“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”

– Nelson Mandela

Welcome to Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School. Since it first opened its doors as a co-educational Secondary School in 1973, OLM has become a familiar part of our community, providing our students with education and opportunities so that they are prepared for the challenges that life will present them with.

Our Code of Behaviour is based around the 3Rs of ‘Be Ready, Be Respectful, and Be Responsible’. We expect that every member of our community is treated with respect; Staff, Students and Parents and that everyone shares responsibility for our school community. We believe in Social Justice, so that everyone is treated equally and fairly. Our motto is ‘Shaping a Brighter Future for Our Young People’.  We have an excellent range of programmes in place such as Junior Certificate School Programme, Transition Year, Leaving Certificate Applied and Leaving Certificate Established. We are also involved with the Business in the Community, Clikln and Trinity Access Programme (TA21), as well as many other links in our local community.

The main areas of focus of any DEIS school are Retention, Attainment and Transition. All other themes in the DEIS plan are complimented by these three. The common denominator in all the DEIS themes however is Teaching and Learning. As a CEIST school, we are committed to excellence and to continually improving the quality of teaching and learning. We have a whole-school approach to Teaching and Learning which all teachers are expected to follow. They include a Common Lesson Structure, Assessment for Learning, Differentiation in mixed ability classrooms and Cooperative Teaching to create a more inclusive classroom.

We have a wide range of ways to promote our Spiritual and Human Development, for example through our School Ethos, Career Guidance, part-time counsellors through the Schools Completion Programme, S.P.H.E. Programme, Friends for Life Programme, and Mindfulness Programme to name but a few.

We have achieved much on our journey together. OLM has gone from an average of 30% progression to 3rd level (2013-2017) to 49.3% (2018-2022) and overall progression rate to 3rd level, Colleges of Further Education, Apprenticeships, or the world of work since 2018 is now 96.3%, up from 65% in the previous 4 years. In 2021, 3rd level progression increased to 60%. This is down to the hard work of everyone in our community: Board of Management, staff, students, parents and to the value of the educational programmes in OLM.

In terms of school development, we completed a substantive Emergency Works Scheme in 2021-2022 and are at Stage 2b of the Planning Process with the Department of Education for the commencement of our extension project. Planning permission was granted in July 2023 and we hope to progress this project in 2024-2025.

We hope that your son/daughter enjoys their stay with us and that they feel that they achieve the very best that they can academically, socially, and morally. We look forward to working with you over the coming years.

Pádhraic Gibbons – Principal