The Confusion within AQE Be careful on Open Night

This quote was made by the Chairman of the Association for Quality Education Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: “We in the AQE have always appreciated that we can call something a grammar school but if there’s no form of academic testing at all then there’s no grammar school at all”

Now since this group have abandoned support for the 11-plus and only about a dozen of their member schools intend to use the new academic admission test it is only right that those schools who are not going to use the replacement 11-plus announce to parents and the public that they have turned their grammar school comprehensive 

The AQE must thin its member ranks immediately unless of course it intends to deliver the government’s policy through incremental conversion of  grammar schools through the consent of heads against the wishes of parents.

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A Response to Attack on Grammar Schools in The Irish News

Simon Doyle (‘Pro-selection schools among worst performing grammars’; Irish News Jan 11) displays an overt sectarian attitude in his article highlighting the academic performance of grammar schools. In attempting to link a pro-selection stance with suggested underperformance in academic achievement by rank order in non-Catholic grammars Mr Doyle avoids important facts and misses the bigger picture.

The first and most significant point is that any school not placing academic selection as the first criteria for entry is not a grammar school. Faith school perhaps, grammar no. Therefore the aim in naming pro-selection schools was to rob the public of a much more potent message. Those schools not favouring a test of attainment at primary school are no longer entitled to describe them selves as grammar schools. This list includes the entire Catholic or denominational grammar school group. Faith may be used to control access to Catholic schools, including increased baptisms among lapsed Catholics but the DENI figures explode any claims about Catholic schools being integrating never mind integrated. Perhaps some revelations on how future access to these schools will be determined in the absence of an objective 11-plus entrance test will be detailed by their Trustees. At the moment the schools are almost 100% Catholic in intake with many Catholic parents choosing to send their children to other voluntary schools such as Methodist College (which does not now support academic selection) and Belfast Royal Academy (which does) in order to obtain a grammar school education. Roman Catholicism may not be the number one criteria for Catholic parents in choosing an education provider – a grammar school education, blind to religious or social status, is. No matter what way the DENI evidence is unbundled to make an anti grammar school case by Mr Doyle the simple truth remains that 75% of grammar school pupils attain 3+ A-levels while the corresponding figure for secondaries and so-called comprehensives is less than 17.5%. Will the revised curriculum improve those figures? No. Only by robbing Peter to pay Paul can the equality of results agenda be achieved. Only through removing choice and with the active collusion of grammar principals and governors can the DENI and bureaucrats succeed .

Fifteen (15) times more pupils leave secondary schools without any formal qualifications than in grammar schools- figuress which will get worse as evidence from jurisdictions operating the comprehensive model shows. Since the critics of grammar schools, many of them beneficiaries of the system, cite the admission of C and D grades as a reason to abandon selective schooling.

The Catholic Church seems to support a position where protection of their sectoral interests is paramount even if that involves the sacrifice of the principal of academic selection. At the moment there may be less social selection in the Catholic grammars and while academic attainment is roughly comparable between all grammars this position will change if academic selection is abandoned. Cardinal Brady, in a private meeting with me, indicated his desire for social justice for all schoolchildren. Backing a plan to further isolate schoolchildren by removing academic selection indicates the extent to which protectionism is valued. St Joseph’s Grammar in Stoke, a Catholic selective school has fought a stellar campaign against the local authority’s plan to close the school. It was a fiery principal (who happens to come from Northern Ireland) and a parental body uniting and working together which drew national attention to the plight of the school. The main aim was to preserve an academically high-performing school from being replaced with a new school in which standards would drop on the basis that academic selection is outlawed in new schools. Does this sound like a prophetic story? One important difference is that St Joseph’s takes a significant percentage of non Catholic pupils.
The second point that Mr Doyle omitted (since I am sure is aware of it) is that CCEA do not have any expertise in item writing or test designing. CCEA are nothing more that the Curriculum and Assessment elements of their grandiose title. Nfer and teachers perform the key functions around the tests-CCEA merely act as administrators. It is important to bear in mind that Gavin Boyd, former chief executive of CCEA, was a member of the Costello Working Party which had responsibility for suggesting replacements and alternatives for the 11-plus. Mr Boyd knew from the outset that there was to be no replacement, no alternative tests were ever commissioned or trialled by CCEA yet now when the wheels are coming off the unaccountable progressives education bandwagon urgent deadlines are announced about decisions on testing. Meanwhile Mr Boyd has secured himself the position of leading the entire education future for Northern Ireland as head of the Education and Skills Authority (ESA) while leaving a trail of disasters behind him. The 11-plus debacle, the revised curriculum, the unethical Shankill enriched curriculum experiment and a failed numeracy and literacy strategy are just a few examples of his legacy at CCEA. These have cost the taxpayers millions without a single shread of evidence of success.

CCEA and the sectarian secret

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Catholic Church, CCEA, Gavin Boyd, Irish News

Reform of Northern Ireland schools – another attack on all that Protestants hold dear?

It must surely puzzle outsiders that grammar schools of Protestant and Catholic ethos adopt opposite positions on selection at 11.  The SDLP, Sinn Fein and the Catholic Church oppose selection and embrace the Revised Curriculum while the DUP and Ulster Unionists see a continued role for grammar schools.  It is striking that there are no Catholic grammars among the 25 grammar schools who propose setting their own entrance tests in order to retain their grammar school identities.  Furthermore, Catholic politicians and the Catholic Church have been staunch defenders of the Revised Curriculum which seeks to blur the distinctions between school subjects such as IT, mathematics and English through the introduction of incoherent “cross-curricular skills.”  Recently the Irish News published a blistering attack on the 25 Protestant grammars who wish to retain selection at 11.

A careful reading of the work of Britain’s leading educational philosopher, John White, reveals that Protestant support for a curriculum comprising distinct subjects, with learning assessed through objective testing stretches back 150 years.  According to White, curricula such as the Revised Curriculum, which eschew objective testing and blur the distinctions between the different school subjects, strike at the core values of Protestantism.  Given that John White was commissioned by the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) to evaluate the Revised Curriculum, senior figures in CCEA must have been aware that they were designing a curriculum at odds with a Protestant worldview.  However, the evaluation report has never been made public and when it appears on CCEA documentation it is accompanied by the word “unpublished.”

CCEA’s Carmel Gallagher described reform of the curriculum as a “Trojan Horse” for effecting radical change in schools and the Education Minister drew parallels between the radical nature of school reform in Northern Ireland and the partition of Ireland.  A cursory read of White’s latest book – Intelligence, Destiny and Education – may help explain the Catholic Church’s reluctance to sign up to the cause of maintaining Northern Ireland’s truly world class education system.  More puzzling, in the light of White’s analysis, is the role of the Protestant churches in embracing the Revised Curriculum and the abolition of selection at 11.

More Supression Revealed: CCEA and the Trojan Horse

Reform of Northern Ireland schools – another attack on all that Protestants hold dear?

It must surely puzzle outsiders that grammar schools of Protestant and Catholic ethos adopt opposite positions on selection at 11.  The SDLP, Sinn Fein and the Catholic Church oppose selection and embrace the Revised Curriculum while the DUP and Ulster Unionists see a continued role for grammar schools.  It is striking that there are no Catholic grammars among the 25 grammar schools who propose setting their own entrance tests in order to retain their grammar school identities.  Furthermore, Catholic politicians and the Catholic Church have been staunch defenders of the Revised Curriculum which seeks to blur the distinctions between school subjects such as IT, mathematics and English through the introduction of incoherent “cross-curricular skills.”  Recently the Irish News published a blistering attack on the 25 Protestant grammars who wish to retain selection at 11.

A careful reading of the work of Britain’s leading educational philosopher, John White, reveals that Protestant support for a curriculum comprising distinct subjects, with learning assessed through objective testing stretches back 150 years.  According to White, curricula such as the Revised Curriculum, which eschew objective testing and blur the distinctions between the different school subjects, strike at the core values of Protestantism.  Given that John White was commissioned by the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) to evaluate the Revised Curriculum, senior figures in CCEA must have been aware that they were designing a curriculum at odds with a Protestant worldview.  However, the evaluation report has never been made public and when it appears on CCEA documentation it is accompanied by the word “unpublished.”

CCEA’s Carmel Gallagher described reform of the curriculum as a “Trojan Horse” for effecting radical change in schools and the Education Minister drew parallels between the radical nature of school reform in Northern Ireland and the partition of Ireland.  A cursory read of White’s latest book – Intelligence, Destiny and Education – may help explain the Catholic Church’s reluctance to sign up to the cause of maintaining Northern Ireland’s truly world class education system.  More puzzling, in the light of White’s analysis, is the role of the Protestant churches in embracing the Revised Curriculum and the abolition of selection at 11.

Where do Grammar Schools actually stand on selection at 11?

Parents expect more than polite platitudes from Heads and Governors of Grammar Schools

By Stephen Elliott

Chairman, Parental Alliance for Choice in Education

THE head of Royal Belfast Academical
Institution, Janet Williamson, and the
chairman of the school’s board of governors,
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, are sending out
mixed messages over Caitriona Ruane’s
“visionary proposals” on education.

In practised doublespeak, the language and
commentary of the Inst leaders adds to the
plethora of polite platitudes on the future of
academic selection and grammar schools.
Parents and the public expect more from
those entrusted with responsibility for
leadership and welcome evidence-based
approaches to change.
The seeming internal confusion now made
public may emanate from the roles of Sir
Kenneth in his various guises as a
benefactor. A sample of his hats, caps and
scarves include: spokesman for the
Governing Bodies Association (GBA), a
group representing voluntary but not the
controlled grammars.
The GBA are dominated by the Roman
Catholic grammars and it is a matter of
record that the trustees of those schools are
opposed to academic selection.
Speaking for the GBA Bloomfield-endorsed
CCEA’s Pupil Profile, the instrument touted
by eminent heads such as Wilfred Mulryne,
of Methodist College, and the General
Teaching Council as a reliable and valid 11-
plus replacement instrument to quantify for
parents their child’s attainments.
The GBA have yet to disavow member
schools from support of CCEA’s failed
instrument. It is of interest that Bloomfield
lives happily with this dichotomy.
Sir Kenneth is also a patron of the
Integrated Education Fund whose mission
is the promotion and development of a
separate so called all-ability sector. Is he
ideologically naïve or unwittingly party to a
reverse take-over of grammar schools?
The intake of A-grade pupils at Slemish
College, an integrated school using
academic selection, doubled last year.
Which of the two sectors does Sir Kenneth
support, for it cannot be both?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield is also spokesman
for the Association for Quality Education
(AQE). This grouping comprises the GBA,
Concerned Parents for Education (a group
dominated by principals, governors and
teachers) and the Confederation of Former
Grammar Pupils’ Association.
This cross-pollinating collective also
support the Pupil Profile approach,
although a minority claim they will now
offer a common entrance examination to their schools.
The Royal Belfast Academical Institution
have a mixed ability intake distinguished
from Integrated comprehensives only by
their Category B status which absolves
them of the requirement to admit pupils
from a three-mile environs such as the
Markets, Sandy Row, Divis, the Shankill
and Crumlin Roads. The fees of some £700
may also filter out the bright
disadvantaged.
Perhaps Miss Williamson and Sir Kenneth
will put their heads together and tell us how
they will widen access via Inst’s admission
criteria?
The Royal Belfast Academical Institution
needs to confront the evidence from the
London School of Economics on the
widening socio-economic gap with more
than platitudes. Money rather than ability
would seem to determine a child’s chance of
future success at RBAI. If there is evidence
to the contrary, no doubt it will be
forthcoming.

Towards Education Chaos

Don’t abolish selection

Monday, November 19, 2007

The impractical arrangement for transfer of children at 11-plus and their post-primary education favoured by Education Minister Caitriona Ruane can only lead to chaos.

Her advisors, who comprise only those of a claimed progressive bent, have painted her into a time-limited corner. She has been allowed, with the aid of politicians, to run down the clock on alternatives to the 11-plus.

The Costello Working Party included representatives of all of the education sectors. Each had an opportunity to investigate replacement options for the current transfer test.

None did so. It is important to note that from the beginning the Governing Bodies Association condemned the 11-plus. Costello deliberately rejected reliable and valid replacement methods of selection while hiding behind a veil of secrecy and Government promise of anonymity. The Costello members should now be held to account and required to reveal what valid scientific evidence led them to impose a failed comprehensive education model on children against the rights of parents, 64% of whom endorsed the selective principle.

For those eager to accept any solution proffered by the Minister, a practical example of some of the difficulties involved is required.

Where will pupils from Antrim’s primary schools go? Currently there is only Antrim Grammar School and Parkhall College available.

The grammar and secondary schools are on the same campus.

Antrim Grammar School, because of a selection system based on merit and not social class, has a social mix not very different from Parkhall.

What is different is the quality of the grammar school’s academic results because of selection. In the absence of a valid and reliable transfer test based on merit, the stark reality will be a form of social selection centering on the grammar school. This is the overwhelming experience within the English comprehensive system. It will become a damaging legacy passed on by a cabal of superannuated socialists to the detriment of bright working class children.

In a Belfast Telegraph interview with Alf McCreary, Cardinal-elect Brady unambiguously supported the right of parents to choose an education suitable for their children. It is now time for other church leaders to admit their errors in this matter including those who served on the Costello Working Party and join with the Cardinal in standing up for parental rights. Perhaps the answer for parents mired in uncertainty, doubt and misinformation over the transfer and curricular disasters is to initiate a legal challenge to the Minister’s decision under the Human Rights Act.

Stephen Elliott, NI Chairman, Parental Alliance for Choice in Education

The Parental Alliance for Choice in Education N. Ireland

The Parental Alliance for Choice in Education (PACE) was established to inform parents of their legal rights in education matters throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The Northern Ireland branch has a focus on the education reform agenda of the Department of Education (Northern Ireland) which is largely at odds with the expressed wishes of the majority of parents and teachers as expressed through the DENI Household Survey. The Household Survey received 200,551 responses – the largest ever recorded in an education survey in the UK.

For parents interested in supporting PACE simply send an e-mail to paceni@btinternet.com