General Information

St MacNissi's is a Catholic co-educational primary school and is one of three primary schools in the Parish of St Mary's on the Hill. The school is a modern building built in 1974 to accomodate the growing number of Catholic families moving into the Newtownabbey and Carnmoney areas and now has a total enrolment of 161 pupils, 6 full time teachers and a Principal.

Admissions

The school can accomodate 175 pupils and in selecting children for admission we will apply the criteria as set out by the three parish schools, in the North Eastern Education and Library Board's handbook, copies of which are available at the school.

Year	Total Applications	Total Admissions
2000 / 2001	20	20
2001 / 2002	30	30
2002 / 2003	32	29

Holidays 2003/2004

The school holidays are listed below but do not include exceptional closure days which have yet to be confirmed. These will be advised with as much notice as possible.

The first day of term is Monday 1st September 2003 and will close at the end of term on Wednesday 30th June 2004 at 12:00 noon.

Holiday	Start Date	Finish Date
Mid Term	Wed 29th October	Friday 31st October
Holy Day	Monday 8th December
Christmas **	Wednesday 24th December	Tuesday 6th January
Mid Term	Monday 16th February	Friday 20th February
St Patrick's Day	Wednesday 17th March
Easter **	Friday 9th April	Friday 16th April
May Day	Monday 3rd May
Closure	Monday 31st May

Note: ** Indicates that school will close at 12:00noon on the preceeding day.

Accomodation and Resources

St MacNissi's Primary school is a two storey building and contains a dual purpose hall.P.E. facility, staffroom and library. Classes Reception to Primary 2 are situated on the ground floor whilst Primary 3 to Primary 7 are on the first floor.

Outdoors we have a large multipurpose play area and grass pitch.

Reception Class

St MacNissi's offers a pre-school Reception Class to all 4 year old children who are not of compulsory school age. The classroom is sited within the main building and the pupils have access to all the school's resources and facilities.

Class Organisation

Children are grouped according to age and staff organise their classes in a variety of ways. Where there is the need for composite class groupings, the individual needs of each child will be considered and classes organised to ensure that a pupils potential will be fully developed. The avearge class size for 2001 / 2002 was 23 pupils. Average class attendance was 96.23%.