Caitriona Ruane appears unable to read English or calculate simple maths
Caitriona Ruane appears unable to read English or calculate simple maths
http://www.deni.gov.uk/index/85-schools/10-types_of_school-nischools_pg/16-schools-integratedschools_pg/16_schools_-_types_of_school_criteria_pg.htm
A new integrated school must attract 30% of its pupils from the minority community in the area where the school is situated.
Existing schools, transforming to integrated status, must demonstrate the ability to achieve a minimum of 10% of their 1st year intake drawn from the minority tradition (Protestant or Roman Catholic) within the school’s enrolment and the potential to achieve a minimum of 30% in the longer term.
If Antrim’s local unionist representatives, including the Democratic Unionist Party’s Rev William McCrea MP, MLA had any concern for the controlled sector they would have expressed outrage over the expense, method and misinformation surrounding the “transformation” of the last remaining secondary school in Antrim. The Ulster Unionist Party are even more culpable since two councillors, including Antrim’s Lord Mayor, Adrian Watson, sat on the Board of Governors of Parkhall College during the period.
The North Eastern Education & Library Board and Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education senior officials were responsible for the development proposal submitted to the DENI. They must be held to account for their misinformation campaign that resulted in a school gaining transformation status on the basis of 2.2% of pupils coming from the minority community.
Less than 5 pupils will do nicely
Parkhall College: FOI revelations continue on transformation
November 19, 2009
The Minister of Education, Caitriona Ruane granted conditional approval in May 2009 for the development proposal of the NEELB to transform Parkhall College in Antrim.
The Board of Governors of the school had conducted an unprecedented FOUR ballots of parents in order to eventually obtain the necessary condition.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request made by PACE to the Department of Education in October it was revealed that;
”in 2009/10 the total enrolment of Catholics was 2.2%. The number of Catholics in year 8 is under 5. The percentage therefore would be disclosive and cannot be published.”
DENI Development Branch
Parkhall Integration: the cold hard facts
Despite the inability of the NEELB,NICIE and the Board of Governors of Parkhall to attract pupils from the Catholic community contrary to their claims of parental demand the Board of Governors of Parkhall have changed the name of the school.
Parkhall Integrated School: the predetermined outcome
The website establishment was a decision of the Board of Governors but not communicated to parents until last week
No mention of the Board of Governors on this website.
Incas Tests: software altered at the request of CCEA and DENI before the system failure.
November 18, 2009
When PACE were contacted by parents concerned about the results of Incas assessments given to them during parent/teacher meetings they undertook to write to the CEM at Durham University, CCEA and the DENI.
The first response from CEM Incas staff was unexpected and raised further concerns. Queries on Incas were being directed to CCEA, the Northern Ireland Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment who had recommended to the DENI that the software use become mandatory for use in primary schools.
The initial correspondence from CEM at Durham University stated:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“If you have any specific queries about InCAS, Paul Wright at the Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment would be the best person to help you, pwright@ccea.org.uk. “
Amanda Mayman, Project Coordinator, PIPS & InCAS Projects Tel: 01913344220 Fax: 01913344180
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Since CCEA were not understood to be the software owners this re-direction of concerns to CCEA seemed inappropriate and an attempt to downplay rising concerns.
Further contact with CEM at Durham University resulted in the following received on November 3rd, 2009
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________-
Dear Mr Elliott,
Amanda Mayman forwarded your query to CCEA last week and someone from there will be contacting you to discuss your questions.
Dr Christine Merrell, Acting Primary Director,
CEM, Durham University,Mountjoy Research Centre, Durham, DH1 3UZ. Tel. 0191 3344226
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The following correspondence was received by PACE from CEM at Durham University on November 17th, 2009
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Mr Elliott,
Many thanks for your interest in InCAS. Your email has been passed on to me to respond to.
CCEA are not the owners of the InCAS software. InCAS was an existing assessment system that, upon the recommendation of CCEA, was adopted for use by the Western Education & Library Board and C2k, with the approval of the Department of Education.
The terms of the grant of license for InCAS are as follows:
’Installation and Use. Durham University grants you the right to install and use multiple copies of InCAS on your computers running validly licensed copies of the operating system for which InCAS was designed [e.g., Windows(r) 95; Windows(r) 98; Windows NT(r) etc.] within your institution.
Neither information distributed throughout the year for use with InCAS nor information generated by InCAS (be it numerical or graphical) may be published in any manner or form outside your institution without the express permission of Durham University.’
While InCAS was an existing assessment, under the terms of the contract we undertook to adapt it to better fit the requirements of the curriculum in Northern Ireland. With the introduction of this bespoke version of InCAS in Northern Ireland – including the provision of training to teachers – arranged by CCEA, it was agreed that all queries relating to the use of InCAS in Northern Ireland schools would be best dealt with by CCEA themselves.
I hope this provides a satisfactory answer to your questions from 27 October but please let me know if you have additional questions. However, as indicated above, CCEA may be able to provide a more complete response.
Mark Wightman, Operations Manager, CEM
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It now becomes clear that CCEA had contracted to take complete control of the Incas assessment system that they recommended for procurement to the DENI, CCEA sought alterations to the software and when the software failed CCEA took control of the information provided to schools, principals, teachers, parents and the media via their press releases downplaying the extent of the problem. In summary CCEA took absolute control of the information management around a product owned by a third party. It is remarkable that the local media swallowed the explanation whole. Perhaps they were preoccupied with unregulated tests instead of the flawed taxpayer-funded Incas Assessment system.
No GCSE English or Maths required: the Northern Ireland Education Minister’s slide towards Entitlement
November 17, 2009
Northern Ireland Assembly
Monday 16 November 2009
Ministerial Statement:
Together Towards Entitlement
I have quoted many statistics in this House in the past, but I remind Members that, two years ago, 12,000 people left our schools without a GCSE in English or maths. That is a very high number; it represented 47% of school leavers. We need to take a good, hard look at the policies that the Department brings forward because they are already making a difference and will continue to do so. Focusing on underachievement will bring about changes in our system and will create equality and academic excellence for all.
The policy of the DENI which does not require pupils to take GCSEs in English/Irish or Mathematics should be the first thing that Minister Ruane and her Permanent Secretary, William Haire should look at. Concurrently the entire Assembly should ask themselves what sort of education entitlement allows pupils to avoid measurement of their numeracy and literacy skills.
http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/record/reports2009/091116today.htm#3
AQE and QUB Professor Tony Gallagher blame politicians for educationalists’ failure on 11-plus solutions
November 16, 2009
The voice of AQE and the GBA
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield and Professor Tony Gallagher were interviewed on BBC Good Morning Ulster after the first of the five unregulated tests to determine entry into grammar school in Northern Ireland.
The problem rather than the solution?
What they failed to admit during the interview were a number of important points for parents.
The AQE developed their CEA tests and offered them as a common exam for all grammar schools. This was rejected by the Catholic Voluntary grammar schools who set up an arrangement with GL Assessment thereby creating the necessity for pupils to take up to five tests.
- Sir Kenneth Bloomfield’s school, Inst, is a member of the Governing Bodies Association, an organisation claiming to be the representative body for all voluntary grammar schools. Sir Kenneth Bloomfield has been a spokesperson for the GBA on many occasions. Yet GBA schools operate two separate exam systems. Parents will naturally wonder which of the two testing systems is better since they cannot be the same.
- Sir Kenneth told BBC listeners that negotiations were ongoing to agree one common test for next year. He neglected to inform listeners that members of the GBA were split deliberately in order that two tests were imposed upon the very pupils that AQE and GBA claim to be concerned about.
- Tony Gallagher cited his concern over those not entered for the entrance exams. For someone charged with responsibility for the School of Education at Queen’s University perhaps he should have considered the possibility that their parents were actually content with the choice for a secondary school. PACE have previously highlighted Professor Gallagher’s contradictory position on academic selection and in particular (s)election at 14, the latest phase in the plan to impose comprehensive schools in Northern Ireland.
- Tony Gallagher once again attempted to blame politicians for their failure to implement his advice to government. Perhaps the politicians should use their powers to examine Professor Gallagher to the same level of scrutiny as the unregulated tests given his anti-selection background and contradictory advice.
GCSE questions “easier than old 11-plus”
November 15, 2009
The Royal Society
In a shocking revelation in the Sunday Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6917210.ece a report was passed to the government in July, only a few weeks before GCSE results were released, when Balls accused critics of exam standards of “rubbishing the achievements of young people”.
The government-backed study has undermined claims by Ed Balls, the schools secretary, that GCSE standards have been maintained, by showing that some science papers include questions so simple that they require no knowledge of the subject.
Sir Martin Taylor, vice-president of the Royal Society, Britain’s foremost scientific body said:
“If we have science exams that do not test the quality of mathematics needed to do good science, or if we have questions that do not require scientific knowledge to answer them, then we do not have an examination system that is fit for purpose.”
The findings also demonstrated that examination boards were allowing scientifically wrong answers to be marked as correct and that maths was only being tested “in a very limited way”.
"No knowledge required"
Sir Cyril would be aghast at the policy of the Department of Education in Northern Ireland which has removed the statutory requirement for pupils to take GCSE English/Irish or Maths but has made it compulsory for primary school pupils to be assessed using a flawed assessment system form the CEM Centre at the University of Durham.
11-plus practice papers
Richard Pike, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said the maths paper was easier than 11+ practice papers from 1960 with which he had compared it.
“That is an extraordinary indictment of the current UK education system,” said Pike. “We cannot continue to live the lie of ever-increasing standards while businesses struggle to recruit staff with numeracy skills, or who understand the quantitative basis of science.”
Richard Pike, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry
The Sinn Fein and PUP anti-academic selection position criticised by National Grammar Schools Association
November 14, 2009
The ideological positions of republican and unionist political parties in Northern Ireland on academic selection and grammar schools has been dissected by the chairman of the National Grammar Schools Association, Robert McCartney QC during an interview on the BBC Daily Politics Show. (at about 14 mins in)
National Grammar Schools Association Chairman
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nz1sz/The_Daily_Politics_13_11_2009/
The interview and discussion on the Northern Ireland selective system was broadcast on the day prior to the first unregulated 11-plus transfer tests. It pitted the Education Minister’s pointman Sinn Fein’s John O’Dowd against Robert McCartney QC former MP and MLA, since retired from politics. Mr McCartney is the current chairman of the National Grammar Schools Association http://ngsa.org.uk Mr McCartney highlighted the absurdity of those paramilitary groups with links to political parties such as Sinn Fein and the IRA and the Progressive Unionist Pary and the UVF, both of whom wreaked havoc, terrorised and murdered the parents of primary school pupils. Mr McCartney pointed out that their political leaders now claim to be looking after the interests of socio-economically deprived children by abolishing grammar schools and academic selection. The NGSA leader suggested to BBC viewers that this claim is the ultimate ironic claim from terrorists.
Selection at 14: A Black Day for Tony Gallagher, so-called experts, and the Education Minister
November 14, 2009
Having subjected Northern Ireland parents to a decade of disruption and confusion over the selective system of education in Northern Ireland Professor Tony Gallagher and Professor Alan Smith have been reduced to becoming mere commentators for the Belfast Telegraph. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/post-primary-selection/experts-offer-ten-ways-to-resolve-the-transfer-muddle-14562283.html
It will hardly escape the notice of most that while Professor Gallagher and the Belfast Telegraph are calling for Caitriona Ruane to “Sit Down and Sort it Out” it is Professor Gallagher’s advice and research to the DENI that created the mess in the first place.
Compare and contrast the statements from Prof T. Gallagher made this week to the research he was paid for delivering to the DENI in 1998.
”A decade of debate has produced no consensus, only a self-interested battle of wills between the Minister and the grammar lobby in which the only losers are our children. The chaos must not be allowed to continue. St Andrews means responsibility for re-establishing a regulated system rests with the DUP and Sinn Fein. Can we end the injustice of early, high stakes selection and preserve the academic traditions of the grammar schools? Some form of selection at age 14 fits with the revised Northern Ireland Curriculum and with collaboration in area learning communities. It can advance the goal of making every school a good school, and give every child genuine curriculum choice and a guarantee of a high quality education.
If the politicians don’t buy this, then let them take no more than three years to come up with an alternative agreed solution and, in the interim, establish a simplified system of selection at 11 which restricts grammar schools to grade A pupils only. This will give all schools the stability they need to educate our children, while our elected representatives face their responsibility to prove that shared government can in fact work.”
Professor Tony Gallagher, Head Of School Of Education at Queen’s University, Belfast Telegraph November 13,2009
“the researchers have concluded that the evidence of this study does not suggest that it provides a better alternative to the 11+ system used throughout the rest of Northern Ireland. In particular, the evidence does not suggest that the two-tier system provides a better educational experience for less able pupils than the 11+ system.”
Title: An evaluation of the Craigavon Two-Tier System RB 6/1998 Issue date: Nov-1998
Instead of parroting the flawed and contradictory views of Professor Gallagher the entire political body of MLAs and those omnipresent ”education experts” should hold him to account for his flawed analysis. Professor Gallagher seems more concerned with propping up the Assembly mandatory coalition than admitting his role in helping to undermine and destroy and education system that worked for the vast majority.
PACE have previously pointed out CCEAs adroitness with burying bad news.
After the recent failures of the CEM Incas assessment software the Minister of Education sought an explanation. Since parents and pupils were those most directly affected by the errors it would seem only right that they had an opportunity to attend any briefing at the Assembly Education Committee.
CCEA seem to have the Education Committee under control as the following images show:
48 hours notice isn’t good enough.
Next time check the facts…
October 29, 2009
Next time check your facts
Perhaps the Education Minister for Northern Ireland, Caitriona Ruane will have a meeting with Gavin Boyd of the ESA to discuss the failures of the CEM Incas assessment system that she assured had parents was quality assured. Mr Boyd build his publicly financed business on claims of quality assurance. Those assertions are now in tatters with parental confidence in CCEA-approved assessments destroyed. Mr Boyd would now benefit from a dose of his own advice given when the pseudo-science of the enriched curriculum was criticised… “Next time check the facts”
http://www.rewardinglearning.org.uk/newsroom/press/2006/press_170506.asp
