Belfast Education & Library Board

DC/GMcM

6 June 2008

Mr J Simmons
Committee for Education
Room 241
Parliament Buildings
Stormont
BELFAST BT4 3XX

Dear John

Please find attached some comments on the Minister’s proposals for Transfer to Post-Primary Education.

Although the board discussed the paper briefly at its meeting on Thursday 5 June, it was decided to simply note the contents. Accordingly, the contents should not be seen as representing the formal and considered view of the board on the matter.

During the brief debate a number of members spoke about the apparent lack of formal consultation with the board on the issue. The Belfast Education and Library Board is the local education authority for the Belfast City Council area. Its membership reflects the wide spectrum of political, religious, business and community interests in the city yet during this latest phase of the debate there has been no formal request from the Minister or the Department for the board’s considered views for their area. The committee may wish to consider this apparent oversight and make recommendations to the Minister.

Should you wish to discuss the paper or the contents of the letter do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

David Cargo

Chief Executive

Enc

Transfer to Post-Primary Education from 2010

Background

• The present Transfer Procedure is discredited. Research has identified technical difficulties with the test eg the definitions of grade boundaries. Geography often affects a pupil’s ability to obtain a grammar school place. This is neither fair or equitable.
• As part of the discussions regarding the review of the Transfer Procedure from Primary to Post-Primary Schools, chief executives met the Minister once and Departmental officials on two occasions.

Context

• Schools are now beginning to work in collaboration as learning communities to deliver the Entitlement Framework. Each school in the learning community has a particular niche in a ‘market’ which provides a width of learning opportunities for young people.
• The specialist schools’ initiative has promoted further, the concept of schools offering a particular form of education depending on their expertise but within an overall framework established by learning communities.
• The decline in pupil numbers is increasingly impacting on the post-primary sector affecting grammar school intakes and secondary school numbers.
• However there are a number of serious policy vacuums - no 14 to 19 policy, no sustainability policy, no political direction on the Bain Report or a Shared Future and only initial work on area-based planning.
• Some schools have suggested that they will organise their own entrance test.
• There is no political consensus on a replacement for the Transfer Procedure.

Issues:

1 The Test up to 2013

• The present proposals lead to a number of questions. There were 15,000 pupils who sat the test in 2007; there is no reason to believe this number will be significantly reduced. Such numbers would suggest 200-300 pupils per grammar school. So where will the new test be held? How would the children get there? How will the test be supervised? Are there to be practise tests, if so how will they be organised?
• Will the test be based on the revised curriculum or is it an intelligent test?

2 Academic and other Criteria

• The phasing in of any new non-selective arrangements is welcomed. The chief executives have expressed this view to the Minister. In the context of a political consensus on selection this phasing will allow grammar schools time to prepare for a wider ability intake. The issue is how best this can be managed. It is suggested that over 3 years, admissions based on academic criteria are reduced in equal proportions ie “2010 - 75%, 2011 - 50% and 2012 - 25%. This would assist management at school level.
• If the child is to be central to the admissions process then there is no criterion dealing with ‘compelling individual circumstances’ or ‘special circumstances’. As all decisions relating to admission to schools are liable to judicial review we consider this a serious oversight. If there are no practice tests then how might a child’s performance on the day of the test be considered against past performance?
• The proposed non-academic criteria in themselves are problematic eg proximity to the school could affect house prices as their application has done elsewhere and seriously affect rural dwellers. (Have the proposals been rural proofed?). Socially disadvantaged criteria are used at pre-school level and are extremely unpopular with many parents being seen as discriminating against the children of low paid workers.
• No thought appears to have been given within the paper to the situation with regard to children with special educational needs.

3 Other Issues

• What happens if grammar schools decide not to become ‘bilateral’ during 2010-2013? This issue becomes more complex when it is applied separately to the two major communities.
• The effect of the proposed review on school capacity is difficult to predict. It could lead to increased competition amongst schools and undermine collaboration especially when schools are still funded on the basis of LMS.
• The number of policy reviews suggested and the preparation for the implementation of these proposals suggests a longer lead in time than is currently available and may in some instance require further legislation.

Proposals

• In our discussions with DE chief executives emphasised that they did not believe a deregulated transfer system would be good for children or parents and every effort should be made to reach a consensus on a revised system of transfer.
• In the context of collaboration amongst schools to deliver the Entitlement Framework it is inevitable schools are positioning themselves according to their strengths. Some will concentrate on general education, some on vocational education and some on an academic education. Schools will therefore work at a different pace and will therefore suit some children but not others.
• Our proposal in this context was to suggest that the principle of parental choice should be paramount. Parents should, with appropriate guidance, be given the opportunity to elect school places for their children.
• Schools which are undersubscribed should be required to take all those pupils who apply. Oversubscribed schools should be required to establish and apply admissions criteria. These could be similar to those suggested by the Minister, with the reservations described above. In addition, where schools are providing an academic education, and where the pace of progress through the curriculum will be enhanced then the literacy and numeracy abilities of the pupils applying should be considered. These scores could be available through the pupil profile.
• Clearly there is a need in this scenario to ensure there is a spread of provision in each learning community to ensure access to the Entitlement Framework and maximise choice.

Conclusion

• The strength of our education system in part relies on community confidence in that system. In arriving at a consensus position to replace the Transfer Procedure, the political system must ensure that confidence is retained in the system during any transition.