Strabane Academy

Strabane Academy is a co-educational controlled grammar school on the Derry Road in Strabane, with around 650 pupils and 110 places in Year 8. It was formed in 2011 when Strabane Grammar School and Strabane High School came together, on the old High School site. It is partially selective: half the Year 8 places, fifty-five of them, are decided on the SEAG assessment and the rest on non-academic grounds, which is why the school calls itself an all-ability school rather than a grammar in the usual sense.

The four houses are named after people with a Strabane connection. Alexander is Cecil Frances Alexander, who wrote All Things Bright and Beautiful and was born in Milltown House, the building that later became the main block of Strabane Grammar. Maunder is Annie Maunder, an astronomer born in the town in 1868 who has a crater on the Moon named after her. Wilson is Woodrow Wilson, whose grandparents came from Tyrone. Abercorn is the late Duchess of Abercorn, who founded the Pushkin Prizes. House points run live on the school's home page.

The day runs from five to nine to half past three, nine periods of thirty-five minutes, with a single forty-five minute lunch for everyone. Monday is different. A Period 0 for personal and social education sits at the front of the day and shifts everything after it, so Monday's first four lessons are half an hour rather than thirty-five minutes. Year 8 transition starts the summer before, with an evening for parents and children in June and a morning of activities. The Year 8s come in on their own day in August, and for the first week each of them has a sixth form mentor.