The schools around Limavady get lower GCSE results than 97% of Northern Ireland towns

Northern Ireland chooses at 11. Most grammar schools admit on a transfer test, and their results show it: on average 94% of their pupils get five good GCSEs including English and maths, against 60% at other schools. A grammar school’s pupils also come from well beyond its own town, so grading only the schools inside a boundary would reward a town simply for hosting one.

So Limavady’s grade takes the schools its children can reach: every post-primary school in the town or within 10 km of it, grammar and non-grammar together, each counted by its Year 12 pupils. For Limavady that is the town’s own 3. The result is ranked against Northern Ireland’s towns only, never England’s, because Northern Ireland sets its own exams. Primary schools don’t count: Northern Ireland publishes no primary results.

Limavady has 9 schools inside its settlement boundary, from the Department of Education’s school census. A post-primary school’s letter compares it with its own kind, grammar schools with grammars and the others with non-grammar schools, on 2024/25 GCSEs. Primary schools have no letter: Northern Ireland publishes no primary results. Each school’s page has its pupils, results, religious mix and special needs.

Most of Northern Ireland’s children go to a school mostly of their own community: controlled schools are mostly Protestant, Catholic maintained schools mostly Catholic. Integrated schools set out to teach both together. In Limavady, 2 of 7 mainstream schools are at least 90% Catholic or under 10% Catholic. The census records each pupil’s religion as given by their family; “other” includes no religion.

All 3 of Limavady’s post-primary schools teach to 18. Grammar-school sixth forms are fuller, since nearly all their pupils stay on; at other schools many move to college, training or work at 16. Year 13 against Year 12 is a guide to staying on, not a count of who stayed: they are different year groups, and a figure over 100 means pupils join at 16.

On the special educational needs register: 14% of the pupils at Limavady’s mainstream schools (Northern Ireland: 19%). Most are supported by their school (stages 1 and 2 of the Code of Practice); 244 have a statement, the third stage, which the Education Authority writes after an assessment and which can name a school.

Drumachose PS, Limavady Central PS, Termoncanice PS and 2 more each have a learning support centre, a specialist class inside a mainstream school. Rossmar School is the town’s special school, with 208 pupils.

The bars show each school’s share on the register; the black tick is Northern Ireland’s average for the phase (primary 20%, post-primary 17%).

Starting primary school

Children who are 4 by 1 July start Primary 1 that September. Families apply to the Education Authority in the January before, listing schools in order of preference. A school with more applicants than places admits on its published criteria, often brothers and sisters, the parish or a feeder nursery, and where the family lives. Limavady’s primary schools have 593 places free between them; the tightest is Roe Valley Integrated PS, with 19 of 190.

Moving up at 11

Families apply for a post-primary place in Primary 7, again through the Education Authority. Limavady’s grammar school admits mostly on the transfer test, which children can choose to sit in Primary 7. Places free this year: Limavady Grammar 65. Limavady’s other post-primary schools don’t use the test and admit on their own criteria, such as brothers and sisters and feeder primary schools. Places free: Limavady High School 11 and St Mary's 224.

Education Authority admissions · each school’s criteria are on its own website.