Foyle College

History

Foyle College and Londonderry High School have been providing education for young people in the Derry area and further afield for more than 390 years. In October 2007, the school celebrated its 390th anniversary with a plaque commemorating headmasters of the school since 1617.

Foyle College

Foyle College traces its origins to 1617 and the establishment of the Free Grammar School at Society Street within the city walls of Derry by Mathias Springham of the Merchant Taylors' Company of London. The original building had the following Latin inscription over the main doorway: 'Mathias Springham, A.R. ad honorem dei et bonarum, literarum propogationem, hanc scholam fundavit anno salutis, M.D.C.XVII'. The Free School was built to "the honour of God and the spreading of good literature".

The school received no endowment from that company or from The Honourable The Irish Society (the body charged with the plantation of the County of Londonderry in the 17th century). There followed an ongoing dispute between the Irish Society and the Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry as to who had the authority to appoint the headmaster. The former because one of its representatives had founded the school and the latter because it held the school to be one of the diocesan grammar schools provided for by statute. This was only resolved in the early 19th century by Act of Parliament.

The old school within the city walls eventually outlived its usefulness, and in 1814 came the move to the newly erected and well-proportioned Georgian building set on a height above the Strand outside the city walls, designed by the architect, John Bowden (who had also designed the Courthouse in Derry, St George's Church, High Street, Belfast, and St Stephen's Church ['the Pepper Canister Church'] on Mount Street on Dublin's Southside). The school took the name 'Foyle College' in 1814. The story goes that one of the boarders, George Fletcher Moore, proposed to the other pupils "to christen the new school, Foyle College" which was seconded and carried with repeated "acclamations".

For 30 years, from 1868, Foyle College had to compete with a vigorous rival in the Londonderry Academical Institution. This school, established by a body of influential local merchants, moved in 1871 from East Wall to a new site in Academy Road. The Honourable The Irish Society, which contributed to the funds of both schools, proposed a scheme of amalgamation, and negotiations finally resulted in the passing of the Foyle College Act in 1896, the united school retaining the name and with it claiming the traditions of the older school.

Foyle then had the use of the buildings at Lawrence Hill and Academy Road. Following the Second World War, and as a consequence of the many changes brought about by the 1947 Education Act, the governors acquired a site at Springtown on Northland Road, overlooking the school playing‑fields, to build a new school. This was opened on 2 May 1968 by H.R.H. The Duke of Kent.

Londonderry High School

Like Foyle College, Londonderry High School owed its existence to the merging of two independent institutions. The first of these, the Ladies' Collegiate School, was set up in 1877 by the Misses McKillip - pioneers in the movement for higher education for women in Ireland. Their vision and drive resulted in the starting of a school at 11 Queen Street. Two further moves saw the renamed Victoria High School located in Crawford Square, where boarding and day pupils were accommodated. The nearby Northlands School of Housewifery (1908) was associated with Victoria High School.

At the top of Lawrence Hill, Miss J. Kerr had opened St. Lurach's College circa 1900 - this school also took boarders. Strand House School (1860) closed during the First World War and the girls mostly went to Victoria or St. Lurach's. In 1922 Victoria High School and St. Lurach's amalgamated to form Londonderry High School. By 1928 Duncreggan, formerly the home of the late William Tillie, H.M.L., had been purchased and the boarders were transferred there from St. Lurach's. In the immediate post-war period there was an ever-growing need for increased educational facilities. The high point of an ambitious and forward-looking programme was undoubtedly the opening of the new £150,000 building extensions between Duncreggan House and Dunseverick.

The new buildings were opened by Her Grace The Duchess of Abercorn in May 1962, and on the same day the then Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Education announced that a new block would be erected to house the Preparatory Department, and this followed in 1964. In 1974 the girls joined the boys of Foyle College Preparatory Department which moved into these premises in 1974, and so anticipated the later amalgamation under the Foyle and Londonderry College Act of 1976, resulting in the first co-educational grammar school in Derry. The Preparatory Department closed in 2003.

Present

Foyle College is a split-site school. The two campuses are at Springtown, Northland Road (which houses the junior school (ages 11–14), and Duncreggan (housing the senior school (ages 14–18)). As a grammar school it admits pupils based on academic selection. The school joined the Association for Quality Education (AQE) which requires prospective pupils to take the AQE Common Entrance exam in order to be admitted to the college from 2010. In 2010 the results of pupils who sat the AQE entrance exam were published. Of successful applicants to Foyle College, only 11 out of the 126 who were admitted into Year 8 achieved the top grade Q1, but 40 pupils who received the lowest grade Q4 were admitted.

In 2011, a re-brand of the school was carried out by the schools governors to reputedly reflect popular usage in the city of Derry, where the school is almost universally known as Foyle College. However, although the school's name and crest was re-branded, the college's legal name will continue to be Foyle and Londonderry College.

Deep-seated objections with regard to the school's name change have been made to the local press by members of the Londonderry High School Old Girls Association. They claim the change of the college's name amounts to a jettisoning of the link from the former all-girls school, Londonderry High School, and that the name change has been taken by the governors without any real consultation with them.

All the core subjects, as well as a number of options, are offered up until the end of Key Stage 3 at the Springtown campus. Pupils then transfer to Duncreggan and sit GCSEs. With suitable grades, pupils have the option to study AS and A2 levels in the Sixth Form.

The school is officially non-denominational. The school is preparing to leave its current locations at Northland Road and Duncreggan Road to move to a purpose built school in the Waterside suburb of Derry in the near future.

Houses

Pupils are assigned to one of four houses in the first year. Houses are primarily for Sports Day and inter-house sports tournaments. The school tie has stripes which indicate which house a pupil belongs to. The houses are as follows:

Pupils who only have white stripes in their ties have received colours awards from the school for participation in extracurricular activities such as rugby, hockey, music etc. The sports and music ties have symbols relevant to the activity for which the colours tie has been awarded, e.g. music is represented by stylised treble clefs.

Buildings and amenities

In the Senior School there are six science laboratories plus two computer suites, a technology suite, art and design suite, music suite, home economics room, business studies suite including computer room, study hall, library, Upper Sixth social centre, Lower Sixth social centre, sports hall and twenty-two general classrooms. Drama and musical performances take place in the assembly hall.

In the Junior School, there is a library, two information technology suites, a technology suite, three science laboratories, home economics, art and music rooms. There are fourteen general classrooms, a fully equipped gymnasium and assembly hall.

Serving the thirty acres of school grounds are two pavilions at Springtown where there are rugby union pitches, cricket pitches, tennis courts and an all‑weather hockey and athletics ground. The senior school has a hockey pitch and tennis courts.

Sport

The most popular sports in the school include rugby union (which has seen 3 tours to Australia and the South Pacific) and hockey (which toured to Barcelona in 2006). The rugby team (as Foyle College) has twice won the Ulster Schools Cup; in 1915 beating The Royal School, Armagh, and in 1900 beating Methodist College, Belfast. It has been a runner up on three occasions. Foyle and Londonderry College's most recent rugby silverware was won in the 2007/08 season; FALC defeated Cambridge House at Ravenhill to win the Ulster Schools Bowl to win this competition for the 2nd time in 3 years after beating Limavady Grammar in the 2005/06 season again at Ravenhill. In hockey, the school has won the Ulster Cup twice, most recently in 2009 after beating Ballymena Academy 1-0, and reached the final on two other occasions. They won the Plate in 2006, and again in 2007.

Cricket is the main summer sport. In 2003 FALC won the Ulster Bank Schools' Cup defeating local rivals Strabane Grammar by two wickets. The Headmaster has popularised the sport of fencing within the school, producing UK and Irish champions.

Football is another sport that has been recently made available for pupils in Foyle, with three teams competing in the annual Northern Ireland School's Cup competition, at U14, U16 and U18 level.

Music

The choir compete at the annual Sainbury's School Choir of the Year. The musicals are every two years with the break years being filled with non-musicals such as A Midsummer Night's Dream and others. Past musicals have included Annie, Oliver, The Mikado, Bugsy Malone, Me and My Girl, Calamity Jane and most recently We Will Rock You.

Notable pupils