Hazelwood Integrated College
Hazelwood Integrated College is an integrated secondary school in Newtownabbey, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The school's students are aged from 11 to 18 years. , the school's principal was Ms Máire Thompson. Context Integrated Education is a Northern Ireland phenomenon, where traditionally schools were sectarian, either run as Catholic schools or Protestant schools. On as parental request, a school could apply to 'transition' to become Grant Maintained offering 30% of the school places to students from the minority community. Lagan College was the first integrated school to open in 1981. History Hazelwood Integrated College was founded in 1985. The initial intake of students was 17. The college acquired the former premises of Graymount Girls' School in June 1986 and increased its intake of students to 70. On August 31, 1988 the college was granted "maintained" status. Following a visit by the Minister of State for Education, Michael Ancram in May 1994, the college was awarded a grant of £9.9 million in order to build new school premises. The work was completed in 1999, at which time the college moved into its current state-of-the-art buildings. In 2007, Hazelwood College became the first school in Northern Ireland to be awarded specialist status