Lumen Christi College is a

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

Catholic

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

in Bishop Street, Derry,

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. The school was founded in September 1997 and is located at the site of the old St Columb's College. The school is made up of just over 840 students and 50 teachers.

Academics

The college offers the full Northern Ireland Curriculum at Key Stages 3 and 4. At Key Stage 4 all students usually take a minimum of nine GCSEs while, at Sixth Form, all students take at least three A-Levels. The college is a member of the Foyle Learning Community which links twelve post-primary providers in the area allowing access for post-16 students to a range of subjects in addition to those taught on site. In the 2017 Sunday Times Parent Power survey of UK schools, the college was ranked first in Northern Ireland and 22nd in the UK. 81.6% of its students who sat the A-level exams in 2017/18 were awarded three A*-C grades. In 2016/17, 96% of its entrants achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, including the core subjects English and Maths. In 2017/18, 100% of its entrants achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C and the college was ranked joint first in the 2019 Belfast Telegraph league table.

Notable alumni

* Seán Doherty (born 1987) - composer and musicologist

Controversy

In April 2008, both Dr Séamus Hegarty ( Roman Catholic Bishop of Derry and a senior trustee of the college) and

Caitríona Ruane Caitríona Ruane (born 1962) is a Sinn Féin politician who served as the Principal Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly from 2016 to 2017, and was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for South Down from 2003 to 2017. I ...

, the Minister for Education, along with the

Irish National Teachers' Organisation The Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) ( ga, Cumann Múinteoirí Éireann), founded in 1868, is the oldest and largest teachers' trade union in Ireland. It represents teachers at primary level in the Republic of Ireland, and at prima ...

(I.N.T.O.)

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

, criticised the

Board of Governors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organi ...

of Lumen Christi College for announcing their intention to continue academic selection after the abolition of the 11-plus examination. The school's then-principal, Patrick O'Doherty, responded that the school intended to go ahead with its testing plans, and that the education minister had no legal authority to stop them. Regarding accusations in 2012 of Sinn Féin infiltrating Catholic schools, by placing Sinn Féin activists as school governors, Alliance Party MLA Trevor Lunn said, "In the context of Lumen Christi as a highly successful grammar school which has taken a public stance on the question of academic selection, in defiance of the minister's instruction and indeed the view of the Catholic Church, it is hard to see these appointments as anything other than a means of infiltration of the school's board of governors, with the aim of influencing the stance taken by the present board."

References

{{authority control Grammar schools in Derry (city) Catholic secondary schools in Northern Ireland Educational institutions established in 1997 1997 establishments in Northern Ireland