Sir Kenneth Bloomfield drops pretence on grammar school unity

“The AQE has never been in the business of forcing anyone to do anything they do not want. If any individual grammar school wants to drop selection, that is up to them.”

Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, Chairman of the Association for Quality Education

Exactly what business is the AQE involved in? The AQE’s recent spending of money, obtained from grammar school entrance tests, on advertisements instead of providing statements and interviews from headmasters and teachers with their local newspapers smacks of misguided influences.

Are schools such as Portora Royal, Strathern and Methodist College ready to abandon academic selection?

Grammar School heads implicated in sell-out plans

 

While various organisations in Northern Ireland such as The Governing Bodies Association (GBA) and The Association for Quality Education (AQE) have claimed to represent parental views on the issue of academic selection and grammar schools their sister grouping in England have been “outed” by The National Grammar Schools Association (NGSA) http://www.ngsa.org.uk

 The NGSA was formed in the 1970s. It is a non-political, not-for-profit organisation supported by parents, school governors, heads, teachers, educationists and others, all concerned with the retention and promotion of the UK’s grammar schools as a valuable choice for parents.

Interestingly almost all of the 69 grammar schools in Northern Ireland declined an invitation to join this influential body when members of the NGSA co-hosted a symposium at Stormont a number of years ago and extended invitations to show strength in numbers. Perhaps local principals were already aware of the plans to destroy grammar schools in Northern Ireland and were cooperating fully with the DENI on implementing the rationalisation and comprehensive model.  The roles of the former head of Methodist College, Belfast Wilfred Mulryne, Inst’s first female head, Janet Williamson, Ballymena Academy principal, Ronnie Hazzard and Neill Morton of Portora Royal School in Enniskillen  are worthy of examination and critical review. 

Read the quote from Shaun Fenton , Head of the successful and popular Pates Grammar School to understand that principals may have conflicted positions and say one thing to government while posing a very opposite position to parents and governors.

(Times Educational Supplement, 3 July 2009, p10)

http://www.ngsa.org.uk/news-2009-03.php

“Before its official launch, the new Grammar Schools Heads Association(exclusive only to heads)  had already been working with the Sutton Trust and holding meetings with the Department for Children, Schools and Families…  Mr Shaun Fenton , Head of Pates Grammar School said the launch of the association was not timed with an eye on a general election within the next year. He said it would not be campaigning to save schools, such as St Bernard’s Catholic Grammar in Slough, Berkshire, that are slated for closure. ‘We support grammar schools as part of a diverse provision of education’, Mr Fenton said. ‘But if it works locally for a grammar school to become an academy [which must be comprehensive], that is a decision to be made locally. Gradual evolution is fine.’”

More bad press for Sir Kenneth Bloomfield

Despite his panicked effort  in the Newsletter 

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/politics/Schools39-body-denies-39chaos39-claim.4990126.jp

 to deny the incompetence of the AQE ,Sir Kenneth Bloomfield is not able to rally his school principal troops to rush to his defence. Indeed Portora Royal School and Ballymena Academy, members of the GBA have chosen a verbal reasoning test in place of Sir Kenneth’s CEA. Patricia Slevin of Victoria College has gone  much further that Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, patron of the Integrated Education Fund, and has announced that the girls grammar with a similar intake profile will offer both tests!

To cap off her integrationist credentials Patricia Slevin has introduced Gaelic games to the genteel ladies school. A fawning  BBC reporter even went so far as to tip the school for the McKenna Cup in a few years. A descent into chaos some claim, it now has descended into farce.

Ruane’s enthusiasm and determinism and obvious relish in her job as Minister of Education, have added a whole new dimension to Northern Ireland’s gloomy political climate. She has galvanised 11 plus abolitionists. Grammar school lobbyists seem to be in disarray. Association for Quality Education (AQE) president, Sir Ken Bloomfield claims that 31 grammar schools have signed up for an ‘unregulated’ common entrance exam. But as Caitriona points out, entrance tests are nonsense when so many grammars are already failing to fill their quotas – or soon will be.

Fortnight Magazine Issue 463  Shared Education for All