Academic Excellence

academic

St Vincent’s Castleknock College students have a high success rate in gaining access to third level education. The college is currently ranked in the top ten schools feeding to high point courses (over 400 points) in Irish universities. The college constantly achieves a high rate of students progressing to third level, most recently reporting 100% in 2021. (Irish Independent).

The college does not take its status as one of Ireland’s leading secondary schools for granted and constantly looks to benchmark itself against the best, both in Ireland and further afield. As part of this commitment the college is an affiliated member of the International Boys’ School Coalition, a network of over 300 leading schools around the world. It recently engaged the services of a top researcher in the field to spend three days in the college observing the students and teachers. Here is a section from his report:

“Castleknock College is a very effective school for boys. The members of staff work hard to use strategies and teaching approaches which are responsive to the ways that most boys learn. The administration works hard to balance the national educational requirements with the learning needs of the boys.”

The college is also visited regularly by officials from the Department of Education Inspectorate; here are two extracts from their reports:

“There is a consistent emphasis on high attainment and students generally have good attitudes to, and take pride in, the school and their work.”

“The quality of the relationship between students and teachers is very good. Teachers strive to be supportive and meet students needs. This is evident in lessons, where teachers consistently relate to students in a personalised way, addressing students by name, encouraging discussion and valuing the contributions of individual students.”