The award was presented on Thursday at a gala ball in the Ramada Hotel in Belfast by the Centre for Competitiveness and forms part of the Northern Ireland Quality Awards process.

In a statement the college explained: “The EFQM Excellence Model is the most widely used organisational framework in Europe and it is the basis for the majority of national and regional Quality Awards. It is used by both businesses and schools to measure the quality of all aspects of school provision.

“The ‘Excellence Model’ is used as a framework for self evaluation to enable us to measure how effective we are as a school and how well we are serving our pupils and community. By involving ourselves in this process we then commit to improving our school through consultation with our parents, pupils and staff.”

Expressing delight at the honour, value it as a mark of their continuing commitment to the future of Carrickfergus College as a centre of excellence in the town.