Northern Ireland's only Irish-speaking secondary school has topped the region's exam "league tables" for non-grammar schools only 18 months after receiving government recognition.
In last year's GCSE exam for 16-year-olds, 73 per cent of the students at Meanscoil Feirste, in Belfast's Falls Road, gained the top three grades. The average for non-grammar secondary schools in Northern Ireland as a whole was 30 per cent.
The 234-pupil school, which was founded by a group of parents seven years ago, received recognition and full funding from the Department of Education for Northern Ireland (DENI) in August 1996.
Its deputy principal, Mr Proinsias O Labhradha, said its success was due to the quality of the teaching, small class sizes and the high motivation of the students, all of whom had come from Irish-medium primary schools and from families which had had to struggle to provide them with an education through Irish. Fifteen students took last year's GCSE exam.
Meanscoil Feirste is only recognised by DENI for 11- to 16-year-olds, but 12 of the 15 are now back studying for A levels while the school applies for further departmental recognition.
The school is currently housed in the Culturlann cultural centre. Mr O Labhradha said DENI had agreed to fund a new school in a former nursing home in nearby Beechmount subject to agreement from the Catholic Church, which owns the property.
The Department had promised up to £5 million in funding, he said.
The overall "league tables", published in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on Monday, showed that Northern Ireland pupils continue to outperform their counterparts in England and Wales in examination results.
Fifty-three per cent of the 16year-olds who took the GCSE in Northern Ireland obtained the top three grades, compared to 45 per cent in England and Wales.
The recent trend for girls' schools to outperform their mixed and boys-only counterparts continued.
The North's two best-performing schools - Coleraine High School and Enniskillen Collegiate - are both all-girl grammar schools. In these schools every student got at least five GCSEs with the top three grades.
The Northern secretary of the INTO, Mr Frank Bunting, warned against too much store being set by comparisons with Britain. "We should be comparing ourselves with countries like France and Singapore, where standards are almost double ours," he said.