EVEN by Covid standards, it’s been a bit of a white-knuckle ride on the roller-coaster of life these past few weeks, and as if an emergency appeal by the South West Acute Hospital for off-duty staff to come in wasn’t enough, we have the whole ‘hokey-cokey’ of disrupted learning, exams and assessments starting to brew up – something that every pupil, parent and teacher is fully aware of. Starting first with the transfer test, let’s look at what we have. Currently, there are two companies or consortia who run it, and Northern Ireland being as it is, each serves mainly, but by no means exclusively, one side each of our sadly still-polarised community. The ‘Post Primary Transfer Consortium’ that runs the GL exams, and represents 33 schools including St. Michael’s College and Mount Lourdes Grammar School, has already announced they it not be running any transfer examinations, and the responsibility falls on schools to decide how. This will not be published yet, so it�