Ballyclare
High School is celebrating its centenary in the school year 2003/2004.
The school had its origins in what historians sometimes call the “long
nineteenth century”. It started with the 1798 Rebellion and
ended with the eventual partition of Ireland. The school started
in the 1890s as a private fee-paying establishment in Doagh, a
town a couple of miles from Ballyclare in County Antrim.
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In
1902 the school was taken over by a Miss Catherine Aiken
and in 1904 she moved the school to Ballyclare.The population
of Ballyclare a century ago was around three thousand,
but it was on the increase. Due to the growth in numbers
attending the school, there was a pressing need to move
to a larger building. New premises were eventually built
on the present site on the Rashee Road and this became
the school’s home in 1930. The Headmaster was by
then an Englishman, Arthur Fowweather who when appointed
in 1923 was believed to be the youngest Headmaster in the
British Isles. The school’s name was changed and
the current name of Ballyclare High School was adopted
officially in 1934.
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The
school also adopted a crest designed by one of its pupils and a
school song that was called “Play the Game”! Due to
a lack of space, during Mr Fowweather’s tenure the dominant
sport in the school was hockey and the school enjoyed significant
success in winning a number of competitions, for example the Ulster
Schools’ Hockey Cup in 1935.
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By
the mid-1930s the school had nearly one hundred and fifty pupils
on its roll and it had out-grown its building once again. Costing
the princely sum of £8,000, a new extension was opened
in October 1938 by the Duchess of Abercorn. When the school’s
third Headmaster Mr. Russell was appointed in 1939 a priority
of his was to establish rugby in the school, which he did in
the early 1940s. After the Second World War ended in 1945 the
United Kingdom was undergoing profound change. For example
in 1948 the new National Health Service was established that
promised free healthcare regardless of the individual’s
financial circumstances. |
Education
was changing too. The 1947 Education Act fuelled a huge rise in
the number of pupils attending grammar school. Pupils gained admission
after passing a selection test when they were eleven years of age.
This had
huge consequences for Ballyclare High School and sent the school’s
enrolment on an upward spiral that by October 1948 brought
the school population to four hundred and one.
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massive growth in numbers of course brought problems with accommodation
and so the school had to make do with prefabricated huts and
mobile classrooms well into the 1980s. Towards the end of Mr.
Russell’s tenure in 1966, the school buildings were revised
with another expansion that encompassed a new Gymnasium, and
a plethora of new rooms for Geography, Chemistry, Biology and
Physics. Much to the relief of those responsible for Physical
Education, new changing rooms were also included. |
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Expansion
in enrolment paralleled huge changes in the opportunities available
to pupils at the school. For example from the mid-century onwards,
the school developed its own debating society, orchestra, choirs,
and a much broader range of clubs and societies. Success continued
in local and national examinations and the school started to send
a much higher proportion of its pupils into higher, usually, university
education. The 1970s brought victory in the Ulster Schools’ Cup
in 1973 and the birth of the new school light opera which has become
a regular fixture in the school calendar ever since.
Mr Williams had taken over from Mr. Russell as Headmaster in 1966 and after
his tragic death from a heart attack Mr. Millar became the new Headmaster in
1971.
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Following
Mr. Millar’s retirement in 1990, Mr. Robert Fitzpatrick,
a former Vice-Principal of the school, assumed the Headship
and he was succeeded by the current Headmaster, Mr. Knox
in 2000.
The
three Principals of the school are seen together at
the Centenary Concert at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast.
Each can take considerable pleasure in helping to make
the school what it has become today.
No
school stands still and Ballyclare High has changed
enormously in the last three decades. The school, which
benefited greatly from a £4 million extension
that was officially opened in 1987, is now one of the
largest grammar schools in County Antrim with over
twelve hundred pupils and nearly ninety teaching staff.
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It has become
a leader in the use of Information Technology to enhance the learning
experience of its pupils and has won a multitude of national and
international awards. For example, in 2000 the school was named
an “Enterprising School” by the Ulster Bank, and in
2002 it won, for the second time, a prestigious International School
Award, in addition to being awarded the Gold Award at the Institute
of IT Training Awards in London.
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Unveiling the new school flag in 2001
Mr. Knox with the then Head Boy Peter Anderson
and Head Girl Michaela Totten |
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