Doubt over transfer test as more grammar schools pull out 11 plus Transfer test. Story Simon Doyle. 09 January, 2021 01:00
GRAMMAR schools are withdrawing in growing numbers from a planned transfer test next month - casting doubt that it will take place at all.
As executive ministers argued yesterday about staging entrance assessments, several more schools revealed they were pulling out.
The Association for Quality Education (AQE) intends to hold a single exam for P7s on February 27.
The first of its three postponed papers was due to be taken today by more than 8,000 children.
Amid demands to call off all tests on health grounds, the executive discussed the issue yesterday but broke up without agreement.
The row over transfer tests for primary 7 pupils is no closer to being settled after heated exchanges at the NI Executive.
The Education Minster faced further calls to cancel the process completely, with a single test, run by AQE, scheduled to go ahead on February 27.
But the decision looks like it is slowly being taken out of the hands of AQE and the minister with five schools already abandoning the test.
DUP leader Arlene Foster denied blocking a call to put the issue to a vote and it was agreed at the Executive meeting that Peter Weir will now present a paper on the issue at the end of next week.
Royal School Dungannon has become the second of Northern Ireland’s grammar schools to back out of transfer tests this year.
The school said it will not be using the AQE test, which has been rescheduled for February 27, to select pupils for the 2021/22 intake.
Earlier this week Strabane Academy said it would not be using the AQE test.
Both schools said they want to give certainty to pupils.
The first AQE exam was due to be taken by P7 pupils this weekend, with two more dates in January. All were cancelled because of the rising number of Covid-19 infections in Northern Ireland, while Northern Ireland’s other private company running tests on behalf of schools, the PPTC, said it had abandoned its tests for this year.
Transfer Test: Northern Ireland schools begin to opt out of using AQE exam
It comes after the AQE announced a single paper for February 27
Updated (Image: Getty Images)
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Transfer tests should be cancelled, urges mental health champion AQE is to hold a single transfer test in late February
Professor Siobhán O Neill
GRAMMAR school entrance exams due to take place later in the year must be scrapped, it has been urged.
Mental Health Champion Siobhán O Neill said all tests for 2021 and 2022 admissions should be cancelled.
Prof O Neill said there was a need to minimise mental health risks and prioritise children s rights above all other concerns.
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Rather than sit three papers, with the best two scores counting to allow for an off day , children will now take just one.