St. Clare's Comprehensive School
School Details
Location
About
St. Clare’s Comprehensive is a state‑funded post‑primary school situated on Ross Lane, offering a full range of Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate programmes. The school provides a balanced curriculum that blends academic study with a strong emphasis on personal development, wellbeing and extracurricular engagement. Students benefit from a variety of enrichment activities, including the Mind Matters mental‑health programme, sport teams such as U15 girls’ soccer and athletics, and vocational workshops like the TY Barista Course. Partnerships with further‑education providers, exemplified by regular ATU Sligo presentations, broaden learners’ awareness of post‑school pathways. Recent extensions completed in 2013 and 2018 have expanded the campus, delivering modern classrooms, specialist labs and dedicated spaces for technology‑enhanced learning. The school’s ethos, set out in its mission statement, promotes a caring, disciplined and Christian environment where every pupil can reach their full potential. A robust pastoral framework, student‑voice initiatives and a range of wellbeing services support a holistic approach to education, preparing students for both academic success and active community participation.
History
Comprehensive schools, funded by the State, were the forerunners of today’s community schools. In the late 1960s and early 1970s fifteen such schools were approved; St. Clare’s was the thirteenth, created through the amalgamation of Manorhamilton Vocational School and St. Joseph’s Secondary School. The school opened its doors in September 1972 on its present Ross Lane site, under the patronage of the Bishop of Kilmore and overseen by a local board of management. In 1973 it incorporated staff and students from the Vocational School in Kiltyclogher, raising enrolment to roughly 350 pupils. Today the student body exceeds 500, and the campus has been expanded with two major extensions completed in 2013 and 2018.