St Mary's College welcomes teachers from top Swedish school

They are all members of the school’s Educational Development Group aimed at improving the quality of teaching and learning.

They were interested in how St Mary’s College have used the EFQM framework so successfully to improve opportunities and outcomes for their pupils. They spent the day in St Mary’s, meeting staff and pupils and learning about St Mary’s Excellence journey.

Matthias Oloffson, group leader, said: “We had a wonderful day at St Mary’s College and we arrived back to a surprisingly snowy Sweden with plenty of ideas and inspiration! St.Mary’s College is such a professional and welcoming school, it’s easy to understand why the students are so happy and achieve such good school results.”

Marie Lindsay, principal of St Mary’s College added: “We were delighted to welcome Matthias and his colleagues to Derry and to St Mary’s College. Our Swedish guests were very impressed with our beautiful city, our stunning school and all our modern facilities but it was the staff and pupils that left the biggest impression. We will continue to work in partnership with Framtidskompassen and learn from each other not just about EFQM but about everything that helps us do better for our pupils.”

Qualis, connected to the National Agency of Education, awarded Framtidskompassen College best National school in Sweden 2013. In 2015 they were awarded the ”Better School” award by the Swedish Institute for Quality (SIQ). St Mary’s College won the EFQM European Quality Award in 2001 and 2006 and were prizewinners for Sustaining Excellent Results in 2013.