Sullivan Upper School

Sullivan Upper School is a co-educational, inter-denominational voluntary grammar school on the Belfast Road in Holywood, with around 1,100 pupils and 150 places in Year 8. It was founded in 1877 out of the estate of Robert Sullivan, who had set up a lower school in the town in 1862, and it has been in its present grounds on the edge of Holywood since 1939. The motto is in Irish, lamh foisdineach an uachtar, which the school translates as the gentle hand foremost. Entry is at Year 8 through the SEAG assessment.

The day has an unique rhythm. There are ten periods, alternating between thirty and thirty-five minutes, from registration at ten to nine through to the last bell at half past three. Lunch is split across two of those periods: Years 11 to 14 eat first and Years 8 to 10 second, which means a Year 8 goes from five past twelve to a quarter past one before eating. Everyone eats in the dining hall, which is called the Silver Robin and runs over two floors with hot food downstairs and packed lunches upstairs. Payment is by fingerprint rather than a card.

The four houses are named after key school people: Grant and Speers were former headmasters, McAlester was the first chairman of the governors, and Praeger commemorates a brother and sister who were pupils here and went on to become a naturalist and a sculptor. Girls and boys are put into a house on arrival, and family connections are honoured where possible. Year 8 starts with an optional activity day at Palace Barracks up the road in late August, then an induction morning in the school hall, and each of the five Year 8 classes keeps the same form teacher through to Year 10.