Limavady Grammar School

Limavady Grammar is a co-educational grammar school on the Ballyquin Road in Limavady, taking children from eleven to eighteen. The school puts about a thousand staff and pupils through the doors each day. It traces its origins to a foundation in the late nineteenth century and has been on the present site since 1957. Entry is at Year 8 through the SEAG assessment.

The four houses are named after the mountains around the Roe Valley: Benbradagh, Benevenagh, Loughermore and Mullaghmore. A child is put into one in Year 8 and keeps it to Year 14. Each house splits into senior, intermediate, junior and minor sections, with girls' and boys' divisions in each, and elects captains not only for sport and athletics but for science and the arts as well, which tells you the house competition is not just a games thing.

The day runs on nine periods of thirty-five minutes, from registration at five to nine through to half past three, with the building open from eight in the morning. The canteen opens at quarter past eight so a child can have breakfast before registration. A particularly useful page on the school's website is the one for new families, because it is written by current pupils rather than by the school. It explains the colour-coded slip system in the homework diary, pink for an absence, yellow from the office, green if you feel sick, and that lunch is paid for by putting your finger on a scanner. It also answers the question about what happens if none of your friends are coming, which the pupil answering it had clearly been asked before.