Traditionally, the 11-plus period was a frustrating and uncertain time. Inevitably the exam determined which school a child would have gone to and arguably what career they would follow.

For the first time, arrangements have been made to |replace the 11-plus yet the storm surrounding the new unregulated tests continues.

To find out the real impact on families here, we’ve been talking to parents whose children must navigate the new system. Here, we visit Rosetta Primary School in south Belfast.

Changed her mind

Kate Johnston with daughter Caitlin (11), from Belfast. Kate says:

Caitlin was going to do the AQE test until last week but then she changed her mind and said she didn't want to do it any more. The homeworks were getting too hard and there was tremendous pressure on her.

I think it's ridiculous that kids of Caitlin's age should have to go through this.

There's a lot more pressure than there used to be with these exams. Had she gone ahead with the test papers, Caitlin would have to have taken the AQE at a nearby grammar school. She would have been in a strange, unfamiliar environment and she would have had to do the test in a big assembly hall full of kids she's never met before.

I know of a lot of the kids at this school have decided to drop out of the test. There's also a problem where a divide is being created within the classroom. The kids who are taking the AQE test are getting much more homework than the ones who aren't doing it and they're being split into separate groups.

At the start, the Department of Education said there would be no test at all, now all this has happened.

It is very hard on the kids. Caitlin says that since she |decided not to take the test she feels like there's been a whole weight lifted off her shoulders.”

Moved school so that child could sit test

Jackie Creighton with son Edward (10), from Belfast. Jackie says:

I have three children and the other two have already done the 11-plus. At least we knew where we stood with the old test. Now we're just in a state of limbo and the children are getting quite stressed about it.

Edward knows that it's different from the normal 11-plus and that it isn't official.

I moved my child to this school from another because the school he was in before wasn't preparing kids for the tests.

I also feel sorry for the teachers in all of this. They're just caught in the middle. It's been a great loss that they've taken science out of the tests.

At least if a child wasn't great at English or maths, they had science to fall back on.”

Edward: “I think P6 and P7 are both really hard. It's worse for me because I'm doing the test. We have more homework. Our class is split into groups. One group has one page of work to do and the other has three pages to do.”

Jackie: “I don't know how many schools are preparing children for the test, but they seem to be damned if they do and damned if they don't.”

The boy who chose high school

Michelle Ferguson with son Michael (11), from Belfast. Michelle says:

Michael has just turned 11 and he doesn't want to do the test. It's creating in excess of three hours extra homework every night when he comes home from school. He only has one sheet of homework to do while the kids who are taking the test have entire booklets to get through. The Department of Education have created a mess. I think that's the only word you could use to describe it. Why try to fix something that's not broken?

Michael wants to go to Newtownbreda High School. I think that's where most kids from here are going. Meanwhile, the primary school here is like piggy in the middle between the needs of the kids and what they're being told by the Department of Education. We've received very little information from them. We got a leaflet posted through the door but that was about it. At first we were told that our children would simply go to the local school. Now they're saying that's not so.”