Governing Bodies Association

Governing Bodies Association Northern Ireland

Mr J Simmons
Committee Clerk
Committee for Education
Parliament Buildings
Stormont
Belfast BT4 3XX
6th June 2008

Dear Mr Simmons

Re: The Committee for Education request for views on the minister for Education’s proposal for Transfer to post Primary Education from 2010

Please find attached the following:

1. The considered response from the GBA to the Minister’s statement of May 16 th regarding her proposals for transfer from primary to post primary education.
2. A copy of the letter sent to the Minister following our meeting on 22 nd Feb 2008

Please note that Members of the Education Committee are already in possession of the full GBA proposals paper.

Yours sincerely

Evelyn Dermott
Chairman Governing Bodies Association

The GBA response to the Minister’s Proposals for Transfer from 2010

• The GBA cannot accept the proposals made by the Minister in her statement of 16 May 2008. These proposals are substantially the same as those presented to GBA representatives on 22 February 2008 and rejected in a subsequent letter to the Minister (letter attached). They are transitional rather than interim proposals, and so the final outcome of the process, viz an all-ability intake to all schools, is predetermined. The GBA prefers a genuinely interim arrangement, such as it proposes, which would allow time for an agreed long-term solution to be developed.
• The GBA has already put forward detailed proposals for an interim arrangementfor Transfer from Primary to Post primary schools at age 11. These proposals were sent to the Minister for Education in February at her request, but to date there has been no response. They also have been sent to the members of the Education Committee.
• The GBA proposals, in keeping with the wishes of the great majority of parents and teachers as expressed in the Household Survey, do not require pupils to sit an examination but do allow the retention of schools with an academic focus where appropriate. This also was the wish of the great majority as revealed by the Household Survey and various opinion polls.
• The scheme is intended to ensure that pupils transfer from their primary school to a post-primary school which matches their educational needs. This would be done by allowing parents and the receiving school to discuss an application in the light of the Pupil Profile developed during Key Stage 2. The basic principles of the scheme are summarised below.
• The scheme depends on the profile containing accumulated objective, standardised and reliable information as agreed by CCEA, which would allow all parties involved to have knowledge of the pupil’s progress and aptitudes. The production of such a profile, developed over four years, would not put undue pressure on primary teachers. Indeed, all the component parts of it are already statutory.
• The use of a standardised format for all pupils’ profiles would ensure that applications from all children are comparable whatever their social background, and the use of accumulated information keeps parents aware of progress over KS2 and dismisses the need for a high-stakes examination.
• The proposed system also depends on every post-primary school defining itself according to a standard format approved by the Department of Education, and setting out clearly the nature and pace of the education it offers.
• Parents would make application to the school or schools of their choice on a standard application form, including the applicant’s pupil profile, and would indicate how the pupil’s aptitude matches the provision being offered by the school.
• Schools would not be permitted to admit pupils whose profile indicates that they do not have the aptitude to progress in such a school, even if the number of applications is less than the school’s admissions number.
• Should any school have more suitable applicants than its admissions number then the school would apply its other published objective criteria to all applicants as at present.
• There would be an independent audit and an independent appeals procedure.
• Flexibility would be ensured so that any pupil subsequently found to be mis-matched would be able to transfer to a more suitable school.
• The proposals are predicated on transfer taking place at age 11, but GBA also recognises the importance of further decisions being made at age 14.

 

Ms Catriona Ruane
Minister for Education
Parliament Buildings
Stormont
Belfast
BT4 3XX

4th March 2008

Dear Minister

I wrote to you on 12th February enclosing a paper which set out proposals from the GBA executive for an interim arrangement for transfer to post primary schools and on Friday February 22 nd a number of representatives from the GBA executive attended a meeting with your officials at which we were given a presentation on the Department’s proposals.

Whilst we have yet to receive any formal response to our paper, and we were disappointed by the tenor of the meeting of Feb 22 nd we have been encouraged by your public and positive response to our proposals in the Belfast Telegraph on March 3 rd 2008.

At the meeting on 22 nd February we were informed that a decision had been taken that the summative pupil profile to be given to parents of pupils in year 7 to assist in their children’s transfer from primary to post primary education will not contain any objective data. If this is so, the profile will be very different from the one proposed by CCEA and accepted by the minister of the day. To the best of our knowledge, CCEA has not been informed that this change is to be made. We are very concerned about the emasculated pupil profile which, it appears, your Department now envisages. Without objective data the value of the profile is very much reduced, to the great disadvantage of children from underprivileged backgrounds. This is a matter of fundamental importance which we shall pursue further .

We have considered very carefully your Department’s proposals as presented on 22 nd February and we find it difficult to interpret these as other than proposals for a 3-year transition to a universal fully comprehensive post-primary system. My colleagues and I are of the view that this would be completely unacceptable to the Governing Bodies Association and, we assume, to many other stakeholders. If the proposals as presented continue to be your Department’s position, we will have no option but to recommend that the Executive and GBA membership reject them.

You have repeatedly called for creativity and stressed the need for consensus. We have embraced both these principles and believe our proposals to be a sensible and sustainable compromise. We also believe that you genuinely do wish to build a consensus, and in that spirit, we invite you to give further consideration to one of the basic premises or our paper – that is, the need for an arrangement which offers parental choice, excellence for all pupils, and which would allow you and other political leaders the space needed to agree an acceptable long term solution.

Our paper proposes such an interim arrangement and we urge you to embrace it in a genuine attempt to reach an accommodation. We would welcome a formal response from your department at the earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely

Evelyn Dermott Chairman GBA