AQE and GL Assessment Tests:Attempts to confuse parents over a common test
September 25, 2010
Damaged image
This advertisement appeared in the Antrim Guardian last week three days before the closing date for parents/guardians applying for this year’s 11-plus entry tests.
Of immediate note is that the three schools mentioned, Ballymena Academy, Slemish College and St Louis Grammar School are all members of the Post Primary Transfer Consortium (PPTC).
There is no mention of this important fact in the advertisement. The PPTC commissioned GL Assessment to provide the multiple choice tests for which they paid approx £350,000. The group then claimed that the tests were “free”. Finbar McCallion of the GBA spend time over the summer trying to convince the public that a common test would result.
The advert in the Antrim Guardian makes no mention of the PPTC, GL Assessment or the fact that the tests are multiple choice. The reason underpinning this reticence is that behind the scenes the GBA, the Governing Bodies Association are attempting to persist with the fallacy that a common or single tests will unite the two groups the AQE and the PPTC. Nothing could be further from the truth. The two tests only came about when the PPTC and the Catholic schools majority of the GBA refused to offer the AQE tests to their schools. In effect the 11-plus transfer system was both sectarianised and devalued. It should be remembered that the Catholic hierarchy have committed to end academic selection in their schools by 2012. Any multiple choice exam based on the revised curriculum serves the PPTC purposes but in effect misleads AQE parents and according to one well placed source “devalues education”.
The individual behind the false claim of a common test is Finbar McCallion, former headmaster and GBA chairman. Mr McCallion promoted the Education First campaign.The campaign, set up by the Governing Bodies Association (GBA), was officially launched at the Linenhall Library in Belfast. Finbar McCallion, chairman of the Governing Bodies Association, said:
“We agree that the 11-plus must go but we accept that it is incumbent upon the main interests in this debate that we all have a responsibility to assist in the development of an alternative – one which best matches our children with the most appropriate education.”
In case MrMcCallion has missed the news due to illness in the family post The St Andrews Agreement – academic selection by valid and reliable testing remains legal for admission to grammar schools.
In 2002 the chairman of the GBA, representing grammar schools in Northern Ireland returned to his job following a so-called row over comments made by senior Catholic bishops.
Finbarr McCallion took the decision to withdraw his resignation from the Governing Bodies’ Association over the weekend after he received a unpublished letter from the bishops. (this letter remains secret).
“Mr McCallion stepped down last week after Bishop John McAreavey, chairman of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools, said that selection in schools should end as soon as possible.”
And Bishop Donal McKeown said that grammar schools could not continue in their current form, given an expected demographic downturn and low numbers.
Recently Mr McCallion has been aided in his efforts on a common test by Ronnie Hazzard of Ballymena Academy and Dermot Mullan of Our Lady & St Patrick’s College, Knock.
Good luck with that gents – parents are on to you.
AQE and GL Assessment tests and the GBA: Information for parents
While decisions over admission to grammar schools from last years tests have yet to be announced, the secrecy surrounded a group claiming to represent grammar schools (Parents – have you ever heard of or from them?) are busy making sure this year will be just as perplexing.
The BBC has carried accounts about the development of “one test” and allowed an expectation to flourish that such an outcome is possible. However the BBC have failed to differentiate between a single set of tests (a combining of those schools using AQE and GL as the test provider) and one exam instead of two or three.The facts and history prove otherwise.
Enter the role of the GBA. The Governing Bodies Association claim to represent the voluntary grammar schools. Exactly who represents your local grammar school and in what capacity is not made clear http://www.gbani.org/?tabindex=15&tabid=810
Transfer Test for 2010
The GBA have two secretaries, many spokesmen but no treasurer even though they demand membership fees. A claim from their website states:
It supports, in appropriate ways, Governors, Principals, Teachers, Pupils and Parents. Members work tirelessly on a voluntary basis for all young people in the province. To achieve its aims it interacts with the business, commerce, industry and other public services.
It fails to mention the close, some would say, intimate, relationship with the Minister of Education and the Office of the Permanent Secretary of the DENI. Hence the statement by Caitriona Ruane yesterday on BBC Radio Ulster that she was aware of full details of a recent meeting of the GBA held in Methodist College, Belfast , including the fact that there was no agreement on a single test.
There are 52 grammar schools eligible for membership but the entire state controlled grammar school sector are excluded.
No controlled grammar school input
Twice in the last month Finbar McCallion, Hon Secretary of the GBA, was interviewed on BBC Radio Ulster Good Morning Ulster. Mr McCallion raised the issue of the “one test” and spoke of a search for consensus on the basis of the specifications for the AQE and GL Assessment tests being “similar”. A specification for the GL Assessment test has yet to be disclosed to parents. How can a test be valid or reliable without a specification prepared in advance? Was Mr McCallion misleading parents and the public to avoid further difficulties for the Minister’s failed strategy prior to the General Election? How is that Mr McCallion can claim to have compared the two specifications? In what capacity did Mr McCallion have access to the GL Assessment specification ? Who are the Joint Commissioning Group he referred to on BBC Radio Ulster? Is he a member? Which schools have agreed to this arrangement?
PACE contacted GL Assessment requesting a copy in February and were referred on the basis of commercial confidence to the Post Primary Consortium. An FOI request to Ballymena Academy, a GBA member school using the GL Assessment test is still pending a response.
Mr McCallion implied to the listeners that the two testing providers were actively working on a common test. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr McCallion and fellow travellers such as Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, Wilfred Mulryne, Scott Naismith, David Manning seem willing to see all grammar schools go the way of the Catholic grammars, i.e. to comprehensive status. Hiding the intent behind descriptions such as “all ability, foundation, bipartite ” or otherwise does not change the essential fact that a school failing to use academic selection by testing at 11 is not legally a grammar school. Even the GBA managed to point this out to the Minister for Education. Why they waited so long to do still requires an answer.
The two GL Assessment multiple choice tests are not similar or comparable to the AQE CEA “constructed response” tests. That being so, the motivation for introducing GL Assessment tests, mainly by the Catholic schools, is raised. The question of who paid GL Assessment for the creation, trialling, administration and marking of the test has yet to be answered. The AQE test was available to all grammar schools. Two tests were introduced in order for the Catholic grammars to achieve a goal identified on Slugger O’Toole by one poster.
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/education-education-education1/
“generations of Catholics who were abandoned and left to rot by self righteous institutional sectarianism”
The catholic church chose to set up a parallel sectarian system, and the state disgracefully acceded.
State schools were always open to catholics, still are, which gets us to the real reason the catholic church will keep selection at least until it it ended in the state sector.
They don’t want catholics going to mixed grammar schools, where they are already very welcome, especially for the schools’ accountants.
on Mar 03, 2010 @ 07:34 AM
3 into 2 won’t go
