Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education

NICIE’s response to Minister’s proposals on Transfer

Context

The Council is on record as an organisation which does not support academic selection as the basis for school choice, at any age.

The integrated schools movement incorporates a number of guiding principles, including developing all ability schools and it is our view that this is the most effective form of education provision.

We do not support even a reduced academic intake, but realise that pragmatism sometimes requires actions which are not always the most ideal solution. We would have preferred to have no selection at all from 2010 and feel that the hybrid proposed serves only to confuse and compound the process for pupils and parents and leaves pupils under the cloud of tests for a further number of years. This process is not helped by the vagueness still current, concerning the nature of the testing and marking.

Criteria

NICIE has responded in other consultations on its views on the nature and content of admissions criteria to be used in the event of over subscription.

The Council’s role is to promote the development of 3-18 integrated provision including pre schools for parents and children who wish to avail of this form of education. In this case it is vital that any new admissions criteria do not diminish the systemic integrity that allows pupils to progress through these educational centres, from pre-school through primary to college.

NICIE would propose that whatever the criteria are, that they are appropriately child centred rather than institution focussed. The objective should be to ensure parents are better informed to make key decisions for their children and in order for this to be realised future arrangements must be transparent and easily understood by parents.

NICIE also supports the earlier concept of complementary criteria amongst schools in a local area but notes there is no indication in the statement of this idea.

Ultimately, schools need to be given sufficient flexibility to reflect their local circumstances within their admissions criteria.

The Minister proposes 4 sets of criteria plus a tie break. I will comment on each in turn

Geography

We understand the need to reference geography, but if by “nearest suitable school”, and defining “catchment” too narrowly, children who wish to attend an integrated school are disadvantaged because there is no school of that type “near”, this would be unacceptable. There are only approximately 40 primary schools and 20 post primary schools and so they are geographically dispersed. Pupils must be facilitated to attend the school of choice. Unlike other school types, where there any many choices available, this is not the case for an integrated choice. When an integrated school is oversubscribed it is not simply a matter of going a mile or two to the next available school as this can be several miles or more. There needs to be a recognition of this in this criterion, by allowing the nearest integrated school to have flexibility in its intake is necessary to allow for parental choice or to create a new integrated choice in the area. This would be possible if area based planned projected potential need through community based audits and the planned provision on the basis of parental choice rather than through reactivity.

The geography criteria should be fair and free from any bias or indirect discrimination against particular groups or individual’.

The nature of integrated education is such that over-subscribed schools must regularly use religious/community background as a means to admit pupils. So we would assume that integrated schools would continue to sort applications on the basis of religion but would ask that this is made clear and apparent to all parties involved in the transfer process.

Community

This must also recognise integrated primaries as feeder primaries for integrated colleges, even if they are at a distance, given the reduced nature of integrated choice compared to other choices available.

NICIE has already indicated its concern if the word ‘local’ is used in relation to catchment areas and reiterates that the Department must clearly acknowledge and accept that that local community for an integrated school may differ significantly from that of schools in other sectors.

As a general comment NICIE sees significant overlap between use of what is termed community-based criteria and geographical criteria and believes that one is simply a proxy for the other. The Council however wishes to comment further on community based criteria on two levels, firstly in respect of the controlled and maintained sectors and secondly specifically in regard to the integrity of the integrated sector.

a) It is felt that the use of feeder primary schools or parish boundaries as criteria will further reduce the potential for young people to attend schools which are traditionally outside of their immediate ‘community’ and this will further consolidate sectoral based schooling. Rather than promoting the move towards ‘greater sharing’ in education envisioned in ‘A Shared Future’ NICIE believes that the use of these criterion will simply contribute to the maintenance of the status quo.

b) NICIE takes the opposite view regarding the use of feeder primaries as a criterion within the integrated sector and would argue strongly that pupils who are already experiencing a ‘shared education’ at primary level should be entitled to complete their education within an integrated college. This is consistent with the proposals within ‘A Shared Future’ and preserves systemic integrity within the integrated sector. NICIE however does not see integrated colleges as being exclusively for young people who have been at an integrated primary school; it believes that sufficient capacity exists to ensure that young people coming from other types of primary school will have the opportunity to apply for places.

Family

NICIE generally welcomes the inclusion of family focussed criteria within a menu as this has always been key to the development of the integrated sector and we welcome its inclusion. We would ask for the inclusion of children whose brothers and sister previously attended the school as well. In integrated schools, we would also look for the consideration of subsequent siblings in family whose eldest child did not attend an integrated school if the reason for the non attendance was due to the fact that no integrated choice existed at that time. The exclusion of siblings who formerly attended the school is seen as unfair, particularly to children of ‘second families’ whose parents may wish them to attend the same school as their older brothers or sisters.

In addition, many integrated schools make use of a criterion which gives consideration to those children whose ‘parent is an employee or governor of the school’. NICIE feels that the inclusion of this criterion would acknowledge the contribution that individuals make to the school community itself. Integrated schools are unique in that their Boards of Governors contain greater numbers of places for parents than in any other sector thus making this criterion particularly relevant in respect of supporting the ‘family unit’.

Socially disadvantaged

Integrated schools have always had significant numbers of pupils drawn from this area and broadly welcome this addition. The only concern with a quota system operating would be how that would affect community balance, which is at the core of ensuring full integration in school life. For example in a predominantly Unionist/Protestant area, if the quota drew in additional Protestant children over whom no balance criterion could be used, this could cause the school to fail to meet DE’s requirements on the percentile for the acceptable minority minimums.

Tie break

We had previously recommended the use of randomised alphabet for the tie break.

Other elements

We recognise that two of the four bi-lateral schools are integrated schools and accept the running down of the academic intake which is proposed by the Minister in the context of pragmatism as already indicated above.

The Council welcomes DE’s commitment to re-examine the enrolments of schools as many integrated schools are oversubscribed and unable to expand. Every year the Council supports a number of integrated schools in their attempts to have increased intakes due to the archaic nature of determining enrolments and the way in which particularly new integrated schools are ”grown” by DE.

We welcome the increased flexibility which will be offered to collaborative arrangements and would suggest that cross sectoral collaborations are incentivised including in new build programmes as well.

We welcome the review of transport policy as well as integrated schools are less in number that schools of other types and pupils attending integrated establishments rely heavily on provided transport as a consequence.

We welcome the new, area based planning groups and would encourage the Minister to set up similar initiatives for primary schools.

We would also ask the Minister to re-consider formal community based audits as the foundation foe planning for all areas, at primary as well as post primary levels.

However, the current vagueness about the actual process is causing some concerns across the various sectors and this needs to be clarifies asap.

For example how will any differing sectoral plans be reconciled in the event of disagreement, what if any will statutory bodies veto be (CCMS and ELBs) as NICIE has no such statutory duties t plan for integrated schools?

We welcome the entitlement framework and the potential for more collaboration, but would point out that collaboration, however extensive it might be, cannot be preferenced to parental choice for integrated schools. They do of course compliment one another but collaboration cannot be as a replacement for or alternative to a formal integrated choice.