School History
Model schools were set up to encourage teachers to develop their skills in bringing good quality education to children. This is still relevant today as the Belfast Model School for Girls has grown to become a leader in secondary education in Northern Ireland. Though, it has not always been smooth running getting to this point.
Boys and girls were always separated in Model Schools, taught in separate classes but on the same site and this remained when the first school burned down in 1922 and a new one was built on the Cliftonville Road. The Education Act of 1947, separated the boys and girls schools entirely and the Girls’ Model was built on its present site in Dunkeld Gardens.
In September 1954 our school opened. Since then the school community has seen off the worst of the Troubles and only minor setbacks such as a fire in the Kerr Building in 1984, have served as a temporary check on the steady progress the Girls’ Model has made to become the innovative and progressive school it is today.
Currently we hold the Schools’ Curriculum Award, Educational Technology Award and Investors in People Award. We are also participants in the Microsoft IT Academy Programme.
2006 has been a landmark year for the school. We became an ICT Specialist School, one of only 12 Specialist Schools in Northern Ireland, and entered in to a pilot to become a Full Service Extended School, one of only two in Northern Ireland.
It doesn’t end there. Close to the end of 2006 the plans for our new school were unveiled, signaling a new era for the Girls’ Model and all the achievements of the past and present will be awarded with state-of-the-art facilities which will lead the school to future successes in education and community involvement.
