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A Chairde,
It gives me immense pleasure to introduce myself as the Principal of St John the Baptist’s College (SJBC). We are now entering our eight year having officially launched as a new co-educational all-ability school on 1st September 2017. I feel incredibly proud and privileged to be leading such a highly talented and dedicated team of staff who are fully committed to ensuring that “every child is valued, nurtured and empowered to excel”.
St John the Baptist’s College was launched initially as a Key Stage 3 model but as a rapidly growing and very successful school, SJBC was re-designated as an 11-16 school in April 2021. This changed status enables our pupils to remain with us through to the end of their GCSE journey and as the school continues to thrive it is our intention to achieve 11-18 status which would see our pupils studying A Levels within the college also.
Our school is located in the heart of the Portadown community but welcomes students from an array of neighbouring towns and villages. We strongly value our close links with a growing partnership of feeder primary schools with whom we liaise very closely to plan for a seamless transition from primary to post-primary as well as sharing expertise, resources between our local schools for the benefit of all.
We also work in close collaboration with our parents, key external agencies, the parish, schools within CALC (including our Shared Education partner schools) as well as with local businesses, ensuring that together we can build a bright future for the young people of this area.
In SJBC, we are committed to ensuring that each child receives a high-quality education and that they are given every opportunity to achieve their full academic potential. Our first set of GCSE results exceeded all expectations and our pupils scored well above national averages across all areas. Moreover, we value each child as an individual with diverse talents and interests, and our unique nurturing and inclusive ethos ensures that all students have the opportunity to develop at their own pace and follow tailor-made pathways.
Our smaller class sizes enable us to offer more individualised support including a focus on stretch and challenge in all subject areas. We promote a growth mind-set and central to our ethos is a sense of “no labels and no limitations”. We pride ourselves on the delivery of quality care and welfare and this is rooted in the close and trusting relationships which we have with our students and their families. We offer our students a rich and varied range of extra-curricular experiences and opportunities which support their physical, emotional, social, and spiritual development.
Over our first five years we have received a raft of prestigious curricular and pastoral awards/accolades which recognise the high-quality teaching and the caring, inclusive ethos which pervades all aspects of life in the college. In addition, we have won 2 ICT Excellence Awards, and we are one of only four schools in the North of Ireland who have been awarded Digital Schoolhouse Status. SJBC was recently appointed as the first Google Reference school in Ireland. As a very environmentally conscious or eco-active school and we have now achieved five green flags and we have won a host of competitions in this area.
We believe that all young people should develop not just within the confines of the classroom but that they should be afforded as many opportunities as possible to develop strong Christian values, resilience, leadership potential and self-belief. Many of these attributes and qualities are nurtured through our extensive enriched provision.
I hope that you enjoy browsing our website which will only provide you with a snapshot of life in SJBC!
Beirigí bua
Mrs N Murray (BA Hons, PGCE, PQH NI, MSC)
Principal
