Parents win in battle to provide more selective school places.
Kent County Council overwhelmingly backed a 2,600-plus name petition demanding a boost in grammar school places in Sevenoaks to meet high demand.
Perhaps John O’Dowd and other “educational experts” in Northern Ireland need reminding of the Martin McGuinness instigated Department of Education Household Survey of 2002 in which the majority of respondents told the Sinn Fein DENI Minister that they wished to retain the 11-plus and academic selection.
The difference in the two campaigns is the fact that 200,551 respondents took part in the Household Survey and yet John O’Dowd persists in his bullying campaign to try to eradicate grammar schools.
Northern Ireland still has a very popular 11-plus testing system – the good news is that it is out of Minister O’Dowd’s reach.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/311220/Council-may-back-grammar-school-bid
Parents alarmed at an urgent meeting between ESAIT, CCEA and the BELB chief executives……
March 24, 2012
Gavin Boyd posing as Chief Executive of ESAIT, CCEA and BELB
The Belfast Telegraph announced Friday March 23rd, 2012 that Gavin Boyd was “good value” for taxpayers’ money.
A meeting of the Chief Executives of ESA, CCEA, the Curriculum and Exams body and the BELB, the Belfast Education & Library Board would effectively mean Gavin Boyd in a mirrored room talking to himself. Instead of outrage at the very idea of such nonsense, the Belfast Telegraph promote such extravagance in a time of austerity as “good value”. Perhaps they may wish to pick up the tab for this inefficiency. No matter how Gavin Boyd slices up the bacon on this porker the most he dedicate to each job is one third of full-time – an indictment which even our political representatives have been forced to address. Will the Belfast Telegraph now apologise to all those politicians they tried holding to account?
Northern Ireland Education Minister issues gaffe press release: Remedial English lesson required.
March 13, 2012
John O’ Dowd, Education Minister for Northern Ireland issued a Press Release via the N I Direct Executive web site announcing his decision for the future of assessment at GCSE level.
Unfortunately for the hapless Sinn Fein representative the extent to which the Minister is not fit for purpose is revealed in the content of his PR. Announcing an increased emphasis on punctuation, grammar and spelling, Mr O’ Dowd includes a spelling mistake for good measure. The mistake was contained in a paragraph referencing O’Dowd’s equivalent post-holder and political nemesis in England, the Secretary of state for Education.
One may only assume that someone prepared the press release, someone proofed it and the minister actually read it prior to publication. On the other hand…..
Warning for Parents: School League Tables & their Limitations – the DENI ignore evidence.
March 9, 2012
Absent a willingness or ability of the Detail.tv and the Belfast Telegraph to address the DENI data on pupil performance at GCSE and A-Level, Paceni offers a warning to the DENI and some reassurance to parents.
League tables and their limitations in the comparison of institutional performance such as schools is not a new issue. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2983325?uid=3738032&uid=2134&uid=372782467&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=60&uid=372782457&sid=47698738446577
Martin McGuinness banned such tables when he was Education Minister in the 1990s but his party colleague John O’Dowd has reintroduced them via the media to persist in the attack on academic selection and grammar schools. However no reference has been made by any education correspondent to an important paper published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society in 1996.
John O’Dowd and the DENI have a statistics and research branch http://www.deni.gov.uk/index/32-statisticsandresearch_pg.htm but it would seem that they ignore warnings provided by those who cautioned against the inappropriate use of data to compare schools. The reason is quite clear. Mr O’Dowd is stepping up his attack on grammar schools for political and ideological purposes. Unfortunately other political representatives are colluding with O’Dowd in order to panic and decieve parents. If the DENI have a response to Harvey Goldstein and david Spiegelhalter the world would be delighted to examine it.
“All documents should be checked for personal information before being made available on a website. This case also highlights the importance of organisations having comprehensive data protection training in place for all staff.
“It is vital that schools, colleges and universities introduce robust systems to handle their pupils’ information on electronic and paper based systems in compliance with the Data Protection Act and we will continue to work with those in the education sector to ensure they are keeping young peoples’ details secure.”
If there was ever a need to answer the persistently wrong and ideologically failed attack on academic selection by 11-plus testing carried out by the DENI, an answer to an Assembly Question by a Sinn Fein MLA gives a resounding response.
The Question
| AQW 6202/11-15 | Mr Daithí McKay (SF – North Antrim) |
|
It is little wonder that there were no press releases, planted media articles or angst-filled human interest stories obediently spewed up using words and phrases such as child abuse, stress-laden, difficult, morally wrong, scandalous. The DENI have known since the Household Survey of 2002 that the majority of parents want valid and reliable transfer testing at 11. Their miserable decade long campaign has resulted in failure but the DENI promote failure by denying the taxpayers their right to regulated testing and then object to and hamper those who suceed in doing their work for them. If an example of promoting failure is required then linking the ending of regulated transfer tests to the promotion of the multi-jobbing ESA Chief Execuive may be a good place to start.
Also note that there has been no effort by the unionist parties to highlight the response to AQW 6202/ 11-15. This may be explained by their secret desire to see the issue of transfer testing disappear or perhaps they don’t read answers that don’t refer to themselves.
The Answer
One written complaint was received by the Western Education and Library Board in the last three years in relation to a primary school in that area preparing its pupils for unregulated transfer tests. No written complaints were received by any of the other boards during that period and records are not kept of any verbal complaints.
Early warning for parents about Gavin Boyd
March 3, 2012
For parents who want to know more about the background to concerns about Gavin Boyd’s triple-jobbing influence the following article published by The Belfast Telegraph on 22nd December 2008 is worth reading. Note also the two published comments that follow the article.
READ THIS BELFAST TELEGRAPH OPINION
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/robert-mccartney-black-mark-against-reforms-14117979.html
Gavin Boyd becomes triple-jobbber
March 3, 2012
Rosemary Rainey, chairperson announced Mr Gavin Boyd as the Interim Chief Executive of the Belfast Education and Library Board to fill the void left by the resignation of the former Chief Executive on February 29th, 2012. No reason for the resignation was disclosed. The PR states that no addition remuneration will be paid on top of the £145,000+ salary that Mr Boyd currently earns.
If the Executive believe that Mr Boyd is the best candidate to fill the role at BELB instead of asking someone else to act up then it follows that the chief executives of all the other ELBs should be fired and the monies saved ploughed back into the schools budget.
Meanwhile meatings of the ELBs Chief Executives could take place in a mirrored room with Gavin Boyd talking to himself and then emerging to tell the media of his decisions. Oops – with him holding three influential positions in education despite a string of failures the MLAs had better hope he does not enter politics.
CCEA promise change on tougher GCSEs: Will CCEA deliver?
February 27, 2012
http://www.rewardinglearning.org.uk/newsroom/2012/240212.asp
On Friday February 24th, 2012 CCEA issued a Press Release after Ofqual announced that GCSEs in English Literature, Maths, History and Geography would be made more rigorous. This statement contrasts with Education Minister, John O’Dowd’s recent statement that CCEA would not follow the English model. Clearly fears over the equivalence issue have resulted in a rapid rethink.
Bishop Donal McKeown of theNorthern Ireland Commission for Catholic Education and former headmaster of St Malacy’s College, Belfast appeared on The Sunday Politics Show on February 19th, 2010. The commission on Catholic education has already said the practice should not continue after 2012. During the interview with Tara Mills of the BBC the Bishop reinforced the Catholic Trustees intention to end academic selection to grammar schools despite a failure to deliver this objective by 2012, as promised.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01c2tlp/ Watch from 31 mins and listen to how Bishop McKeown expresses his concern for the schools of North Belfast. Then check out the table of results at GCSE for the grammar and secondary school in the area.
Bishop McKeown had stated to the Belfast Telegraph on July 12, 2010
“Catholic schools have been forced to move ahead with plans to radically reform the post-primary system across Northern Ireland because of the political vacuum at Stormont. Bishop McKeown also said action must be taken to improve the education system here, which currently does exceptionally well for a minority but “terribly badly for others”.
Exactly how terribly bad did Donal mean? The results in the table below compare differences between those pupils obtaining GCSEs without English & Maths and those pupils obtaining GCSEs including English & Maths and provide evidence of the deception. The Entitlement Framework is a deception practiced on young pupils, many of whom are disadvantaged. The deception sold by teachers and schools pretends that the qualifications obtained from a wide range subject choices have an equivalent value or merit. The reality is very different.
So Catholic schools, wherever they exist, would claim to be offering Catholic education and not just an educational separateness for ethnic Catholics.”
Bishop McKeown is Auxiliary Bishop of Down and Connor and Chair of the Northern Ireland Commission for Catholic Education. NICCE represents the Trustees of all primary and secondary Catholic schools in Northern Ireland.
Catholic schools, grammar and secondary have average enrolment of over 99% Catholics.
Read the table below very carefully when making decisions about which school to enrol your child.
Data obtained through a Freedom of Information request of the Department of Education.
| School | 7+ GCSE A* – C | 7+ GCSE A* – Cwith Eng & Maths | 5+ GCSE A* – C | 5+ GCSE A* – Cwith Eng & Maths |
| Boys Model | 32 | 21 | 51 | 24.5 |
| Girls Model | 56.4 | 23.1 | 71.8 | 23.1 |
| St Patrick’s | 13.1 | 10.3 | 34.6 | 19.6 |
| Little Flower | 42 | 20 | 60 | 20 |
| Dominican College | 88.6 | 87.2 | 96.6 | 91.3 |
| St. Malachy’s College | 82 | 79.9 | 94.2 | 88.5 |
| Belfast Royal Academy | 88 | 87.6 | 94.7 | 93.3 |
| Methodist College | 97.4 | 96.2 | 99.2 | 97.4 |
Source Detail.tv via DENI
