Mr Harpur the school principal was recently invited by Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair to a reception in 10 Downing Street. The event was intended to honour Head Teachers from across the United Kingdom for their contribution to improving educational standards.

Mr Harpur said that this was a great honour for the whole community in Ballycastle High School and that he found it, 'a thoroughly enjoyable and very interesting occasion.' In chatting to the Prime Minister he had found Mr Blair to be 'extremely pleasant and very much in touch with current educational issues.'

Mrs McNay and Mrs Topping spent a week in Strasbourg where they held discussions with our partner schools from Seville, Frankfurt and Strasbourg. A visit to Seville is being arranged and pupils selected for the trip will meet students from our partner schools.

Mr Craig and his Learning for Life class spent a few days in Dublin working with the Chanel College on a Civic Link Project.

A group of students from the Governor’s Institute Vermont USA spent a day in school meeting a group of our sixth form pupils.

There are rumours of another sixth form visit to the South of France.

The sixth form Achievers International group has formed a business link with a school in Saxony and Mr Craig spent a few days in Potsdam working on the project

Sixth formers from Ballycastle High School and St Patrick’s College Maghera are taking part in a pilot programme designed to combat racism in the North West of England in co-operation with two sixth form colleges from Lancashire.

The production of ‘Grandma and Mr Lucas’ was an enormous success with three highly enthusiastic sell out audiences. Our production differed from recent trends in other schools because it was an exclusively school production with scenery, lighting, music, the set and even the writing of the show being done by pupils and staff with no involvement from outside professionals.

Head Girl to speak at student leaders’ conference in Palestine

Head Girl, Libby Thompson, has been to visit Palestine with the United States Institute of Peace.

She has been working with the Palestinian Centre for Applied Research in Education at a two day conference to encourage conflict resolution. The conference was attended by twenty university students representing student councils in the West Bank.

Libby gave presentation explaining the techniques used by the Spirit of Enniskillen organisation and the aim is that the Palestinians will explore collaborative projects with Israeli universities.