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It is with profound regret and sadness that we announce the passing of our esteemed Headmaster, colleague and friend Mr Tom Skelton. Our thoughts and prayers are now with his family. Mr Skelton was loved by so many in our school community and this will be a challenging time for our staff, pupils and families. Tom Skelton, Headmaster of Dalriada School, died peacefully at Causeway Hospital on 8th February 2024 with his Family at his bedside. Brian Dillon, Chairman of the Board of Governors, commented; “Throughout his 16 years as Head of Dalriada School, Tom Skelton worked closely with Governors, Staff and Parents to provide an excellent education for all pupils. Tom, with his energetic enthusiasm, approachable attitude and sense of humour provided outstanding Leadership creating a great staff team. He adopted a “hands on approach” putting the pupils first and with a love of education continued weekly teaching throughout his Headship. He will be very sadly missed by the Dalriada community and by the many organisations he was involved with outside school.” Dr Ian Walker and Ms Louise Crawford, Deputy Heads of the school commented that “he lived and breathed Dalriada. He had a pride in the school, always putting the staff and pupils at the centre of everything he did. He was head of our school family, and his humour and unwavering encouragement will be dearly missed by all who had the privilege of knowing and working with him.” We pass on our sincere sympathies to his wife Wilma, his sons Thomas and Andrew, daughters Emma and Alice and his sister June. https://robinsonsofculcrum.com/thomas-james-skelton.html

The UK Round One of the 56th International Chemistry Olympiad Competition took place on Thursday 25 January 2024 from 3.30-5.30pm. 38 enthusiastic pupils from year 13 and 14 (an amazing number!) volunteered to take part in this gruelling competition consisting of a two-hour paper containing material well beyond the A-level specification! Coming so close after their examinations, the pupils must be commended for staying after school to compete. A massive well done to all; we will await results from the competition at the end of February. Bronze, Silver and Gold Certificates are awarded, and pupils may be lucky enough to proceed to Round 2 which is an intensive training camp with the end goal being selected to represent the Uk in a team of 4 at the finals to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at the end of July. Many thanks to the Royal Society of Chemistry for organising the competition.

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This year’s ‘A’ level students at Dalriada School have produced an outstanding set of examination results. 87% of the Upper Sixth Form students gained at least 3A* - C grades each. These superb results reflect the work ethic and resilience of this talented group of young people who have had to overcome the impact of Covid-19 on their education. The following thirty-eight students, almost one third of this entire Upper Sixth Form cohort, obtained at least 3A*/A grades each - Katie Archibald, Lara Bagley, Sophie Barron, Sam Beverland, Chloe Bond, Emma Boyle, Niamh Cameron, James Carlin, Eleanor Christie, Emily Cochrane, Victoria Currie, Adam Faulkner, Victoria Finlay, Eva Gaston, Alec Gault, Matthew Hanna, Patrick Harrison, Emily Hunter, Lydia Kempton, Iona Mairs, Lana McArthur, Alex McCaw, Joshua McClean, Aaron Moore, Anna Moore, Nirucha Morelli, Emily Morrow, Megan Murray, Gabriella Nicholl, Ella O’Kane, Noah Patterson, Matthew Quigg, Alexander Reid, Elena Smyth, Skye Strickland, Emma Strong, Ethan Telford and Rebecca Wilson. Six students deserve special mention - Emily Cochrane and Elena Smyth gained an incredible 3 A* grades and one A grade each, and Chloe Bond, Emily Hunter, Gabriella Nicholl and Alexander Reid gained a superb 3A* grades each. There were feelings of delight and excitement last Thursday following the release of the results, with parents and staff sharing in the achievement of the students. Reflecting on the success of the Dalriada students, Headmaster Mr. Tom Skelton stated, “As a school we are absolutely delighted with these outstanding results that are the culmination of two years of hard work in challenging circumstances by our students and teachers with excellent parental support. I attended a CCEA Principals’ Briefing meeting earlier this week where it was stated ‘the expectation was that overall results at GCSE, AS and A Level would be lower than in 2022 in an attempt to see a return to pre-pandemic awarding arrangements.’ The performance of our students this year has actually shown a 6% improvement in the percentage of pupils gaining 3 or more A* to C grades compared to last year’s results. We are all immensely proud of our students who have made a massive contribution to life at Dalriada. We wish all our leavers every success in their future courses.”

There were feelings of excitement and relief at Dalriada last Thursday when this year’s GCSE results were released, with over 98% of all pupils achieving at least 7A* - C grades, one of the best sets of GCSE results in the school’s history. 4 pupils achieved a maximum of 10 A* grades, namely Eden Adair, Lauren Bond, Chloe Boyle, and Lydia Glenny. In addition the following 23 pupils 21% of this Year 12 cohort, gained at least 10A*/A grades, an outstanding achievement, Alex Campbell, Shannon Shiels, Erin Fisher, Muireann Paul, Rebecca Ross, Anna Shiels, Angus Graham, Oliwia Oczeretko, Alex Kincaid, Izzy Pollock-Quinn, Matthew Moore, Tara O’Brien, Lucas Steele, Abigail Archer, Faye Dempsey, Daisy McCook. Zach McIlhagga, Maya Tate, Rebecca Thompson, Matthew Dixon, Ruby Marks, Katie McCandless and Yana Walls. Finally, a further 25 pupils, 41% of the Year 12 cohort gained a fantastic 8 A*/A grades each, Una McAllister, Niamh Brooking, Lena Christie, Mark Kennedy, Rebecca McClean, Ryan Strong, Sam Cochrane, Holly McComb, Laurina Woha, Thomas Condell, Andrew Beggs, Poppy Hunter, Elijah Mullan, Joshua Scott, Alfie Millar, Grace Patterson, Matthew Johnston, Jack McAuley, Leah Barnes, Tom McCotter, Adam O’Neill, Rebecca Gilvary, Hannah Stewart, Rachel Thompson and Kayla Henry The vast majority of these GCSE pupils will now progress to Sixth Form at Dalriada, where they will be joined by a number of pupils from schools in the North Coast area and beyond. Headmaster, Mr Tom Skelton enthused, “We are absolutely delighted with these superb results which reflect the hard work and resilience of our pupils who have had to deal with significant disruption to their education due to the impact of Covid 19. The pupils’ hard work, combined with excellent teaching and positive parental support have all contributed to these record breaking results at GCSE. We are immensely proud of these pupils and look forward to their continued academic success at Dalriada and beyond. We wish the small number of students who are leaving us every success and we are delighted to welcome a number of external students to Dalriada who have also achieved impressive GCSE results. We now have approximately 130 students progressing to Lower Sixth Form at Dalriada studying a broad range of subjects and we look forward to their future success in “A” Level examinations. These GCSE results, coupled with the outstanding A Level results achieved last week strengthens Dalriada’s position as one of the top schools in the Province.

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The Chemistry Department were busy on Monday 5.6.23 and Tuesday 6.6.23 as fifteen year 13 pupils participated in the RSC Schools’ Analyst Competition. This Practical Challenge is aimed at students in their first year of study of the A-level Chemistry course and provides an opportunity for developing team-work and problem-solving skills, in addition to demonstrating chemistry knowledge linking to curricular content. The context of the competition this year was that the students were analytical chemistry employed to investigate some unpleasant goings on at the Grand Baking Competition. The judges at the competition, Peter Rotherham and Margaret Cherry, had whittled the contestants down to the final three: Karen, a classic home baker, Toby, who had impressed with his extravagant and flamboyant bakes and Gordon, a passionate vegan baker. However, the day of the final had been thrown into chaos with sabotage to the bakers’ ingredients and the discovery of a menacing note. In teams of three the pupils had to carry out a range of tests to identify 9 white powders from the pantry, which had been ransacked and labels removed from all the jars of general ingredients. They had to analyse, by titration, dried samples from 3 Victoria Sponge cakes to determine the % bicarbonate of soda - a raising agent commonly used in baking cakes. Finally, they had to use thin-layer chromatography to analyse the ink from the menacing note and compare to three different black markers. The pupils will have to wait until the end of June to discover who the saboteur was: Karen, Toby, Gordon or even one of the two judges Peter or Margaret? The pupils spent 4 hours in the lab instead of out in the sunshine but thoroughly enjoyed the practical work (and the ice-cream provided by Mrs Millar afterwards!). Thanks must go to the Royal Society of Chemistry for organising the competition and providing the resources. #rscsac23, @roysocchem, @doctorgraeme.

Twelve Year 11 pupils took part in the National Scientific Thinking Challenge, organised by Warwick University, at the beginning of May. Dalriada was one of 227 schools from across the UK, Ireland, USA, Australia, Bulgaria and Thailand. These twelve pupils were among 13, 652 students to take part. We were delighted to receive results of the competition at the beginning of June. Bronze 🥉(top 40%), Silver 🥈 (top 25%) and Gold 🥇(top 10%) awards are presented. We had 3 Gold Awards (Simon Anderson, Corwin Dowey and Laura Dysart), 3 Silver Awards (Arden Donnelly, Sophie Shaw and Henry Thompson) and 4 Bronze Awards (Molly Bellingham, Rebekah Gordon, Isla Graham and Annika Thompson) which is amazing. Well done to everyone who took part 👏 Certificates will be presented at the end of term.