Principals Welcome

At St John’s the values of Catholic education are evident in all areas of school life.

Our primary intention is to ensure we have happy, content children who love coming to school each morning.

We strive to ensure that every child in our school receives the best possible standard of education

and that every child fulfills their potential.

We encourage all children to work to the very best of their ability.

We believe that our children learn best when they are in a happy and caring environment,

where they feel valued.  Creating this type of environment is our number one priority in St.

John’s. 

Each and every child in St. John’s is special. Each child has their own special personality and

talents. We try to give our pupils  a wide variety of learning experiences, which will help shape

the personalities and future development of the pupils of St. John’s.

We have built up an unrivalled outdoor play environment, designed to stimulate our pupils' love for imaginative play

and to encourage a healthy, active lifestyle.

Children are encouraged to be active during playtime and co-operation between children of all

ages is prevalent during every break and lunch time session. 

We have built up a large stock of playground equipment. 

Resources include;

• An Adventure Trim Trail
• High level climbing frames with associated challenging play apparatus
• Imaginative play huts
• Mobile trikes, scooters and bikes
• Vegetable growing beds
• Mini-beast garden
• Active digger pit
• State of the art 3G artificial grass pitch
• 4 hard surface football pitches
• Grass football pitch
• Large indoor sports hall
• Extensive front and rear playgrounds
• Large well stocked PE resource store.

 We  place a major emphasis on the integration and use of Information and Communications

Technology  (ICT) throughout the curriculum. We are continually updating our ICT Resources to

ensure we keep abreast of the latest available technology. We are proud of the ICT resources

available to our pupils. We have a dedicated ICT suite with 30 PC's, the latest Clevertouch Interactive Whiteboards in every classroom, the latest Apple Notebooks and over 80 iPads.

Our pupils participate in many exciting ICT initiatives each year, consistently achieving over and above the required primary school expectations.

We were delighted to be announced as the Capita Northern Ireland I.C.T. Excellence Winners in 2022.

We are also very proud of our strong and very successful sporting traditions at St John’s. All of

our pupils are encouraged to be active and participate in many different sports.

We also have a strong tradition of Performing Arts. Children perform whole school musicals in CRAIC theatre

to packed audiences. In all of our productions we take pride in ensuring that every pupil from

Primary 1 to Primary 7 plays a key and important role.

Our greatest asset is our committed and dedicated staff.  By definition a teacher is a person

who imparts skills and knowledge, inspires and moulds young minds.  Every adult at St. John’s

carries out these tasks.  Every adult at St. John’s is a teacher. Responsibilities are shared and

every individual is valued.  Everyone plays a key role in ensuring our children receive the best

possible education and experience we can deliver.  We pride ourselves on the fact that we

work as a team, sharing responsibilities and all aware of the importance of our individual roles

in supporting and caring for the individual needs of the children in our care.

As adults at St John’s we set high expectations .  Our pupils also set themselves high expectations.

Our motto in school is, “I will always try my best”. We can ask no more of any child.  We try

and emphasise this expectation at every possible opportunity and hope you as parents will

support us in this endeavour.

This website has been designed to give you a brief synopsis of what life is like for the children

in St. John’s Primary School. I hope that it proves to be a useful source of information.

However the only true way of seeing any school is to come along for a personal visit to

witness the unique atmosphere and see the working ethos.

if you would like to arrange a visit please do not hesitate to contact me at school.

Many thanks,

Philip O’Neill

Principal