The Transfer Test: It’s time for an education rethink

On the 25th January my Twitter and Facebook timeline was full of worried, stressed parents. All of them were anxiously waiting for AQE/PPTC results, due on the 26th. The emotions on display ranged from hope to dread. I sat the 11+ when I was in school. P.7s these days have to sit three, sometimes four, one-hour exams over the course of multiple weekends if they want to get into a grammar school.  Thankfully there are plans for pupils to sit …

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The not-so-elitist grammar school education (with the exception of Lumen Christi and Rathmore)

An article in today’s Belfast Telegraph [some detail now online] contains the results of this year’s Freedom of Information trawl around NI grammar schools to find out about their Year 8 entrance policies for the 2011 intake. With two different exam systems (AQE and GL assessment), varying degrees of using the overall scores or grades/quintiles, and some schools , the results are even more difficult to compare than last year (which I posted about in September). The chart below shows …

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“Nonsense, Minister.” – Redux

Sinn Féin’s ideologically driven campaign against grammar schools continues, and it’s the Northern Ireland Education Minister, SF’s John O’Dowd, who’s making the strange claims.  When the Association of Quality Education (AQE) tests were being sat this year the Minister labelled them “a clever marketing device”.  For the Post-Primary Transfer Consortium (PPTC) of schools, who will use a separate assesment test this weekend, he has claimed there is an anonymous “private donor” paying for it.  From the BBC report “We have a private donor …

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Grammar school intake – hoovering up pupils at the expense of local secondary schools?

Chart showing which how pupils at each grade and quintile that were accepted in by each Grammar school in 2010

Having posted about and charted the recent GCSE results, my thinking turned to that old chestnut of grammar school intake. While some grammar schools manage to fill their First Form Year 8 places with pupils achieving the top grades/marks in transfer tests, others fill up with local students right the way across the academic spectrum. The Belfast Telegraph normally splash with them in mid-October when they have been collated (ie, FOIed). The 2011 figures aren’t yet available, so the charts …

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