Rathmore Grammar School

Rathmore is a Catholic co-educational voluntary grammar school in Finaghy, on the southern side of Belfast, roughly halfway between the city centre and Lisburn. It takes around 1,260 day pupils, and each year group of about 180 is split into tutor groups of twenty or so. It was founded by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, whose motto it shares: Ut Vitam Habeant, that they may have life. Entry is at Year 8 through the SEAG assessment.

The oldest building on the site sits in the middle of the newest one, on purpose. Rathmore House was built in 1874 as a family home for a Belfast businessman, later became a convent for the order, and when the present school was completed for September 2005 the new building was designed to wrap around it rather than replace it. The school is explicit about why, saying it wanted to take up new ways of teaching while holding on to its traditions. The convent now houses religious education, history and politics, and the school chapel, and the virtual tour on the school's website is split in two, one for the convent and one for the main school.

There are no houses. The day is built around the tutor instead: tutors meet their group at the start of four mornings a week, with a whole-school assembly on the fifth, and the tutor knows each of their twenty pupils properly rather than in passing. Teaching is mixed ability in every subject but maths, which is set from Key Stage 4 so that a faster group can take GCSE maths a year early and further maths the year after. Everyone takes two modern languages from Year 8.