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Rebel schools to defy Ruane
Monday, 1 September 2008
The group of 30 rebel grammars across Northern Ireland today put themselves on a collision course with the Education Minister by pushing ahead with plans for their own school entrance exams.
Sir Ken Bloomfield, chair of the Association for Quality Education (AQE), told the Belfast Telegraph that work on the Common Entrance Assessment (CEA) is progressing and that the schools would not be “frightened off” by repeated warnings from Caitriona Ruane of costly legal challenges from parents.
As the new term gets under way today at primary and secondary schools across the province, children starting P6 still do not know how they will transfer to post-primary after the 11-plus test is scrapped later this year.
Meanwhile, any hope of a resolution to the school transfer debate has diminished after DUP Executive Minister Sammy Wilson confirmed to the Telegraph that intensive talks on education between his party and Sinn Fein — which were due to take place over the summer — did not materialise over the |summer.
Earlier this month Ms Ruane pledged to follow through on her contentious proposal to phase out academic selection as stalemate at executive level over the issue continues.
However, she cannot outlaw selection without cross-party support within the Assembly.
The minister wants grammar schools to select 50% of their pupils based on their academic ability in 2010, 30% for the intake in 2011 and 20% in 2012.
In 2013 all admissions would be based on non-academic criteria. However, her ministerial colleagues refused to discuss this proposal during a heated executive meeting in May.
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Ms Ruane said it was “all systems go” in relation to her plans but refused to be drawn on what she would do if Assembly approval is not given for new legislation.
A Sinn Fein paper leaked to the Telegraph indicated the fall back position would involve issuing guidelines which schools would be strongly encouraged to follow.
An information pack been sent to primary school principals by AQE with information on the test which the 30 grammars will use to select pupils as a replacement for the 11-plus. It will consist of three one hour papers, similar in format to the current transfer test with marks awarded on the best two scores. Pupils starting P6 will be the first to transfer to post-primary schools under the new system.
Sir Kenneth said: “We have taken the best possible legal advice and are reassured by it.
“In particular it has brought out what I have said all along – that there is no way that the Minister can proceed without consensus. It would be against the Ministerial code. Her plan cannot be put in place without consensus and she is not going to get that.”
The former head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service said he knew attempts would be made to derail the schools.
“Our plans are going ahead – although I have made it clear we do this reluctantly. We would like to see a resolution of this problem at government level.
“However, the Executive has not met over the summer so it is difficult to see how agreement can be reached when politicians are not talking.
“I am afraid we are heading into an unregulated situation and if that happens each school is going to have to do what is in their best interests.
“Children are starting P6 not knowing how they are going to transfer in P7. Something has to be done to plot a clear path for them.”
He added the Minister has not been in touch with the AQE since before the summer.
Sammy Wilson, Environment Minister and former chair of the Assembly’s education committee, said: “We gave Sinn Fein papers on the review of public administration in June and hoped to have intensive discussions over the summer on this and school transfer but that did not happen.”
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Comments
33 Comments
AQE have a conflict or competition of interests and cannot be expected to be taken seriously when they claim to represent grammar schools and parents along with teachers and principals and governors. Parents have a right to choose a school suitable for their child. The school must make clear, in plain language, what criterion will be used for admission. Perhaps the "satisfied" parent will list which AQE schools intend to use a "cut score" and which will use rank order? It would go someway to separating the sheep from the goats within AQE. Just how concrete are these concrete plans? Primary six parents want to know. Perhaps Sir Kenneth Bloomfield will start with his alma mater. PACE think he will plumb for a cut score option.
Posted by Parental Alliance for Choice in Education | 18.09.08, 15:27 GMT
I find it very hard to believe that we are still at this impass with the last children to use the 11+ now in P7. As a parent I am very glad that at least someone is putting concrete plans together and I support the AQE and the grammar schools involved. I want my children to go to a school where they can cope - not pushed to an academic level they struggle with, nor bored in a school targeted to the less academic!
I have found the AQE website very helpful and it has allayed most of my concerns: www.aqe.org.uk. It looks as though each school will have to set their own entrance criteria, but can use the results of the test to define academic ability.
I just wish the politicians would all grow up and sort this out!
Posted by Concerned Parent | 10.09.08, 20:52 GMT
Michael Dubitante correctly points out the impending discrimination against bright working class/disadvantaged children brought about by a small cabal of educationalists and cheerled by Ruane.
However the problem will only be solved by direct instruction teaching not the "play based early years revised curriculum" methods adopted wholesale by the primary teaching professionals.
There is no sense in looking to the abuser to solve the abuse. Parents must be schooled to demand direct instruction methods- if refused then the legal risk for failure rests with the teachers.
Posted by Parental Alliance for Choice in Education | 03.09.08, 13:47 GMT
Ms Ruane's actions seem to have led to more unfairness in the transfer system rather than less. The Common entrance exam is proposed as an "opt in" exam, you choose it, rather than the automatic 11+ from which some would "opt out". Also there is likely to be a £30 fee. Both of these barriers will lead to some children who would otherwise go to grammar school finding themselves instead in secondary school, with the attendant disadvantages.
Ms Ruane is worried about the 49% okf kids leaving secondary school with nothing to show, and she attributes this to the advantages given to grammar school children. The logic of this argument completely defies me, I have never understood it.
What I do understand is that 25% of kids here leave primary school unable to read well enough to follow the secondary school curriculum. That problem can be solved by more intensive teaching. This fundamental problem affecting over half the kids Ms Ruane is concerned about she can solved at a stroke.
Posted by Michael Dubitante | 03.09.08, 10:02 GMT
Given the dreadful spelling and grammar used in the majority of these posts I assume the authors were educated at a "bog standard Norn Iron secondary school" rather than a nice posh grammar school...
Posted by pete | 02.09.08, 17:45 GMT
Where is the DUP veto?
Posted by paul | 02.09.08, 13:05 GMT
Yes, just keep messing with our education system and you'll have what you always wanted - an education system in as big a mess as England and back to the bog standard secondary school - brilliant!
Posted by Dr C Nelson | 02.09.08, 11:18 GMT
While there is much froth generated by the AQE plans there appears to be very little substance. How for instance will children be admitted to each school - rank order in the test or some set pass mark? What standardisation will occur? What about special needs or circumstances and appeals? How will home to school transport arrangements apply? The real issue here is one of parental and childrens rights in education. Sir Kenneth Bloomfield seems only concerned about entrance to Inst. How can any controlled grammar offer the test when all ELB's are against academic selection and the Board of Governors is stacked with DE and ELB people?
Posted by Pro Tanto Quid | 02.09.08, 09:51 GMT
Who and where are the 30 grammar schools "progressing" the Common Entrance Assessment (CEA)?
Posted by Joe | 02.09.08, 09:49 GMT
Is it not hypocritical for Mrs Catriona Ruane, Minister of Education to dictate the abolition of selection? She lives in County Louth but chose to put her own children through the, ‘terrible,’ transfer test. She now sends her child to a Newry grammar school, instead of the local, non-selective comprehensive school in the South? So much for principles and ideology then!
It appears that comprehensive schooling, which she wishes to foist upon us here, will be the right thing for everyone else’s child but not for her own! Retain the right for choice for herself and her own kids but take it away from everyone else!!!
Posted by T.J.McClean | 02.09.08, 07:49 GMT
THERE IS NO NEED FOR NORTHERN IRELAND TO DESTROY ITS EDUCATION SYSTEM WHICH IS AT A HIGHER LEVEL THAN THAT ON THE MAINLAND. YOUNG STUDENTS HAVE DIFFERENT SKILLS AND THERE WAS ALWAYS THE OPPORTUNITY TO MOVE BETWEEN GRAMMAR AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS. RUANE SHOULD BE REMOVED HER JOB AS SHE SEEMS TO BE ON HER OWN AGENDA WHICH DOES NOT RELATE TO REAL LIFE.
Posted by JAMES | 02.09.08, 03:01 GMT
Hi we are reading from New Zealand. Inderpandance is the way to go! Education is important =)
Posted by kittten | 02.09.08, 01:26 GMT
If Ms Ruane is against academic selection for Grammar School or indeed any school, can someone explain why, I am led to believe, a number of secondary schools today had their year 8 new starts sitting tests so that they could be divided into classes according to ability! Is this not also selection based on academic ability?
Posted by grammarmum | 02.09.08, 00:08 GMT
Unless you're willing to let just about anyone carry out the likes of a brain operation, you're going to have to "discriminate" between those who are up to the job and those who aren't at some stage in life. Why drag down grammar schools in keeping in line with the others when we should be focusing on bringing the others up? Not going to a grammar school is not about being stupid! Children all learn at different rates and unless you're going to seperate within the classroom (still at risk of offending/discriminating), then the fact is either some children will be in over their heads or the others will be held frustratingly behind. A herd can only travel as fast as its slowest member.
Posted by Sarah | 01.09.08, 23:28 GMT
I would not complain about Roys comment below. HE IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
Posted by David Baird | 01.09.08, 23:09 GMT
A point I have never understood and need clarified,is that if our 11+ or academic selection system (same thing,different names) is so successful,why then,has no other education system in any other country in the entire world ever chosen to copy it???
Maybe their educational experts-not politicians-realize that a state run education system funded equally through general taxation must offer proper long term opportunities (education and employment) for all children taught within it,and not cater for a small select minority contained in its ranks.
Posted by William | 01.09.08, 22:26 GMT
Here we are in 2008 - STILL waiting to see how our children are to be moved from primary to secondary level in 2009! There has been no mention of how the secondary level is to be adapted to cope. Will schools have to be modified, rebuilt, merged or twinned? Surely the teaching staff must be properly
perpared! As a teacher involved in a merger some years ago, I can state with authority that our process took a year and a half, and included many seminars and meetings, building alterations and re-equipment, not forgetting the full cooperation, guidance and help of the local education authority.We ended up with a fine school in every aspect, with a well-integrated and harmonious staff.
Remember,no thought was given to how Iraq was to be rebuilt after it had been overrun, or the consequences of the recent removal of the lower band of our tax system. None, either, appears to have been given to any system that will follow the abolition of the eleven-plus! Why?
Posted by JD | 01.09.08, 22:22 GMT
As a parent of a P6 pupil who will be one of the guinea pigs, I am aware that my son's 1st and 2nd choice Grammar shools in the Causeway Area will use the AQE assessment. We have been aware of this for 3 months and are preparing him for these tests. Testing will happen for him whether it is Government run or not and we are prepared for that. He has nothing to fear because he is prepared to work for it.
Posted by Sam | 01.09.08, 20:49 GMT
"more people leave school in northern ireland with no qualifications than anywhere else in europe"??? Ian can you back that extraordinary remark with some facts and figures please? Until you do, I say PAH!
Posted by Centaur | 01.09.08, 20:24 GMT
I agree with AQE, I belive brighter pupils should be put into a school where everyone will be working at the same pace, less bright pupils will slow the learning pace. Pupils should be put into a school for their own learning speed.
Posted by James Hughes | 01.09.08, 20:15 GMT
33 Comments