group of nineteen year 13 students have been taking part in the Young Enterprise Company programme. This is a competition which entails pupils setting up their own company and raising finance for it. 

Click the image below to learn more about this successful venture:

The preparations for Christmas continued in style at Aquinas with a fabulous Christmas Carol Service. To view pictures from the night click on the image below:

On Tuesday 9th December Aquinas Science department hosted Year 7 pupils from three of our local primary schools, Holy Rosary, St. Bernard’s and St. Michael’s.  Ninety pupils spent the day in the science labs investigating the science of colour.  Under the expert tuition of Ms. Byrne, Mr. Feron and Dr. Magill , the budding scientists were educated and enthused during 3 workshop sessions encompassing the disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics.

Click the image below to learn more and view photographs from the day:

Year 8 and 9, and year 13 took to the stage Friday, 12 December for the school’s annual Shakespeare Festival, opened by Mrs Press, in the assembly hall. The adjudicator for the day was our very own Ms Sheila Mc Connellogue, with Professor Mark Thorton-Burnett from Queen’s University lending  his assistance. Their comments to the audience at various intervals throughout the day left no doubt over the value of performing Shakespearean scenes for contemporary schools.