Mount Lourdes Grammar School

Mount Lourdes is a Catholic grammar school for girls in Enniskillen, on a hillside between the town centre and the River Erne, with an approved enrolment of 760 and 96 places in Year 8. Entry is at Year 8 through the SEAG assessment.

It was founded in 1909 by the Sisters of Mercy, and the school is clear about why, in a way that still reads well. The founders, it says, were responding to the need for an education that would qualify the girls of Fermanagh for the full range of employment then open to them. It took boarders from 1917 until 1978, and a purpose-built boarding house went up in 1931, so most of the hillside is now covered by buildings added over a century for boarders and then for specialist subjects.

There is no house system here. Sport and competition run on form classes instead, with inter-form tournaments in Years 8 to 10 and a fun day up to Year 11, and the form teacher is the spine of the place, taking Years 8 to 10 for two learning for life and work classes a week on top of registration. The student council is elected every two years, two girls from each year group, and chaired by the principal. Its wins are concrete rather than decorative: it redesigned the school PE kit outright, changed the canteen menu and got new seating and mental health benches put in. The day runs from just after nine to twenty-five past three, with lunch split so the junior years eat before the seniors.