Heads critical of plan to allow tests support

Heads critical of plan to allow tests support

14 September 2016

CATHOLIC secondary school principals have spoken of their disappointment about a decision to reintroduce transfer test coaching to primaries.

St Mary’s High School principal Sheila Darling and Mark Morgan, principal of St Colman’s High School and Sixth Form College, are among 230 head teachers who have reacted with dismay to Education Minister Peter Weir’s decision to once again permit schools to prepare children for the unregulated transfer.

His announcement reverses previous guidance, introduced by Sinn Fein in 2008 forbidding in-school training for the 11-plus, which is still required by grammar schools for academic selection.

Likening the current transfer system to “social engineering”, Mrs Darling said it was a system that led many to feel stigmatised.

“This is something I feel strongly about. Every single child going to school in Northern Ireland deserves to be treated as an individual and afforded the same courtesy irrespective of which school they attend, they should not be stigmatised,” she said.

“My view is that the transfer test is an unnecessary burden to place on children at such a young age when we have wonderful schools all over Northern Ireland capable of providing excellent education.

“Yet we seem determined to put our children through this process, which causes them a great deal of distress and generates an impression that every child is not equal, when every child is equal.

“This is like turning the clock back. Children are being treated unfairly in my opinion and having this unnecessary burden placed upon them.”

Mr Morgan said he too regarded the Minister’s directive as a “retrograde step.”

“At a time when the same department is demanding leaders with vision in education, we have an announcement that puts education back 50 years and does nothing to enhance the opportunities for all children,” he said.

“Children do not fail transfer tests, transfer tests fail children.

“The true purpose of these tests is to conjure up an image — a distorted image — of exclusivity and a supposed pursuit towards an intellectual purity which, under casual inspection, is not borne out in the sliding scale acceptance of transfer grades into selective schools.”

Both Mrs Darling and Mr Morgan are members of the Catholic Principals’ Association, which has this week issued a letter about the wider disappointment felt by 230 schools about the change of guidance.

Urging the Minister to clarify how all children will have equal access to the primary curriculum if teachers are allowed to coach some for the transfer test during school hours, principals warn through the letter that it is important to remember that all children have a statutory right to access learning at a level appropriate to their needs and abilities.

“We believe that these guidelines, issued by the Minister and Department of Education, at the beginning of a new school term, will only cause further uncertainty and confusion for parents, school leaders and pupils,” the public letter states.

“Moreover, it has potential to damage the education of children in our schools and do longterm damage to the system of education free.

“The implication from the guidelines that the needs of some pupils should be prioritised at the expense of others, is incompatible with the inclusive nature of our schools and is a direct challenge to our Catholic ethos.”