Northern Ireland’s Key Stage 3 literacy levels crash
December 17, 2009
The Parental Alliance for Choice in Education Northern Ireland Branch Press Release 17/09 Thursday, 17 December 2009
PACE has uncovered that in the last 2 years Northern Ireland’s Key Stage 3 literacy levels have crashed. The general decline in pupils’ attainment is best evidenced in the results obtained in English at Key Stage 3. Statistical figures obtained from the Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) demonstrate a year-on-year decline in the Levels of attainment obtained in the examinations. Key Stage 3 tests are taken by students in third year at post-primary school.
Selected Results of Northern Ireland Key Stage 3 Assessments 2004 – 2009 Source: CCEA: Key Stage 3 Assessment 2008/2009 NORTHERN IRELAND SUMMARY http://www.ccea.org.uk/ HOME » CURRICULUM » KEY STAGE 3 » Research and Statistics
The Direction of Change Data Source: http://www.ccea.org.uk/ Graph prepared by: the Parental Alliance for Choice in Education©2009
In an unexplained development the pupil absence figures for Key Stage testing have risen from a baseline of around 3% to a staggering 44.5% this year.
The Government examination body statistics also show that in recent years following the introduction of the revised curriculum Teacher Assessment predictions have overestimated the pupils’ actual results by a factor of two or more. (See Table above) The natural consequence is that both the parent and pupil will believe that satisfactory progress is being made and discover too late the truth of the matter after irreplaceable learning time has been lost.
In 2006 the decline in standards in literacy was critically highlighted by reports of the Northern Ireland Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee in Westminster. Responses by the Department of Education Permanent Secretary, Will Haire, promised to focus on improvement. (See DENI Circular 2007/11) The Circular states: “The Department of Education accords a high priority to literacy and numeracy in line with the revised Northern Ireland Curriculum and asks all teachers, at all key stages, to seek to promote literacy and numeracy in the classroom.” In February 2007 the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel issued a Memorandum on the 2nd and 3rd Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts Session 2006-2007. An abstract from the report states: “The creation of a new, single Education and Skills Authority (ESA) to support the school system from April 2008 will also have a positive impact on literacy and numeracy. The primary task of the ESA will be to work with schools to improve quality and raise standards across the system and to place literacy and numeracy at the centre of this responsibility.”
Instead of improvements the Key Stage 3 literacy levels have crashed. As parents can see from the CCEA figures the Department of Education has failed on this vital issue yet again. While the decline in pupils achieving Level 6 at KS3 has doubled over a five year period and the negative trend has almost tripled at Level 7 there has been no comment or concern raised from any quarter of the education establishment. The fact that none of the highly paid education watchdogs have reported that something has gone seriously wrong must reflect a degree of complacency over numeracy and literacy.
PACE believes the Revised Curriculum to be the chief suspect in the literacy decline. The questions must be put;
• What is going to be done to reverse this numeracy and literacy decline in schools before the betrayal of an entire generation of pupils in Northern Ireland becomes irreversible?
• When will those responsible for failed education initiatives be actually held to account?
11-plus critic possibly lining up replacement
April 12, 2009
Queen’s University,Belfast have issued the following Press Release. It is interesting that during the recent coverage of the 11-plus replacement debacle that none of the informed journalists thought it worthwile to report this. Parents will recall that John Gardner was CCEA’s expert on-call for the Assessment Reform Group which gave schools Pupil Profiles and Incas instead of exams, results and objective reports of progress.
http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/TheUniversity/GeneralServices/News/PressReleases/Title,145700,en.html
The man with his hated 11-plus replacement?
How the Department of Education misleads
March 11, 2009
During her announcement denying parents a regulated measure of their child’s attainment at primary school the education minister stated:
“I will not do it. The test has been cancelled,”
“To simply make a test available and not have a legal framework to define its use would be highly |irresponsible.”
Caitriona Ruane MLA , Minister for Education Northern Ireland Assembly
March 10,2009
On 16th May 2008 the promise to parents was very different.
NI’s education minister has faced the assembly’s education committee about her plans for primary school transfer.
Caitríona Ruane aims to extend academic selection for three years before ending it.
It will take the form of one hour-long test of literacy and numeracy, and it will be held in a grammar school.
The Minister sent instructions through the Permanent Secretary, Will Haire, outlining how CCEA were to proceed.
Asked for the specification under the Freedom of Information Act the CCEA refused.
In early February the Minister withdrew her “regulated test” costing the taxpayer over £100,000
So who’s being irresponsible Minister Ruane?
Testing Apartheid for 11-plus replacement
December 23, 2008
Mrs O’Boyle , a teacher said ,
“ like everyone else, have been waiting impatiently for twelve months, to hear the details of Ms Ruane’s elusive ‘proposals’ and so far, all we have been served up are platitudes about how much she cares for children.”
Mrs O’Boyle said Ms Ruane was
”a woman who either preaches or harangues”
and attacked her espousal of the education system in the Republic of Ireland — while she sends her children across the border from her Louth home to a grammar school in Northern Ireland- untill she left.
Referring to the announcement that the Association for Quality Education (AQE), that it intended to set up its own transfer process-
“She has presided over the privatisation of selection by allowing the AQE enough time to advance their proposals, and, like Lumen Christi College in Derry, other Catholic grammar schools will follow suit, or risk catholic children opting to do the entrance tests to the voluntary grammars.”
So parents will be faced by two tests and forced to choose from Association for Quality Education (AQE) test- private and costly -the other NFER Catholic test – free but inferior and invalid.
A struggle is ongoing as the two sectarian groups of grammar schools decide on which test they will stick with. The losers, as ever, will be the parents and pupils forced to endure an apartheid testing system for entry into gramar schools.
More to follow.
