Banbridge Academy

Banbridge Academy is a co-educational, non-denominational grammar school on the Lurgan Road in Banbridge, taking children from eleven to eighteen. It is a large school, approved for 1,320 pupils, with 192 places in Year 8 and eight form classes in every year group. The school describes itself as a controlled school "open to those of all faiths and none". Entry is at Year 8 through the SEAG assessment.

It was founded in 1786 by James Withers, and its own history page points out something a parent might not expect of a school of that age: it taught boys and girls together from the beginning, which the school calls "somewhat surprisingly for the period". It has moved several times around the town, and since 1950 has been at Edenderry House, a Georgian house whose façade and interiors are listed. A redevelopment started in 1989 and was not finished until 2012, so the old house now sits inside a glass atrium with two sports halls and tennis courts around it.

The school publishes its day in more detail than most. It starts at nine with form assembly, runs on nine periods, and ends at twenty past three. A bell rings a few minutes before periods one, four and seven. Lunch is split, juniors from twenty-five to one, seniors from ten past. There is a Late Room, and a late book to sign if you arrive after nine but before quarter past, which tells you something about how the place is run. The four houses are Crozier, Dunbar, McWilliam and Waddell, and every Year 8 form class has a Year 14 prefect attached to it. It suits a child who does well with clear structure.