Four-year-old school to shut down

By Maggie Taggart
BBC NI education correspondent

The school is to close in September next year

An integrated secondary school in Armagh is to close after only four years of operation.

It is understood Armagh College is the first integrated school in Northern Ireland to fail after having been granted government funding.

The integrated movement blamed a series of setbacks, including a fall in pupil numbers for the decision to close.

It is hoped that pupils will be able to transfer to an integrated school in Dungannon, County Tyrone.

Pat Carville, Chairperson of the Board of Governors, said the decision to close "has been an incredibly difficult one to make".

"Despite exploring a range of other options the governors felt that the fall in pupil intake, combined with current developments in education policy meant that it would be unlikely that the college could achieve long term viability," she said.

The decision to initiate the closure of Armagh has been a hard one for governors to make Michael Wardlow,NICIE

The school is funded by the Government, and this is the first integrated school to close after having cleared that hurdle.

However, it is known that a recent inspectors' report criticised "a lack of stability and continuity of leadership" after the school had five different principals in four years.

It also criticised deficiencies in the teaching of some subjects, although there was said to be "outstanding work" in some lessons.

Since the report, numbers have fallen to 136, and the integrated movement said the school was unlikely to be viable in the long term.

So far the Department of Education has not been formally asked to approve the closure, which is to take place in September next year.

Michael Wardlow of the Northern Ireland Council on Integrated Education said parents in Armagh city had made a "huge commitment" to integrated education.

"The decision to initiate the closure of Armagh has been a hard one for governors to make, especially those who themselves have children attending the school or who had hoped to enrol their children," he said.