2021 AQE schools admissions criteria in for Northern Ireland pupils
More than 9,000 pupils are competing for 4,801 places
Updated
Stock Image (Image: Getty Images)
Never miss a thing from Belfast and beyond - sign up for FREE newsletter direct to your inboxInvalid EmailSomething went wrong, please try again later.
Subscribe
When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they’ll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. OurPrivacy Noticeexplains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Thank you for subscribingWe have more newslettersShow meSee ourprivacy notice
A-levels: Outrage at Peter Weir s Welsh exam board decision
By Robbie Meredith
Published
image copyrightPA Media
The Welsh exam board WJEC has said it was not consulted about a decision by the education minister to ban schools in NI from taking its qualifications.
Peter Weir has told schools they cannot use WJEC qualifications from September 2022.
A number of NI schools use WJEC for AS and A-levels in subjects like Sociology, Computer Science, Physical Education (PE), Psychology and Drama.
In 2020, there were 1,935 entries from NI pupils for AS-levels through WJEC.
A further 1,466 pupils took A-levels through the exam board.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said no pupil currently taking WJEC qualifications is affected by the decision.
BBC News
By Robbie Meredith
Published
image captionTransfer tests normally used by grammar schools have been cancelled this year
One of NI s most prominent grammar schools has said it will use primary school test scores to decide which pupils to admit in 2021.
Royal Belfast Academical Institution said it would adopt other academic criteria for admission to the school .
The tests run by the AQE and the Post-Primary Transfer Consortium (PPTC) were cancelled in early 2021.
As a result, grammar schools - which are attended by about 45% of post-primary pupils in Northern Ireland - are drawing up new criteria for how they will select pupils in 2021.
Pictures of North Belfast from the 1900s show how city has been transformed belfastlive.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from belfastlive.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Geoffrey Beattie s life has taken him on an astonishing trajectory from an impoverished childhood in Protestant working-class Belfast to a career as a world-renowned psychologist and TV celebrity.
But that journey has brought inevitable stresses and soul-searching as the highly intelligent boy who pored over his schoolbooks in a damp, dilapidated terraced house with an outside toilet transformed himself into the urbane, confident academic enjoying the spoils of material success in England.
That conflict is most apparent in the outworking of his relationship with his late mother Eileen, a clever, stoical, droll Ulsterwoman who didn t suffer fools and was especially adept at cutting her adult son down to size. It s a complex bond he examines in unflinching detail in his new book Selfless, an emotionally-charged memoir that charts the impact of his social mobility on himself and his family. The tension was there right from the start, he says.