Newry's St Colman's College becomes first school in Ireland to win Gold AI Quality Mark

St Colman's College in Newry has become the first school on the island of Ireland, and one of only 20 worldwide, to achieve the Gold AI Quality Mark from the Good Future Foundation. The accreditation recognises schools for ethical, strategic and impactful use of artificial intelligence in teaching, learning and leadership. The college previously received the Most Ethical Use of AI in Education Award at the Ulster University AI in Education Awards, and last year 30 students completed a pilot of the Pearson Generative AI Foundations certification, which will now become a permanent part of the curriculum.

This is one of the few verifiable cases of a secondary school embedding AI literacy across its curriculum and securing third-party accreditation, offering a reference for curriculum design, teacher training and certification pathways. For AI education product providers, the school's explicit teaching of prompting, bias recognition and ethical judgement implies tools need to support explainable and reviewable use. The accreditation is issued by the Good Future Foundation, but its review criteria and the full list of the 20 accredited schools are not disclosed in the source, so the actual scope of impact still needs independent verification. Schools can embed AI literacy across subjects and link it to formal certification rather than treating it as a standalone subject AI education products need to address curriculum requirements for prompting, bias recognition and ethical judgement