Portora Royal School located in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, is one of a number of 'free schools' founded by Royal Charter in 1608, by James I. Originally called Enniskillen Royal School, the school was established some ten years after the Royal Decree, in 1618, 15 miles outside Enniskillen at Ballybalfour, before moving to Enniskillen in 1661. It was not until 1778 that the school moved to its present location on Portora Hill, Enniskillen, when the nucleus of the present school was built.
Formerly a boarding school, Portora now caters for 490 day students. Originally the school only accepted male pupils, but in the 20th century females were first admitted to Portora; the school's website states, "the year 1979 saw a break from the tradition of the previous 361 years when a small number of girls were accepted as pupils. The number of girl pupils increased from the original 9 boarders and 2 daygirls of 1979 to a maximum of 31 girls in 1984. As of September 2011, girls can enroll into 6th form."
Read more about Portora Royal School: Statistics, Famous Old Portorans, Miscellaneous, The House System
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“These are not the artificial forests of an English king,—a royal preserve merely. Here prevail no forest laws but those of nature. The aborigines have never been dispossessed, nor nature disforested.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Dissonance between family and school, therefore, is not only inevitable in a changing society; it also helps to make children more malleable and responsive to a changing world. By the same token, one could say that absolute homogeneity between family and school would reflect a static, authoritarian society and discourage creative, adaptive development in children.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)