SUBGROUP TO CONSIDER THE SCHOOLS ADMISSION POLICY
Friday 15 December 2006
Members in attendance for all or part of the proceedings:
The Chairperson, Ms Sue Ramsey
The Chairperson, Mr Willie Clarke
Mr Dominic Bradley
Mr Jeffrey Donaldson
Mr Barry McElduff
Mr David McNarry
Ms Caitríona Ruane
Mr Sammy Wilson
Witnesses:
Ms Avril Hall-Callaghan (Ulster Teachers’ Union)
Mr Brendan Harron (Irish National Teachers’ Organisation)
Mr Mark Langhammer (Association of Teachers and Lecturers)
Mr Seamus Searson (National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers)
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield (Association for Quality Education)
Mr Finbarr McCallion (Governing Bodies Association)
Mr Marcas Patterson (Association for Quality Education)
Mr Billy Young (Association for Quality Education)
Mr George Buckley
Mr Jim Clarke (Council for Catholic Maintained Schools)
Mr Uel McCrea (Association of Head Teachers in Secondary Schools)
Mr Gavin Boyd (Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment)
Mr Richard Hanna (Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment)
Mr Robert Shilliday (Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment)
Dr Charlie Sproule (Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment)
Mr Michael Wardlow (Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education)
Ms Dorothy Angus (Department of Education)
Mr John Leonard (Department of Education)
Ms Irene Murphy (Department of Education)
Rev Ian Ellis (Transferor Representatives’ Council)
Rev Dr Lee Glenny (Transferor Representatives’ Council)
Rev Robert Herron (Transferor Representatives’ Council)
The subgroup met at 9.54 am.
(The Chairperson [Ms S Ramsey] in the Chair.)
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): You are welcome. Can you please introduce yourselves?
Mr Brendan Harron (Irish National Teachers’ Organisation): I am Brendan Harron, a senior official with the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO). I am standing in for Frank Bunting, our Northern secretary.
Ms Avril Hall-Callaghan (Ulster Teachers’ Union): I am Avril Hall- Callaghan, general secretary of the Ulster Teachers’ Union (UTU).
Mr Mark Langhammer (Association of Teachers and Lecturers): I am Mark Langhammer of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL).
Mr Seamus Searson (National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers): I am Seamus Searson, the Northern Ireland organiser for the NASUWT.
Mr Langhammer: Thank you for the opportunity to address the subgroup. I have provided members with a pack in case they are short of weekend reading.
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers is a union of 160,000 members from across the UK. It is a relatively small union in Northern Ireland. Although it has members from all sectors, the majority are concentrated in the grammar school sector; consequently, there has been a fairly robust debate on the issues.
I will make three points: the need for balanced intakes as the guiding principle for school admissions; how to reduce the high-stakes nature of transfer decisions that are taken at the age of 10 or 11, and to urge members to consider a delay; and to stress that what happens in school plays a relatively small part in explaining variations in education performance.
The ATL supports school intakes that are balanced in terms of social class and ability. There is reasonable academic consensus, and I have given members a considerable number of references in the file, showing that balanced intakes produce the best overall performance — not necessarily the best for those at the top or the bottom, but the best overall performance. Broadly speaking, the influence of one’s peers and an atmosphere of aspiration help to achieve that, in addition to encouraging the retention of good teachers in schools. In Northern Ireland, however, a balanced intake is not easy. Crudely speaking, there must be either very large schools or some form of social engineering to achieve that.
Large schools tend to envelop well-off areas, disadvantaged areas and those in between, and because Northern Ireland is a rural country with a range of sectors, it has become Balkanised in its education system and tends to have relatively small schools. Notwithstanding the recommendations of the Bain Report, that is an obstacle.
In terms of social engineering, Ulster folk — Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter alike — tend to grate a little and do not sit easily with schemes of social engineering.
The ATL concurs with George Bain that the growth of integrated education at secondary level may bring about larger schools that, in turn, may help to achieve a balanced intake.
One small measure on admissions that the ATL asks members to consider is for a quota, or target, or some means to incentivise schools to take children who receive free schools meals. I think we could thole that as a society.
With regard to deferred, or delayed, transfer, for some time the ATL has been averse to making any detailed admissions criteria at the age of 11 because it is convinced that that misses the point. The age of 10 or 11 is too young to make life-changing decisions. Parents face high-stake decisions for their 10- and 11-year-old children, and we support the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, which recommends that key education decisions be made at the ages of 14 and 16. If decisions on key pathways are to be made at the ages of 14 and 16, logically, those are the ages when transfers, or at least fluidity, between schools should occur.
We support and recommend the concept of middle schools, or junior schools, not because we are obsessed with institutions, but because we believe that they would be a useful institutional way of providing for a delay in transfer. We do not like to close down young people’s options.
Delaying transfer, with or without junior high schools, is a popular option. The BBC ‘Newsline’ poll this year, and successive Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey reports since 2003, have indicated that between 63% and 69% of parents support delaying those major education decisions. I do not want to bat your heads with statistics. However, the ATL believes that that figure includes people who are for and against transfer.
With regard to the effect of education, the ATL cautions against overestimating the degree to which schools can affect performance. There is significant academic consensus that up to 85% of the variation in pupils’ performance is down to factors outside school, such as parental support, culture, income and social class. That is not to say that schools have no influence — they do. However, even the school improvement campaigns estimate that although effective schooling does have an impact, it does not have a huge effect on variations in performance.
I will not address the issue of pupil profiles; I will rely on my colleagues to do so, because we agree on the issue. I thank the subgroup for its time. I understand that some members will speak at an ATL seminar on 12 January 2007, at which we will explore the grounds on which consensus might be reached.
10.00 am
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I want to pick up on what Mr Langhammer said and elaborate on pupil profiles. I welcome the opportunity to address the subgroup. I want to emphasise the Ulster Teachers’ Union’s continued opposition to any form of academic selection. That has been the union’s consistent policy for many years. We are delighted that the subgroup wants to examine what will happen after the termination of the existing transfer procedure.
The UTU views the pupil profile as an excellent tool, when it is used properly. However, if it is not used in the way that it was intended, it could become a dangerous weapon. Indeed, if the pupil profile were to be hijacked and turned into a selection instrument, all the good work that teachers have already done to develop it could be lost.
The pupil profile is simply an extension of the kind of ongoing assessment that teachers already make about pupils in every school. Its standardisation will benefit us all. It should give a broad and balanced picture of a young person’s strengths and interests and of what he or she has achieved to date across a range of curricular and extra-curricular activities.
Teachers are concerned about the workload implications, and my colleague Brendan Harron will pick up on that. However, I am sure that those obstacles can be overcome through the appropriate negotiating machinery. Teachers, particularly those in the primary sector, welcome the prospect of a wider curriculum at the top end of the primary school. They will embrace the pupil profile as they have embraced many worthwhile initiatives over recent years because they consider it as a way to ensure that parents have the fullest possible information to advise them of the best pathway for their children.
I must emphasise that teachers will not allow themselves to be put in the situation where the professional advice that they give will be used in a selection situation. In fact, teachers have indicated to the UTU that if any pressure is put on them to do that, they will refuse to co-operate.
The UTU is convinced that even if the pupil profile were not finalised on time — and I understand that it has run into difficulties — it is still possible for teachers to supply sufficient information to advise parents of their children’s strengths and weaknesses, because that, after all, is one of a teacher’s professional competencies.
In addition, the UTU concurs with the ATL that there is an imperative: there is a radical change in the public’s perception of transfer at the age of 11. It is a high-stakes decision at the age of 11 and it is too early for that decision to be taken. The concept of lifelong learning has impacted on traditional views on the time frame for education. With regard to career pathways and important choices for children, the time is right to shift emphasis from the age of 11 to the age of 14.
I hasten to add that even at the age of 14, it should be an elective rather than a selective system. That change of emphasis would reduce the impact of the pupil profile at the age of 11, if there are any concerns about the fact that there might only be a couple of years of profiling for the first intake going through. That would take a bit of pressure off the situation.
The public sector in Northern Ireland is facing an unprecedented period of change. Schools must, and will, change. Rationalisation is an inevitable fact, whether we like it or not, and the traditional institutions, particularly the grammar schools, must adapt to customer demand. When so many aspects of our lives are client driven, it is incredible that in this one very important area of life we still allow the institution, rather than the customer, to make the choice.
Before I turn to the admissions criteria, I would like to raise the important issue of funding. One challenge will be to ensure that collaboration between providers is not hampered by a system whereby schools are competing for funds based on pupil numbers. That matter must be radically overhauled to suit the needs of our new system.
Many people see the choice of admissions criteria as critical to the success of future post-primary arrangements. The Ulster Teachers’ Union agrees with the four broad categories outlined in the consultation document, and I have supplied the subgroup with the union’s full response to that document.
Not all schools will wish to use all the approved criteria, and the Ulster Teachers’ Union firmly believes that the tie-breaker is the only compulsory criterion that should be included.
Family-focused criteria are important and should feature as a high priority, and the geographical criteria support the idea of a school serving a local community. The Ulster Teachers’ Union want to ensure that, where possible, young people are not denied access to their local school, if that is their preferred choice.
We are perfectly happy with either of the tie-breakers that are listed — the random and the geographical criteria. If we were forced to choose between the two, we would narrowly opt for the geographical criteria on the basis that that would serve the interests of local community schools.
The Ulster Teachers’ Union is strongly apposed to the selection of pupils by means of interview or entrance test. Compulsory criteria should apply to all schools, and there should not be any optional interview or entrance test.
As I said earlier, pupils should be choosing schools, not vice versa.
Finally, I wish to make a heartfelt plea on behalf of teachers. Please act with urgency to submit a consultation document to the teachers’ unions as soon as possible. Teachers will do all in their power to implement policy, but they need time to prepare for it. At present, teachers are in a state of limbo. They need direction, and they must be reassured that there is no going back to the 11-plus or anything like it, and they need to know what lies ahead.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Thank you. We have another two presentations to hear, so I will hold questions until the end. I am conscious of the time and that members are keen to ask questions, so I ask witnesses to please keep their presentations as precise as possible. There will be a question-and-answer session after the presentations.
Mr McNarry: Members have been asked to declare their interests for the record. Do any of the panel have interests to declare? For example, do any of them work for somebody else or are they members of boards, and so on? It would be useful to have a little background. We know who the witnesses are officially representing, but they may be members of other groups or boards.
Mr Langhammer: I will declare my interests. I am a director of Monkstown Boxing Club, a life member of Crusaders Football Club and —
Mr S Wilson: I would be ashamed of that.
[Laughter.]
Mr Langhammer: I am proud of it this year, Sammy.
I am also a member of the Irish Labour Party, and I serve on its national executive.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I am not a member of any political party, nor am I on the board of any school.
Mr Searson: I am the same.
Mr Harron: Likewise.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): We will move to the next presentation.
Mr Harron: I represent the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, which has approximately 6,500 members in Northern Ireland. The INTO has been, remains, and always will be, opposed to academic selection, and we welcome its cessation after 2008.
The INTO supports the whole thrust of the reorganisation of post-primary education. We envisage the situation, post-2008 and on a rolling-out basis, in which the post-primary school a child selects will be increasingly irrelevant. The context in which the INTO wishes to address the subgroup on the two questions is as follows: the new curriculum; and the implementation of the Entitled to Succeed policy, and the entitlement framework through which every 11-year-old child — regardless of the post-primary school they choose — will be offered a broad and similar education up to the age of 14, and that all children, at the age of 14, will be able to choose from a healthy balance of 24 vocational and academic subjects for GCSE, and 27 subjects for A level.
The INTO supports the concept of a pupil profile, and, as Ms Hall-Callaghan said, it is merely an extension of what presently exists. We have made several comments on pupil profiles in our briefing paper and in responses to consultations on the issue. The pupil profile must be manageable: it is not at present. In September, I read an independent evaluation of the pupil profile commissioned by the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), which stated that it was not fit for purpose and not manageable by teachers.
The pupil profile must be manageable, and it must be fit for purpose. Those are the two conditions on which the INTO will give its full support to the profile. It takes a teacher one hour to complete a profile on one child; therefore, it takes 30 hours for a class of 30 pupils. That raises the issue of when teachers will get the time, or be released, to complete the profiles?
The INTO has made it clear that if pupil profiles are to be used as a selection tool, teachers will not complete them — they will not co-operate — and that has been accepted by the Department of Education and the CCEA. That must be made clear.
At present, the pupil profile is not designed to be used as a selection tool, and it could not be used as such because it is not completed in a secure situation. The INTO will withdraw its co-operation on pupil profiles if they are tinkered with to make them suitable for selection purposes.
In my briefing paper, I have also said that it takes too long to complete pupil profiles. The timing needs to be adjusted. The lack of computer facilities for the testing is a major-league problem. Primary schools do not have adequate hardware, and we are not content with the solution put to us by CCEA that we should do what is done in Scotland — that a busful of computers should be driven around primary schools, which people would board in order to do their tests. That is not the answer.
There should be simple, clear and centrally drawn-up admissions criteria for entry to post-primary schools in Northern Ireland. It does not matter which school a child chooses. There should be a centrally drawn-up list of feeder schools for all post-primary schools, and pupils should be accepted into those schools on the basis of how close they live to them. If there is a need for a tie-break situation between pupils, it should be based on random selection on a Northern Ireland-wide basis. Tie-breaks should be administered centrally to ensure that schools are not setting up their own methods of decision-making.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Thank you. We move to Seamus Searson from the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers.
Mr Searson: The current events in Northern Ireland provide a real opportunity for change. We need to welcome that change and move forward. The establishment of the Education and Skills Authority in April 2008 will provide us with an opportunity to move the entire education system along and help every child reach his or her full potential. This is what the reorganisation of post-primary education is about.
I will not go into great detail. We agree with many of the points that my colleagues have raised. I will simply raise the issue and focus on the criteria. The reorganisation of post-primary education is neither a simple nor easy task. We must be aware of the downsides of any reorganisation, however. The paper that I circulated focuses on one or two of the problems that the criteria can throw up.
The NASUWT is the largest teachers’ union in Northern Ireland, and our membership is drawn from across all the different education sectors. The paper was finalised after a lengthy discussion period about the process with our members.
10.15 am
As has been mentioned, there must be a code of practice for school admissions that covers all of Northern Ireland. The paper states that consistency and equity in the schools admissions process should be made clear. As I said, the Education and Skills Authority will have an important role in that regard and must ensure that the arrangements do not disadvantage, either directly or indirectly, particular social and minority ethnic groups, children with disabilities or children with special educational needs.
I wish to mention parental choice, a term that is often bandied about. The concept of parental choice does not fit in with what is needed for the future, which is an effective and co-operative relationship between parents and schools. The notion of parental choice is often misleading because people believe that they have a choice when, in reality, they do not. Often, it is the schools that make the choice rather than the parents. The present system creates competition, which, in turn, fosters tensions, and that works against greater co-operation.
I will quickly mention one or two aspects of family-focused criteria. If the system were to concentrate on family-focused criteria, where priorities are given to pupils whose siblings already attend particular schools, there is a possibility that children living close to those schools will be denied places. Although that is an important factor, it must not become the major determining factor. That is one of the issues that we are considering.
We are cautious about the use of geographical criteria, because the catchment area of a school may not reflect the local community. If tie-breakers are used, they need to be quite clear, open and transparent so that people can see what is happening. Furthermore, the use of tie-breakers should be a fairly straightforward process.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): I thank you all for your presentations. I will now hand over to members, who will ask questions.
Mr Donaldson: My question is for Ms Hall-Callaghan. If I were a working-class Protestant child living in Benson Street in Lisburn, which is almost equidistant from Lisnagarvey High School, Laurel Hill Community College, Friends’ School, Wallace High School and Forthill College, which school would be considered my local school? Which school would be the community school that would serve me in a selection tie-breaker?
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I do not know Lisburn well enough to comment on that. However, I presume that the people who live there would relate to a particular school and would know which school they wanted their children to attend.
Mr Donaldson: I am not talking about the school that a pupil would want to attend; I am talking about the tie-breaker situation. You have suggested that, in the event of a school being oversubscribed, a tie-breaker that is based on geographical location should be used.
I gave the example of a child who lives equidistant from the five secondary schools that I mentioned, two of which are grammar schools, three of which are secondary schools. What would happen in the event of a school being oversubscribed? Let us say that the child wants to attend Wallace High School, but it is oversubscribed. Which school will be considered that child’s local community school for the purposes of the tie-breaker? My example could apply to Magherafelt, Londonderry or anywhere.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: If a tie-breaker is used, the process of how various factors will be measured must be set out. Generally speaking, however, a child will not be exactly equidistant from two schools.
Mr Donaldson: Are you sure about that?
Mr S Wilson: It could come down to a distance of 5 feet.
Mr Donaldson: I could take you to a place in Lisburn that is almost exactly equidistant from five secondary schools. In that case, which would be my local school?
Ms Hall-Callaghan: Almost equidistant?
Mr S Wilson: Are you suggesting that the school that a pupil will attend could depend on whether that pupil lives 5 feet away from one school or 5 feet away from another? Is that not a bit daft?
Ms Hall-Callaghan: No, it is not. A decision must be made in some way. What I said was that I would be happy with a tie-breaker situation or with random selection. Schools should be equally good and, therefore, it should not matter which school a pupil attends.
Mr Donaldson: Lisburn, which is in my constituency, is a large urban area with five good schools, and I deal with the admissions appeals procedure every summer. I could name — but I will not — the schools that most parents in Lisburn would choose to send their children to. Three or four of those five schools are substantially oversubscribed.
Wallace High School and Friends’ School are located in a middle-class area. Under your policy, more families would move into that area to be close to those two schools, which, I guarantee, would be oversubscribed every year. The result would be that working-class kids would lose out — and those kids want to go to those schools, believe me; I have sat with parents who have appealed against decisions. Both schools that I mentioned take in kids from working-class backgrounds. In my constituency, the working-class kids would lose out because their parents would not be able to afford to move close to the schools in order to benefit from your proposed tie-breaker.
Also, if I lived in a rural community such as Moira, Ballinderry, Aghalee, Annahilt or Hillsborough, how would I gain from that policy, when the decision comes down to a tie-breaker and the urban kids win every time?
Ms Hall-Callaghan: We are coming at this from the wrong angle. Mr Langhammer and I emphasised that the choice at the age of 11 is not the important choice. We are also trying to promote the idea that all schools are good schools. Why would parents opt for Wallace High School or Friends’ School, for example? All those schools in Lisburn should be attractive to parents.
Mr S Wilson: Do you ever read any inspectors’ reports?
Ms Hall-Callaghan: Yes, all the time.
Mr S Wilson: The inspectors’ reports do not say that every school is a good school. It is totally naive to say that.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: It is not naive to say that. It is what we are working towards. Teachers in Northern Ireland are excellent and very well qualified. We need to establish a system in which they can operate properly. The system is wrong at the moment.
Mr Donaldson: We agree with that, but we disagree on the method of achieving that objective. The system that you advocate would discriminate against far more children than the 11-plus does currently.
I have not had an answer to my reasonable question about how rural kids will be provided for in this geographical tie-breaker situation. Rural children will be discriminated against if the decision comes down to a tie-breaker. There are very few secondary schools in the middle of the countryside, so rural kids will lose out. I do not know what that will mean as regards equality and section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.
Urban areas contain a multiplicity of schools. Perhaps in many towns there is only one school and the decision is simple, but in other towns there is more than one school. A postcode lottery will discriminate against many pupils and will not create a fair system. In fact, it will create a very unfair system.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I live in the middle of nowhere, in the area that Mr Donaldson mentioned, and I did not have any difficulty in getting my child into the school of her choice.
Mr Donaldson: That may happen at the moment, under the current system.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: At the moment, yes.
Mr Donaldson: If the system were the postcode lottery that you advocate, would you still be of the same mind?
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I do not think that I would have any difficulty.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): I do not want to stifle debate, but we need to move on.
Mr Donaldson: This is an important point.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): I appreciate that, but a number of members want to ask questions. If we can get the first round of questions over, there will be time for more comments.
Mr Donaldson: I am finished with this issue.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): If other members do not jump in and ask questions on the back of your time, there may be more time.
Mr Donaldson: Absolutely.
Mr McNarry: You should take him literally: he said that was finished.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Mr Wilson’s time is now cut because he made two comments during Mr Donaldson’s time.
Mr S Wilson: They were short questions, and I did not get an answer to either of them. [Laughter.]
Mr Donaldson: With respect, if geographical proximity were used as a tie-breaker, there is no way that Ms Hall-Callaghan’s child, living in a rural community, would benefit from a system that dictates that the closer a child lives to a school, the better the chance of getting into that school in the event of that school being oversubscribed.
It defies logic and reason to suggest that if I live in a rural community — and I do — that my child will have an equal chance of getting into a school that is oversubscribed when the tie-breaker is based on proximity to the school. If you can show me any area in Northern Ireland where such a tie-breaker benefits the rural child and not the urban child, I will look at it.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I live close to the Dickson plan area, and there is never any difficulty in getting children into the junior high school in Lurgan.
Mr S Wilson: I have two questions. We can probably get a fairly quick answer to the first one. No one this morning has dealt with the reality of the situation, which is that after 26 March 2007, if the Assembly is up and running — and since members have been lobbied publicly and privately by all of your organisations to get the Assembly up and running, it seems that you are keen for that to happen — the Secretary of State has said that academic selection will still be here unless the Assembly decides otherwise. Given the cross-community nature of the Assembly, that situation is unlikely to change.
Given that we all want devolution, we will have to deal with the reality of academic selection being here. Can you give us some indication as to what form of academic selection you would like to see in those circumstances, or will the UTU simply opt out of the debate?
Mr Harron: My understanding is that the current situation will end in 2009, and the slate will be wiped clean. New arrangements from 2009 will have to be put in place by the Assembly or by the Minister. Therefore, we are not going to opt out of anything.
I have been teaching for 32 years in post-primary education. I believe that unless all the reforms have been put in place as regards the curriculum, the Entitled to Succeed policy and the entitlement framework have been a lie. Ms Hall-Callaghan is correct — from 2009 onwards it should not matter which school is being selected at age eleven, because children, regardless of whether they live in rural or urban areas, or east, west, north or south, are going to be guaranteed a menu of 24 subjects at GCSE and 27 subjects at A level.
Mr S Wilson: I do not know if you are trying to avoid the question or have not understood the question.
Mr Langhammer: I am happy to answer.
Mr S Wilson: I will always get an answer from you.
Mr Langhammer: It might be the wrong one.
Mr S Wilson: I wish to emphasise that academic selection will still be on the menu after 26 March 2007 — it will still be available. We have heard what you would like to see in an ideal world, but that is not likely to be the case unless there is no devolution. I assume you all want to see devolution as quickly as possible, because you have all lobbied us to that effect. Members would find it helpful if they knew what kind of academic selection the UTU could live with.
Mr Harron: None whatsoever. We have no time for academic selection.
Mr S Wilson: Why?
Mr Donaldson: Will you break the law?
Mr Harron: I do not see the connection between not wanting academic selection and breaking the law.
Mr McNarry: You said earlier that if pupil profiling became part of a selection method, your members would not work it.
Mr Harron: Yes.
Mr McNarry: In response to Mr Wilson’s question about academic selection, you said, "None whatsoever." What instructions will you be giving your members that we can take back to the parents to tell them what they will be likely to face from your union members?
Mr Harron: Parents are not likely to be facing anything from our members. I said that the INTO’s policy always has been, and always will be, to oppose any form of academic selection. However, that does not mean that we as professionals will not operate whatever system is in place. There is no question about that. We are professional teachers — regardless of what we have to deal with, we will deliver.
As regards the ideal world that Mr Wilson referred to, I emphasise that the Department of Education has been telling us for the past five or six years that the new curriculum, the new Entitled to Succeed policy and the new entitlement framework are coming in. I have believed the Department for 10 years that this would happen.
Mr S Wilson: Never believe officials from the Department of Education. We learned that a long time ago.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Other members and witnesses wish to speak.
10.30 am
Mr Langhammer: My answer to the first question will be as brief as possible. I am not clear that the position is as you described. It is clear that that part of the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 has fallen, with the result that academic selection has not been outlawed. I am also clear that the 11-plus will end in 2008. That does not mean that an alternative procedure is in place: it has not been made clear whether academic selection or another procedure must be used. Given that academic selection has not been banned and that the 11-plus will fall, I understand that we are facing a vacuum — we are not automatically considering different forms of academic selection.
Mr S Wilson: Schools will have the ability to make their own decisions.
Mr Langhammer: I agree with Mr Wilson’s point about not believing Department of Education officials. With the aim of advising our members, I wrote to the Department to ask whether a school or a group of schools could implement their own tests in the absence of another procedure. The Department clearly stated that that would not happen. I do not know whether that is lawful, but that is the Department’s view. However, I am happy to pass that letter to the subgroup.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Perhaps the discussion can continue outside, but I wish to move on. Mr McNarry, you can speak next, but I ask you to be conscious that other members have not spoken yet.
Mr McNarry: OK, boss, I will see what I can do.
Mr S Wilson: Is that the Chairperson’s official designation? [Laughter.]
Mr McNarry: She is bossing us about, so I decided to call her "boss".
If a vote were taken in the Assembly tomorrow, you would see here and on the opposite Benches a mirror image of how the parties would go through the lobbies. We will not be able to address the issue in a satisfactory manner as long as that situation pertains.
Your association is a big hitter; it commands a lot of media attention and produces lovely glossy brochures and propaganda. I wish to turn your attention to the recent findings of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee on literacy and numeracy. In everyone’s estimation, that report was shocking and disturbing. As a group that broadly supports the 2006 Order, can you confidently say that it will preserve Northern Ireland’s standards of academic achievement and address our record of educational underachievement?
Are you willing to say that what you support will improve the situation to such an extent that you will back the reforms totally? You are on record as saying as much.
Mr Harron: Yes.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): I like short answers.
Mr Harron: Those who support academic selection and the grammar schools seem to be in denial. I have been a grammar schoolteacher for the past 16 years. Forty per cent of pupils who leave school at age 16 do not have adequate literacy and numeracy skills. When will the penny drop with people that academic selection is one of the major causes of that? I also taught for 16 —
Mr McNarry: Where did you find that statistic? The report did not say that.
Mr Harron: The report said that —
Mr McNarry: That is a gross nonsense. Selection has nothing to do with that misrepresentation. I am asking you whether the reforms that you support and for which you are lobbying will change the situation. Forgive me; I respect the organisations that you represent, but when I meet individual teachers, I do not hear from them the same things that come out of your offices.
Mr Harron: I taught for 16 years in a secondary school in an underprivileged area and another 16 years in a grammar school. Therefore, I have seen the system from both sides. The report said that 40% of pupils in Northern Ireland leave school at age 16 —
Mr McNarry: Of course it said that. However, it did not blame that on academic selection.
Mr Harron: You asked me for my view, and I am saying that one of the major causes of inadequate literacy and numeracy is that the vast majority of those pupils leave from our non-grammar schools.
Mr McNarry: Does that mean that the reforms are a panacea for curing all that?
Mr Harron: We in INTO wish that politicians would go the whole way and create a fully comprehensive system. However, by removing academic selection and making all schools equal, all pupils are treated the same. When there are no longer two tiers of education, the standards attained by all pupils will rise and the percentage of pupils who leave without proper numeracy and literacy skills will decrease.
Mr McNarry: Where are we on that issue? On one hand, members of the panel say that all schools are good, but the Bain Report states that they are not.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I said that the UTU wants to move towards a situation in which all schools are viewed as good schools. There are many good schools and some that could be improved. We must work to change the public perception. There is much work to be done on education. The public perceives grammar schools to be the good schools, and that is not necessarily the case.
Mr McNarry: Let us not go into the question of grammar schools. I am asking you whether the reforms will improve the current situation, particularly in relation to underachievement, and whether they will maintain the current levels of excellence that are attained.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: We hope so. At the outset of any process, no one can predict where it will lead.
Mr McNarry: You are saying, though, that the system is broken and you want to fix it.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: Yes; it is broken and we want to fix it.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): If members would ask questions rather than making speeches, they might get more answers.
Mr D Bradley: I welcome the members of the panel and thank them for their contributions.
The INTO contribution included some reservations about the concept of the pupil profile. This afternoon, the subgroup will have a chance to address those problems with the CCEA — and we will endeavour to do so, because it is an important issue.
Mr Langhammer, you said that ATL’s preference is for pupil transfer to take place at age 14 rather than age 11, and several other contributors concurred. On what basis would the transfer procedure operate at age 14?
Mr Langhammer: I must be honest: we have grave difficulties with some aspects of the 2006 Order. On balance, we support it, but I am not pretending that the union’s debate about it has been anything other than robust. Ultimately, we felt that anything other than widespread consensus was not good for Northern Ireland’s education system. However, in a fairly intense debate, there is not that level of consensus. ATL’s view is that children develop at different ages and that those aged 10 or 11 are too young to take definitive decisions about career paths or particular types of school.
We are not hung up on the idea of junior high schools, because some schools could develop junior schools within them. However, we are clear that if there is to be a move towards a more skills-based curriculum in which children take key education decisions at the age of 14 and 16, it is important that they not be locked out of schools. For instance, if my youngster goes to a particular school at the age of 11 and realises by the age of 14 that he or she wants to go in a particular direction that is best supported by a different school up the road, there should not be a situation whereby that school is simply full.
If the key decisions are to be taken at age 14 and 16, as stated in the 2006 Order, we must provide for transfer or fluidity between schools. Crudely, people have said that the system is like the Dickson plan, and perhaps it is slightly similar. The failure of the Dickson plan is that it is not uniformly applied and people can get round it. However, ATL clearly supports the Department on the part of the 2006 Order that states that it is better for pupils to take key decisions at the age of 14, rather than when they are 10 or 11.
Mr D Bradley: Ms Hall-Callaghan said that if the pupil profile were not completely developed, teachers from the UTU would be prepared to give advice to parents on which post-primary school would be best suited to their children. Would INTO members be prepared to do that also?
Mr Harron: No. We do not believe that it is the job of primary school teachers to advise on which post-primary school pupils should go to — and I think Ms Hall-Callaghan said the same.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I did.
Mr Harron: As primary schoolteachers, we would advise parents on the strengths and weaknesses of their children but we would let the parents make the decision on which post-primary school their children should attend.
We have not yet mentioned the specialist schools pilot programme. The first tranche of 12 schools started the programme last year, and the selection process for the next tranche is under way, although I do not know how many schools will be involved. As I said before, on paper it should not really matter which school a pupil chooses, because in five, six or 10 years’ time, as the programme is rolled out, all schools will have specialisms of some sort — including the five schools in Lisburn to which Mr Donaldson referred. Thus, if a pupil profile says that the child has a particular bent towards the arts, sciences, or vocational studies, the pupil can choose a school with an appropriate specialism. We must look to the future on this issue. We would not advise teachers to give pupils advice on which school to attend.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I would like to confirm an earlier point, Mr Bradley. I did not say that teachers would advise pupils on which school to choose. I said that they would advise on the strengths and abilities of the children.
Mr McNarry: How do you dodge a question from a parent —
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): David —
Mr McNarry: If a parent is told how strong a child is, can he or she go to Regent House?
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): David, with respect, I am chairing the meeting. I will let Barry ask a question now.
Mr McNarry: Sorry, I was just getting carried away.
Mr McElduff: I welcome the specific and targeted way in which each of the contributors addressed the terms of reference.
It has been said that the pupil profile is an excellent tool, if used properly. How can it be used properly? What type of information do parents tend to want to hear?
Mr McNarry: Can my child go to a grammar school — that is what they want to hear today, Barry.
Mr McElduff: Are teachers concerned that pupil profiling might add to their already bureaucratic burden? Is that a real concern? How might the profile be used properly?
Mr Harron: INTO’s policy is that children's test results should not be included in pupil profiles. Despite teachers’ expertise in telling parents how their children are doing, parents tend to focus purely on test scores and do not look at what is written about their children. In the models and prototypes that are being experimented with in the pilots, a good deal of information is written about pupils under a whole raft of educational strengths and weaknesses —but parents simply focus on the scores. For example, the profile may say that a pupil’s age is nine, but his reading age is 10 or six or whatever. We are concerned about how that information is shared with parents.
Workload is very important. I talked to a school principal in Mr McElduff's area who is involved in the pilot, and she told me that she has a class of 30 pupils and only two computers in the classroom. The profile takes an hour to complete, and if two pupils are working on the interactive tests, the rest of the pupils must be cleared out of the room.
There are logistical problems, as adequate computer hardware is needed to allow pupils to do the interactive tests. Primary-school teachers normally take about 30 minutes to write a report on a pupil. The pupil profiles that are now being experimented with take twice as long. I hope that the CCEA will tell the subgroup this afternoon that it plans to make the process more manageable by slimming it down, which will free up teachers’ time. I also hope that it tells the subgroup that it will provide the hardware resources needed to enable the pupils to carry out the computer interactive tests.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: Mr McElduff asked what form the profile will take. There is much more to a child than academic ability, and the profile must reflect all a child’s competences. Although some children are wonderful at drama, arts, music and other such subjects, the current profoundly academic structures can make them feel as though they are failures, when, in fact, they are brilliant in those subjects in which they excel. The purpose of the profile should be to reflect the full breadth of each child’s ability.
Mr S Wilson: May I ask the witness about that last point?
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Quickly, please.
Mr S Wilson: You said that although the pupil profile would not be used as a selective tool, it would be the basis on which parents chose the pathway for their children. Consider the example of a child who is either wonderful at art or brilliant at football. That is so subjective. What use is that to anyone?
Ms Hall-Callaghan: It is not subjective. At football matches it is obvious which children can play well and which cannot.
Mr S Wilson: Therefore, you do not believe that the words "brilliant" or "good" are subjective terms. You might think something is brilliant, whereas I might think that it is rubbish. Those terms are subjective.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I think that you are splitting hairs.
Mr S Wilson: I am not splitting hairs at all.
10.45 am
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): If there are no more questions, we will move on. I want to let Barry finish.
Mr McNarry: Are you allowing him another question?
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): No. Witnesses are waiting and the subgroup is in danger of exceeding its time limit. When we make the switchover, members can talk briefly to witnesses.
Mr McNarry: With all respect, Chair, this is a subgroup of the Committee on the Programme for Government. The whole thing has been set up for the benefit of the public. Will witnesses follow me outside so that I can hold a conversation with them? That is just not practical.
Mr McElduff: The question that I wanted to ask was about the additional transfer arrangements that would apply to children who have a statement of special educational needs.
Mr Harron: There is a section in the consultation paper on compelling individual circumstances. INTO supports the retention of those considerations. Those children should be supernumerary to the school’s quota of pupils. Compelling individual circumstances should be used only rarely. Children with statements of special educational needs should be given special priority and INTO believes that they should be supernumerary to the school’s quota.
Ms Hall-Callaghan: I refer Mr McElduff to our document, which has a full section on that.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): With respect, David, members agreed this agenda at the last meeting. Witnesses were agreed. There is a time limit. I suggest that if members have further questions, they should forward them to the Committee Clerks, who will contact the organisations to request written answers.
Mr McNarry: Mr Searson has not contributed, and I have one small question for him. Surely, if we are all here —
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): If you work with me, I will work with you.
Mr McNarry: If you will work with me, may I put the question?
Mr McElduff: The proposal is that the question be now put.
Mr McNarry: Mr Searson, can you give your views on the importance of setting and streaming in post-primary education?
Mr Searson: Teachers work hard to improve the ability of all children. That has a bearing on my earlier point about the 2006 Order. Present practice does not work for all the children of Northern Ireland, and the 2006 Order is a means to improve practice. Particular points arise with regard to setting and streaming, and teachers will need to work with particular children. That might start at 11 years of age, 13 or 14. It will vary from child to child and from school to school. Schools will need to determine what is in the best interests of each child and how that is operated.
Mr McNarry: Are you working in that direction at the moment?
Mr Searson: Yes.
Mr McNarry: Thank you.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Thank you for coming. I should say that members might have further questions for you. I trust that your doors will always be open.
The subgroup was suspended at 10.50 am.
On resuming —
10.54 am
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): I ask members to take their seats. The witnesses should introduce themselves, after which they will have a total of 10 minutes to make their presentation. I will then open the floor to members’ questions.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield (Association for Quality Education): I shall begin by introducing myself. In common with a lot of the witnesses who appear before you, I wear many hats. However, we are all involved in one way or another with the Association for Quality Education (AQE), which is a coalition of interests that are concerned with the future of our education system.
I shall begin by making a few points of principle. First, I am not sure that the selection issue, important though it is, is really at the centre of our education problems. I acknowledge that although there are many education problems in Northern Ireland, we have records of substantial achievement, including good performance at A level and GCSE, a high representation of underprivileged communities in the universities, and so on. On the other hand, we have heard a lot about areas of obvious underperformance: clearly, something must be done about that. AQE does not think that such underperformance is attributable wholly to the method of selection.
Calling ourselves the Association of Quality Education does not mean that we think that grammar schools represent the only excellent part of the education system; that would be an extremely arrogant point of view. We must remember that we would not have the record of performance of entry into higher education without the excellent performance of many of the non-grammar schools.
AQE endorses views that, as we understand it, the population at large has expressed repeatedly. In a democracy, those views should not be ignored. A very consistent result has emerged from at least six separate Government-conducted polls, saying that on the one hand people do not like, do not trust or do not accept the 11-plus as a method of selection, but that, nevertheless, they want to retain some method of academic selection. It is important to listen to the voice of the people.
Secondly, we are conscious of the assurances that a number of the Ministers who have held the education portfolio in recent years have given about these matters. People have been assured that the proposed changes to selection methods do not mean that grammar schools will disappear, and that they do not mean that comprehensive education will be introduced in Northern Ireland. However, we confess to a degree of scepticism about that.
For our part, we accept that we should go along with the fact that the Northern Ireland population has said that the 11-plus system of selection should go. However, it would be possible to replace it with a more reliable system that would be acceptable across the education sector. We should be looking for widespread acceptability in the same way that we are looking for wider consensus. Clearly, we are looking for as much consensus as possible throughout the education system. We do not want to impose unreasonable burdens on the head teachers of primary schools, for instance; we must be sensitive to their views.
I wanted to make those points at the start of our presentation. First, we should listen clearly to what people have said about this matter, and, secondly, we should take at face value the assurances that successive Ministers have given us, while exploring how those can be made a reality.
Mr Marcas Patterson (Association for Quality Education): I am a parent with two young children, one in primary 4 and one in primary 3, who will be directly affected by the changes. I have a couple of comments about the strengths of the current system. Our system produces examination results that are much better than those in Great Britain, and it produces better outcomes with regard to social inclusion than the education systems do in other parts of these islands. We attribute that success to the diversity in Northern Ireland.
Statistics show that social deprivation tends to be linked to poor examination results. We have more social deprivation here, and yet our examination results are better than those in Great Britain. For example, the 2004 figures show that 60% of pupils in Northern Ireland got five GCSE passes ranging from A* to C — the figure for England is 54%, and in Wales it is 51%. Northern Ireland has more pupils getting A grades, including in subjects such as English and maths.
We hear a lot about the myth of the long tail of underachievement in regard to social inclusion. That long tail of underachievement does not exist in the sense that every education system has a tail of underachievement. Northern Ireland’s situation is no worse than that in other parts of these islands. It is better, certainly, in some senses than in England. For example, if we consider the figures for free school meals, 33% of students who receive free school meals in Northern Ireland get five GCSE passes ranging from grades A to C, while the figure for England is 26·1%, which is very much lower. The people at the bottom end of the social scale are actually doing much better in our system.
There has been a lot of concern about people on the Shankill Road, and there have been a lot of crocodile tears on the issue. It is a very important issue, but the facts have often been distorted. The Public Accounts Committee pointed out that the 11-plus is not a problem there. The statistics for 2001 show that 5% of the students got five GCSE passes at grades A to C — that applied to three people. The figures went up by 300% the following year when 12 young people got five GCSE passes with A to C grades. If we are going to blame the 11-plus for the results in the Shankill area, we will have to credit it for the superb results in the New Lodge area, where social deprivation is very similar.
We think that those successes come from teaching pupils in schools with other pupils of similar abilities. The diversity of the schools system allows us to have, on average, smaller schools. It is great to have secondary, grammar, faith, interdenominational, comprehensive and Irish-medium schools. Tá spéis agam féin i scoileanna lánGhaeilge. Eighty-eight per cent of parents secure a place for their child in their first choice of school.
We do not have a private sector, unlike other parts of these islands. Basically, most children get the type of education that parents choose for them. We have a successful system, social inclusion and diversity.
Mr Billy Young (Association for Quality Education): I am the head teacher of Belfast Royal Academy. I have cut some of what I wanted to say, as I am aware of the time.
First, what we want from a new system — and have wanted for five years — is money directed to the source and not wasted: £1.5 million has been wasted on consultations and reports.
Secondly, we want an honest acceptance of our strengths and successes, an honest attempt to tackle the weaknesses, imaginative tackling of underachievement, real support for primary schools in disadvantaged areas, a system that hits all the criteria mentioned in our paper, a system of transfer that will satisfy 88% of the people — as the current system does — and something that matches the will of the public as expressed in the Northern Ireland Continuous Household Survey.
Four useful tie-breaker issues were mentioned in the survey, including community-based criteria and geography. However, if they were included as main criteria, it would result in local comprehensives. People have to be honest and say that that is what would happen. We will also see, as has happened, that parents would move their children to successful schools. The family-focused issue would be useful as a tie-breaker, but if it were applied to a school — as I would apply it — it might affect one third of children applying to the school. What happens to the other two thirds that would be affected by community-based criteria? Again, the answer is local comprehensives.
11.00 am
Random selection is, again, a useful tie-breaker, but it if were applied as a whole, people would not apply to those schools more than a certain distance from their homes.
The profile cannot be used for selection. The system that the Governing Bodies Association would like to elaborate on and improve is computer-adaptive tests (CATs), which would address the criteria that we have listed in our paper. It would minimise coaching and much more. Therefore, we have proposals for a new system that would be much better than the present one.
Mr Finbarr McCallion (Governing Bodies Association): I am the secretary of the Governing Bodies Association. The association represents and works with 73 grammar schools in Northern Ireland, of which 53 are voluntary grammar schools.
I thank you for the opportunity to come here. One is never supposed to begin with an apology, yet I think that we owe the subgroup an apology. Although we have spent about 10 years trying to reach a solution, we do not yet have one. We are coming to ask the subgroup to create one, as Members of the Assembly are more likely to be in the business of finding solutions to difficult problems. We hope that, with the experience that members have had, they may be able to help us to find a solution to this problem.
To date, we have been involved in two side-by-side arguments. One is about comprehensive education. When comprehensive education was introduced in England, Scotland and Wales, every political party supported it. Its introduction presented great problems, but it was established. Members might be surprised to know that every political party supported comprehensive education. During her time as Minister of Education, Margaret Thatcher converted more grammar schools to comprehensive schools than any other Minister of Education, including the sainted Mr Crossman.
Afterwards, the Conservative Party changed its mind. Look at what David Cameron is doing today. He leads a party that wants grammar school education. He admits that there is no political consensus, and, therefore, he has warned his party not to reach too far. He has advised the party to deal with what it can deal with in order to sort out the problem as best it can. No doubt, he wants grammar schools by stealth.
We believe that the new system in Northern Ireland should offer people a choice and a chance to change. Some grammar schools might be willing to operate on a more comprehensive basis; certainly, there are secondary schools that want to become comprehensive schools. Why is it that only four secondary schools in Northern Ireland are allowed to select pupils? What is so special about Lagan College, Slemish College, Holy Cross College in Strabane and St Patrick’s Co-educational Comprehensive College in Maghera? Why should every secondary school and every grammar school not be allowed that choice? Why do we not allow the parents to make the decisions?
There are good grammar schools in Northern Ireland. There are good comprehensive schools and there are good secondary schools. How do we know that? We know because the parents want that system to remain. I trust parents. They need help and guidance, but I trust them. Surely Northern Ireland can get to a situation where, with children of nine years of age, one can have a decent idea of where they will be when they are 13 years of age. That is what must be done to advance towards a solution.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Thank you for your presentation and for keeping within the time limit. In the first instance, I will allocate each member five minutes in which to ask questions. Depending on the length of your answers, they may be able to ask further questions at the end. In the spirit of fairness, I will start from this side of the table because we started at the other side earlier.
Mr McElduff: I welcome the delegation. I am concerned by Mr Patterson’s reference to the myth that is the long tail of underachievement. I seek general comments from the panel on that. The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts’ report, ‘Improving Literacy and Numeracy in Schools (Northern Ireland): Second Report of Session 2006–07’ (November 2006) seems to bear out that there is a long tail of underachievement, in that 40% of 16-year-olds leave school with inadequate numeracy and literacy skills. Is that the case or not?
Secondly, how would grammar schools deliver the new varied and vocational life-skills curriculum?
Mr Patterson: May I clarify the long tail of underachievement? It has been suggested that, in the past, Northern Ireland results — at the bottom end — were much worse than those of other parts of these islands, where GCSE and A-level examinations were taken.
The point that I strove to make — perhaps I was not clear enough — was that, at the bottom end, Northern Ireland results are very similar to those of other parts of the United Kingdom. For example, in England, the number of pupils who leave school without any GCSEs is 5%; here it is 4%. The suggestion that grammar schools create a long tail of underachievement, while alternative systems do not, is incorrect.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: Mr McElduff’s point about the curriculum is important. It would be an absurdity to suppose that we would ever have one set of schools that are purely academic and another set that are purely vocational. In future, every individual will need to have a mix of those skills, but that mix will vary according to particular aptitudes.
People often talk of children’s sense of failure when they do not get the 11-plus and do not go to grammar school. Part of that stems from the fact that, in many ways, the non-grammar schools compete in the same races as the grammar schools in skills to which they are not necessarily very well adapted.
I see the possibility of parallel systems in which the emphasis in grammar schools will continue to be on academic subjects — for example, the hard sciences, which will be very important for our economic future — but, of course, there will have to be a vocational element as well. Similarly, other schools will place an emphasis on vocational subjects, but their students will also need language skills, and so on. I do not therefore see a terribly stark divide. However, at the moment the difficulty is that post-primary education submits virtually all children to the same hurdles, irrespective of their aptitudes. That does not serve them terribly well.
Mr McCallion: Sir Kenneth makes a good point. It is foolish to pretend that there are not children for whom our system does not work well, but that is true of every single education system in western Europe. Even those systems that have twice the amount of money invested in them as ours still have problems — those systems do not work for many of the children who go through them.
Our curriculum is very grammar-school driven. Huge numbers of comprehensive schools in England offer a diploma in business administration, but virtually no secondary school in Northern Ireland does because CCEA does not offer it.
We must think ahead. The great problem — and I will admit this; I have been a protagonist in this matter for the past 10 years — is that we have argued about grammar, secondary and comprehensive schools, but we have not argued for a curriculum that matches children to their futures and gives them opportunities. I want schools to be free. Schools are driven by their governors, parents and teachers, and they will do what is best for their children. However, it would be madness to return to the situation of the 1950s when secondary schools were forbidden to do the old Senior Certificate. We will not go down that road; we want to do the reverse and offer opportunities.
Mr Young: Given the time of year, it might be appropriate to quote from Isaiah, chapter 11, verse 6, leading up to the prophecy about the birth of Christ:
"and a little child shall lead them."
Over the past five years, we have been saying that the focus should have been on the little child in disadvantaged areas — on the Shankill Road or anywhere else. We have heard promises that money will be invested. Poor literacy and numeracy skills have been mentioned, and certain people have said that grammar schools are responsible for that. However, primary schoolteachers — who are doing a superb job — have for years been crying out for real support at primary-school level. As the subgroup will know, it is possible to identify reading difficulties in primary 1 and primary 2. However, time and time again, things just rattle on in primary schools, and the matter is not handled until much later.
I take the comment about literacy and numeracy, but the key to solving this problem is to start where it really matters. The Reading Recovery programme has achieved wonderful things, but it can continue to do that only if the personnel are there to deliver it.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Thank you. There will be time later for follow-up questions.
Mr D Bradley: Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. Tá céad míle fáilte romhaibh go léir.
You are very welcome, and thank you for your input.
I have great respect for the work of grammar schools. I attended a grammar school for two years and studied for my A levels there. I certainly appreciated the tuition and the high level of academic standards at that school, just as I appreciated the high level of academic standards at the secondary school that I previously attended.
Sir Kenneth began by mentioning that although the majority of the people who responded to the Northern Ireland Continuous Household Survey were against the 11-plus, they were in favour of academic selection. That is a contradiction. In Northern Ireland, although approximately 12 methods of academic selection have been tried, none has been found to have been satisfactory. I wonder whether it is time that we learned a lesson from that. I noticed also that the survey showed that the majority of the parents questioned expressed the view that they should be allowed to choose which post-primary school their children would attend. Perhaps we should give more weight to those statistics.
I am very much in favour of grammar schools continuing to deliver their current academic curriculum. I am not so sure about academic selection. For example, it is often claimed that academic selection benefits working-class communities by providing them with social mobility. However, some of the figures suggest that academic selection is unfair and discriminates against working-class communities.
In 2000, the study published by Peter Daly and Ian Shuttleworth of Queen’s University showed that 84% of children from professional families and 79% of the children of clerical workers attended grammar schools. In contrast to that, only 23·5% of factory workers’ children, and a mere 13·2% of children whose fathers were unemployed went to grammar schools. Those figures suggest that academic selection does not provide social mobility and is not good for working-class and disadvantaged communities. They suggest that the opposite is the case.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): I remind members that they are restricted to five minutes each.
Mr S Wilson: Sir Kenneth has 30 seconds in which to answer.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): He has about two minutes.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: I will leave Mr Patterson to address the statistical point.
There is no greater misnomer than the phrase "parental choice". There will not be parental choice, merely parental preference. In many cases, proximity will apply, and parents will not be able to get their child into the school of their choice. Undoubtedly, that will be the case.
Mr Bradley makes a fair point about the need for an alternative to the 11-plus. We would be in an absurd situation, having —
Mr D Bradley: Excuse me, I did not say anything about an alternative to the 11-plus. I said that I am unconvinced that selection is good for working-class children.
Mr McCallion: May I deal with this issue?
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Please deal with it briefly because there are other members waiting to speak.
Mr McCallion: Where did our middle class come from? On the whole, the people who make up the middle class in Northern Ireland are former grammar-school children.
Mr D Bradley: I agree with you. Back in 1948, and for perhaps 20 to 25 years after 1948, the 11-plus provided social mobility for many working-class people. My former party leader is on record as having said that he benefited from sitting the 11-plus. However, things have moved on, and what was intended to encourage social mobility in 1948 now militates against it.
Mr McCallion: I was the principal of Aquinas Diocesan Grammar School, and when it opened, the vast majority of its children came from lower-middle-class or working-class backgrounds. The difficulty is that there are significant numbers of parents who have gained from the grammar school system, and they want their children to gain from it too.
I want a system that will allow all children to gain. There are secondary schools that are doing fabulous jobs. When I was the principal of St Colm’s High School in Twinbrook — Twinbrook is not an area that is famous for being rich — I helped, with the assistance of John Allen and Imelda Jordan, to improve that school to a point where many of its children could move on to a grammar school. That is something of which I am proud. In fact, when I attended a recent function at Rathmore Grammar School, a young girl was presented to me to shake my hand. She asked whether I remembered her: I did not. She informed me that when she was a third-year pupil at St Colm’s, I became the school principal. She told me that I had given her a chance. Her words made me so proud that I have no hesitation in telling the members of the subgroup that my head was as big as this room.
11.15 am
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): To maintain a sense of fairness, we must move on. There should be time at the end of the session for further discussion. I ask members to respect the five-minute time limit. They may have a chance to ask further questions later.
Mr McNarry: Our new task is to identify whether selection is necessary. Part of our remit is to compile a report bringing forward alternatives to selection, and we would appreciate your help on that. The debate is deadlocked; it is stifled, and we must move on from that. As I said earlier, if the Assembly were to vote tomorrow — and it would not be by choice — one side would go into one lobby, the other side would go into the other lobby, and we would come out as deadlocked as we are now. Therefore, any help on alternative processes would be much appreciated in the short time that we have now, and beyond.
In an earlier evidence session this morning, a senior union official said that academic selection had contributed to underperformance, as identified by the shocking numeracy and literacy figures in the Committee of Public Accounts’ report. I would welcome your comments on that matter.
At an evidence session last week, officials from the Department of Education said that there was a significant role for historical feeder primary schools in a schools admission policy under the proposed new arrangements. What experience have you or your colleagues had of the patterns emerging from feeder schools? Are the admissions criteria for historical feeder primary schools easy to identify?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: I am chairman of the board of governors at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (RBAI) in the centre of Belfast. Historically, we have drawn our pupils from a wide area. At present, there are somewhere in the region of 135 feeder schools represented there. In many cases, some of those schools have sent only one or two pupils, and four or five schools provide a large part of the intake.
The last thing that we want to do in Northern Ireland is to create a series of educational ghettos. It is a bad idea to fixate on a neighbourhood and an immediate community that does not present the opportunity for people from different places to mix. That is why I am so antipathetic to making proximity the prime criterion for school admission. Such a criterion would be educationally and socially wrong.
Mr McCallion: Through our involvement with the grammar school sector, we will do all that we can to help. We understand the difficulty of the task that members have been set; it is awful. If it were easy, we would have done it long ago, but we are stuck.
Apparently, we have a numeracy and literacy policy. Why, therefore, do the Government hand out money to five education and library boards that merrily go off and do whatever they choose? The North Eastern Education and Library Board, the South Eastern Education and Library Board, the Western Education and Library Board and the Belfast Education and Library Board are all different. If there is a problem, and it has been identified, is it not acceptable to assume that there should be a solution? We know that the solution is to tackle numeracy and literacy sensibly. It is wise to establish the present situation and decide what has to be done, constantly monitoring the results.
Why has there not been an inspector’s report on the £40 million spent on the numeracy and literacy strategy? Did the inspectorate never write a report? I doubt that that is the case; rather, I think that it was never published. Marion Matchett is a competent chief inspector and a robust, tough individual. I do not believe that she and her officials sat there and did nothing. If you throw £40 million at something without making effective and efficient plans for what it will be spent on, there will be problems.
It looked like a good idea at the time, and I do not want to criticise the individuals who were responsible. I know that certain schools made fantastically good use of that money. However, I would not want to suggest that it only happened because of the 11-plus or that it does not apply in England or Scotland.
The Republic of Ireland has a quasi-comprehensive system. I use that word very advisedly. Twenty per cent of the young people in the Republic of Ireland do not sit the Leaving Certificate examinations. They leave school before they do the Leaving Certificate. In Northern Ireland, 5% leave with no qualifications. Is that a system that we want to go towards? Listen to the Ministers in the South and read the Skills Research Initiative (SRI) report; they know what the problem is. The whole of western Europe has this problem. We need to raise the matter of the people at the bottom, and we need to focus on that. When we talk about the 11-plus, we are not focusing on those children. Let us get this argument out of the way. We are asking members to help us to solve it.
Mr Young: May I make two brief points? To blame grammar schools or academic selection for the problems with literacy and numeracy is nonsense. Primary 1 and primary 2 teachers can identify problems at that stage. As Sir Kenneth and Finbarr McCallion have said, there is much more that can be done at that level. It is totally wrong to lay it at the academic door.
It is, of course, possible to identify feeder schools. We have on average some 50 feeder schools from a very wide catchment area.
Mr McNarry: In which area is that?
Mr Young: Belfast Royal Academy has about 50 feeder schools from a wide catchment area. It is possible to identify them, but in addition to that one has to identify the children with, perhaps, the intellectual gifts to benefit from the academic curriculum that we are offering. Feeder schools alone would not be sufficient to provide that.
Mr S Wilson: I have just three questions. You may not be able to answer them all today, but perhaps you would write to us. Some of the questioners this morning and the trades union representatives who were here have already posed the argument that we want to retain the academic ethos in the grammar schools. Can you explain how that could be done without academic selection? If academic selection, as we understand it at present, is to be done away with, what do you need from any report available to parents or teachers that would ensure that youngsters who want to go to a grammar school and want to benefit from the academic ethos — which everybody says they want to preserve —make best use of the opportunity?
Secondly, we are not looking at this in a vacuum. There will still be the possibility of academic selection after 26 March 2007. Can you outline what you mean by computer-adaptive testing? I know that we could get a paper on that.
Thirdly, if the political parties cannot agree on a form of reporting or selection that can be applied universally to schools, what would the view of the grammar schools be towards the possibility of testing or assessing youngsters and having their own arrangements for making those decisions? Academic selection would remain, but only for those schools that wanted to use it.
Mr Young: A variety of things could happen. The first that was suggested, of course, was the pupil profile, but if a profile is used for selection, it will end up being bland. It will put primary schoolteachers on the spot. The system that we are currently investigating, and will probably hang our hat on, is computer-adaptive testing. If we adopt any other system of testing, should it be Key Stage 2, National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) tests or standardised tests, it will result in the same sort of pressures that the 11-plus imposed. Computer-adaptive testing is done on a computer. It can be done in primary 5, primary 6 or primary 7, and done as often as the young people like. It meets many of the criteria that we mentioned. In other words, it is not a sudden-death thing. It can be used by primary schools to determine what level a young person is at. It would give a score from –3 to 0 right up to +3 — so it gives different levels. It can be done at different stages and as often as young people like, and there is no time limit. Therefore, pupils can, in a sense, be relaxed about it.
Mr Wilson said that that there is a problem about reaching agreement. Although we need to investigate the computer-adaptive system further before hanging our hats on it, if we assume that schools go down that road, the system could be used in a variety of ways. For example, if a school wished to take a strict approach, it could choose children who achieve a score of 2 or 3. For those who wish to use the system more loosely — that could be done. Finally, schools that do not want academic selection could use the system to determine the individual needs of young people.
It will be very difficult to reach a compromise that is agreeable to everyone, but something similar to the computer-adaptive system — a system that does not put pressure on primary schools — could identify the gifts and strengths of young people and could be used by different schools in different ways.
We still require a presentation on that, although that will happen soon, but after that, we will probably choose that system. It does not put the pressure on primary schools, as the current tests do, but if there is to be selection, there must be some form of testing. The issue is about how it can be done without creating the current pressures.
Mr S Wilson: Some witnesses have suggested that it is possible to maintain the academic ethos of a grammar school without testing.
Mr Young: That would be impossible. The ethos may be retained for a while, but within seven years all grammar schools would become comprehensive schools, and, depending on criteria, they may become local comprehensive schools.
People continually say that we must look to the future and not to the past — they have not looked to England, where comprehensive schools have been a disaster. It would be very difficult to identify a young person’s potential for grammar school from a profile.
Mr McElduff: Is it fair to say that the tests are unproven?
Mr Young: I wish to make one point. The computer-adaptive system has been proven in the United States. For young people, there is a competitive element. If they are successful at one level, they move on to a slightly harder one, and so on. The level they reach becomes a useful tool that is used by teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses in the student.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: We are not thinking only of the schools; we are trying to think of the children. There is nothing more miserable than the condition of a child who gains admission to a school where he or she is unable to cope. If there are too many of those children —
Mr D Bradley: That happens now.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: Either they are not able to cope, or the school has to reorganise its teaching resources. That affects the capacity to continue offering subjects such as the hard sciences, which underpin the Northern Ireland economy.
One reason for abolishing the 11-plus is that schools are obliged to be more prescriptive than they would otherwise choose to be. Every year, schools like ours have to turn away children that they would ordinarily be happy to accept, and who would be perfectly capable of coping with what those schools can offer.
Mr Donaldson: You said that certain selection criteria might be used as tie-breakers. I am concerned about the possible development of a postcode lottery if geographical location is used as a tie-breaker, especially where a number of schools are in close proximity. Belfast Royal Academy and the Royal Belfast Academical Institute would fall into that category. If academic selection were not available as a transfer criterion, and there were schools that were oversubscribed, how would that be dealt with?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: If academic selection were abolished, the Department of Education would produce an acceptable menu of entry criteria. Individual schools would then select approved criteria from that menu. Important questions would then arise about the order in which those criteria were addressed. For schools such as ours, the last thing we would want is to be confined to a tightly circumscribed geographical area. Ultimately, if hardy came to hardy, we would prefer random selection to proximity to the school.
11.30 am
Mr Donaldson: If academic selection were retained but there was no political agreement about the method, how would grammar schools feel about introducing their own selection procedures?
Mr Young: If academic selection were retained and nothing else was agreed, grammar schools would happily use their own procedures.
Focusing on what Mr Bradley said earlier, however, I emphasise that I have a very working-class background. If there is a problem with coaching now, there is no doubt in my mind that if schools introduced their own tests, that problem would increase, possibly tenfold. It is important to identify the young people who can cope with the grammar curriculum. Of course, we would provide our own tests. However, we have to emphasise that if we did that, young people from poorer areas would probably be disadvantaged.
Mr McCallion: I want to add an important point. We have discussed bright and academically successful children. Let us consider for a moment those children who are not academically successful in primary school. At present, if they were placed in grammar schools, the necessary teachers would not be available to manage them. New teachers would be needed. How would that be managed?
First, teachers would have to be taken away from minority subjects. Physics, chemistry and biology would probably survive, although interest in subjects such as German and other modern languages would decrease — those are the low-uptake subjects. We would have to go to secondary schools and poach their good remedial teachers. Let me be clear about remedial teachers: as the principal of a secondary school, I can tell you that they are among the most talented teachers. I consider myself to be a reasonably confident teacher. However, for me, the idea of going into a class of 10 or 15 children who have the attention span of a click of your fingers is impossible. I team-taught with people in those schools. There are a limited number of those very talented teachers, who are, at the moment, concentrated where they are needed. Another group of teachers is concentrated on teaching the difficult sciences, high-level English, maths, and so on.
If you want an example of a really good teacher, one is sitting here — Sammy Wilson. Education in Northern Ireland has lost Mr Wilson as a teacher. He was a leader. He will laugh, because I am going to embarrass him. He was a talented teacher; people recognised that about him. However, if I had been his principal, I would not have let him near the first-formers. He would have been a star with the fifth years and the lower and upper sixth; they would have thought that he was wonderful. He would have worked them to death. However, if he were put among the first years, it would not have been so good. That is a fact: teachers are just not meant to teach every year group.
If you were to put me in a primary 1 class, I could not cope. The seats are too small, the kids are too tiny, and their heads are buzzing. I am too old — I was too old when I was 21 years of age. You must choose horses for courses.
Mr McElduff: I notice that Sammy has been silenced. [Laughter.]
Mr McCallion: Is that a record?
Mr McNarry: Roy Beggs Jnr in East Antrim is going to talk to him. [Laughter.]
Mr Young: Differentiation is the key. Any teacher will tell you that in order to pitch lessons appropriately and stimulate pupils in the same classroom, it is not easy to separate the bright ones from those who struggle. One of the strengths of the current system is that top-class grammar schools and top-class secondary schools cater for two different groups. Secondary schools deal with the children who Mr McCallion talked about — those young people who struggle and who need extra help.
Secondary schools also identify the late developers. That is extremely important, particularly for males, who can develop as late as 14, 15, or even 17 years of age, some even after they have left school. Secondary schools have the academic stream that allows those children to make progress. That is one of the system’s strengths.
I want to return to several issues that Mr Bradley raised about the 11-plus. Perhaps there will be a chance to do so later.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): There will not be a chance later. Five minutes are left before the meeting is suspended. I want to do a quick round up with members, so — I had a good education — that is one minute each. [Laughter.]
Mr McNarry: Can you imagine her being a teacher?
Mr D Bradley: I do not accept, nor am I convinced by, your argument that grammar schoolteachers cannot teach children of varying abilities. After all, all teachers in Northern Ireland receive similar basic training. If you do a degree and then do a postgraduate certificate in education, you are just as qualified to teach in a secondary school as in a grammar school. In addition, I am not convinced by the argument that grammar schools contain homogenous groups of pupils. They do not; that is far from being the case.
We could say that at one time the grammar school sector took about a quarter of the supposedly top pupils. However, last year 13 grammar schools drew less than half of their intake from this group. For example, at Campbell College only 37·4% of new pupils had grade A. At St Joseph’s Grammar School, Donaghmore, the percentage was 38·4%; at Cambridge House it was 25·7%; and at Hunterhouse it was a mere 10%. What is happening, possibly through a process of demographic change, is that grammar schools are gradually becoming all-ability schools, and the teachers in those grammar schools are coping very well with that expanding range of ability. If they can do it now, surely they can do it in the future.
Mr Young: Chairperson, I thought we were here to give some answers, not to listen to lectures.
Mr D Bradley: Chairperson, that was a question. The witnesses have put certain points to us.
Mr McCallion: Can I run the question the other way round?
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): May I remind you that I am the principal of this school? Mr Bradley is entitled to add a comment.
Mr McNarry: It is either 100 lines or a whacking, Dominic?
Mr Patterson: For a number of years, over 90% of children accepted into grammar schools have had an A or B in the transfer procedure. The suggestion that grammar schools are becoming comprehensive schools is complete nonsense. There are a couple of schools in which the intake has gone down to pupils with a C, but we are talking about a small number of schools. Over 90% of pupils taken into grammar schools have an A or a B in their transfer test — that does not denote a comprehensive intake.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): May I just remind you that this is being recorded in evidence, and if you want to make a written submission to any of the comments that the members have made, feel free to do so.
Mr McNarry: I see now why Dominic did not want the Catholic head teachers to be attending these sessions — they might have given him a bit of a shock.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): It is 45 seconds now.
Mr D Bradley: I take it that they are represented here by Mr McCallion, if I am not mistaken.
Mr McNarry: Can the witnesses quickly address the impact of falling rolls and school closures on the reforms, bearing in mind that the reforms may eventually dispose of selection of any kind? What is the match-up in terms of the children, who Sir Kenneth rightly identified as the most important aspect of this?
Mr McCallion: One of the problems is that we have done nothing for 10 years. We have argued, and we have not thought of the issues. Our population is now back to where it was in 1985. We should have done something. In 1985, voluntary grammar schools came together and agreed to take cuts in their numbers. That is where the quotas came from. What has happened since? Nothing, except that we have opened integrated schools which have taken children out of the system. If we are going to have a selective system, we are going to have to come to an agreement about selection and about intakes. That is life. It is hard. It is going to be very difficult, but it is life — no free lunches.
Mr McElduff: To be directly specific to the terms of reference, I am anticipating that academic selection will have gone in the future. Has the grammar school sector given any thought to aptitude testing at the key stages of children’s education to enable them to be placed on the basis of subject choice?
11.45 am
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: Setting is carried out in many English comprehensive schools. Interestingly, at one of our meetings, the principal of a grammar school said that people talk all the time about the sense of failure that children feel when they do not pass the 11-plus. She wanted to assure us that a pupil in a comprehensive school who is in the bottom set for all subjects has no less a sense of failure than a pupil who has failed the 11-plus. Whether we like it or not, some pupils will do better than others.
I am conscious that, yet again, selection is dominating the education debate. However, the real problem lies elsewhere: at primary level. It lies not in poor teaching but in the conditions in which our children are taught in primary schools. If, by 11 years of age, a child has no motivation or interest in learning, it is possibly too late to do anything about it.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): If anybody wishes to comment on that, they should feel free to do so in writing.
Mr Young: I want to ask what Mr McElduff meant by his question; I would like to answer it properly. Was he referring to aptitude tests that pupils take before they start secondary school or tests that they take when they are there?
Mr McElduff: I was referring to tests that they take when they are there.
Mr S Wilson: All this morning’s evidence suggests that those who support the move away from academic selection towards pupil profiles do so on the basis that profiles will give the ultimate parental choice. Parents will be able to choose a school based on a report that will enable them to make the best choices for their youngsters. Against the picture of falling school rolls, will the inevitable outcome of pupil profiles mean gains in pupil numbers for the schools that are correctly or incorrectly perceived to be the most successful — your schools — while the secondary sector loses out? If people have freedom of choice, they will choose grammar schools.
Mr McCallion: Some parents will do that. The situation in Great Britain must be considered. Who would want to be principal of a school that is six times oversubscribed? Hundreds of children are being turned away from such schools. That will happen here: people will begin with the school that they perceive to be number one and ricochet their way down a list until they finally find a slot. What method is that for placing a child in a school?
Mr McNarry: Are you referring to good schools and bad schools?
Mr McCallion: Yes, schools that are perceived as good schools or bad schools, handy schools, schools that are far away, schools that offer T-shirts if you go to open days — it will not matter.
Mr Donaldson: Thank you for your submissions. My question relates to comprehensive education. I went to Kilkeel High School, which is a comprehensive school. Given the locality, comprehensive education was the only available option. Should there be a one-size-fits-all solution? In places in which there is oversubscription, should we consider area-based solutions that could include academic selection?
Mr Young: One strength of the current system is the variety of schools that are available. I am not against comprehensive schools as such; various types of school here are doing really well. Mr Donaldson hit the nail on the head when he asked whether we want a one-size-fits-all solution or separate solutions for separate situations. Study after study in the Republic of Ireland has found that parental choice is a myth: it leads to confusion and to the oversubscription that Mr Donaldson and Mr McCallion mentioned.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: I wish to return briefly to the point that I made at the beginning of the session. The Department of Education has repeatedly assured us that there is no threat to grammar schools, that there is no intention to introduce comprehensive education to Northern Ireland and that there is no search for a one-size-fits-all solution. We want substance to be added to those assurances to make them credible, because we do not think that they are credible.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): I thank the witnesses for their presentations.
Mr D Bradley: I have a point of information. Mr McNarry said that I objected to the Catholic grammar school heads —
Mr McNarry: Quote me correctly; I did not say that. I said that I could now understand why you did not want them. That is different.
Mr D Bradley: Can I correct that? I knew that this group of witnesses, and Mr McCallion in particular, would be more than able to represent the views of all grammar schools.
Mr Young: I would like to say one thing to everyone: no successful business would put pressure on so many variables at the same time. The 11-plus, the Bain Report, the review of the curriculum, the review of public administration, and the review of procurement have all contributed to the uncertainty of the last five years in the education sector. The Bain Report should have happened first, followed by the curriculum review. We must think of teachers and pupils in the primary schools, where there is a very serious vacuum. Something must be done.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Thank you for giving up your time this morning, and thank you for your presentation. We have a lot of people to see this afternoon, and that is why I am pressing the pace. If you feel that you need to respond further to any of our comments or questions, feel free to do so in writing to the Clerks.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: We thank you for the opportunity to come and talk to you; we appreciate it.
The subgroup was suspended at 11.46 am.
On resuming —
11.48 am
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): I welcome the new witnesses to the Subgroup to Consider the Schools Admission Policy. In a moment I will allow time for introductions and presentations. Members will then be free to ask questions.
We have been struggling with time all morning, because there have been more questions and comments than expected. If I push you, it is for that reason and because a number of evidence sessions are scheduled for this afternoon.
Mr Jim Clarke (Council for Catholic Maintained Schools): I was nearly going to say good afternoon, but it is definitely still morning.
My name is Jim Clarke, and I am the deputy chief executive of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS). I was also a member of the Costello Group. I understand that Stephen Costello was invited today but was unable to attend; I will make a comment or two on his behalf.
It does not make sense to consider pupil transfer in isolation from everything else that is happening in education. CCMS does not consider education to be an end in itself. However, it is important that there be coherence and connectivity in education policies throughout the education system. Perhaps equally, if not more, important is the link between the education system, society and the economy. I commented on that point, particularly with respect to the economy, in my paper to the subgroup
The Costello Group faced the same issues, and I suppose some people were surprised that we actually came up with a solution. We did it by establishing principles and drawing practical outworkings from those principles. We tested everything that was proposed against those principles.
I would like to remind the subgroup of those principles. There should be equality — each young person should be valued. All education should be high in quality. The curriculum should be relevant, in order to motivate learning. There should be effective access to education, with appropriate support to allow everyone to fulfil his or her potential for lifelong learning. There should be the flexibility to provide a range of choices, with information and advice available to guide those choices — whether it is for parents in the early years of their children’s education or students in later years.
The education service should promote tolerance and reconciliation through understanding and respect for diversity, not only from a religious or political perspective, but in relation to the social differentiation in our society. It should be based on the principles of partnership, and the education service should foster effective partnerships. That makes sense in the context of the education of children, not the preservation of schools per se.
Schools exist to meet the needs of pupils. We must examine that point carefully in the context of a range of issues, not least the fact that a recent report on literacy and numeracy highlighted those who are disadvantaged in education and the link to those who are disadvantaged in society as a whole. The question is how we ameliorate that situation in the context of social justice.
As regards the demographic downturn, there are 2,000 fewer pupils in schools this year than at the same time last year, which follows a trend that started in 2002.
The Government have accepted the broad principles contained in the Bain Report, which proposes area planning, something that we should consider in relation to resolving some of the pupil transfer issues.
I mentioned the need for coherence and connectivity of policy. We cannot look at demographics, the Bain Report and area planning without looking at transfer, admissions and transport policy, because another strand of the Bain Report was that we need to get better value out of the education service by not spending money on things that do not affect the child in the classroom.
Before we start talking about transfer procedures, there is a question that must be asked. Sir George Bain has said that Northern Ireland has more schools than it needs, and perhaps schools in places without children. The question is: what kind of post-primary arrangements will there be? Until that question is answered, the issue about the kind of procedures that should be in place for the transfer of pupils at age 11, 14 or any other age cannot possibly be addressed.
In particular, with reference to rural areas, should we always be looking at the structures we know? Can we not consider ages four to 14 or ages seven to 14 in certain areas, because the curriculum model we now have, via the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, is creating core skills, which are really in the middle part of the education cycle between the ages of seven and 14. This is about a skills curriculum, and about coherence within that skills curriculum. We need to ask what kinds of post-primary arrangements should be put in place to facilitate that.
Finally, we also need to look at things such as the pupil profile and remember what the intention was. The pupil profile is a document that guides pupils, parents and teachers in identifying and meeting children’s learning needs over a period of time. It was never designed to be a tool to aid selection. It was designed to reinforce assessment for learning and build on good practice in the classroom.
So, those are some of the issues. I have no doubt that there are other issues about admissions arrangements that you will come to in the course of your questioning.
12.00 noon
Mr Uel McCrea (Association of Head Teachers in Secondary Schools): I am Uel McCrea, Headmaster of Ballyclare Secondary School, a non-selective school with just over 1,000 students. I am also Chairman of the Association of Head Teachers in Secondary Schools, which is an association of principals from controlled and maintained schools throughout the five education and library board areas in the Province. I have provided the subgroup with a paper that attempts to set out our position on the inclusion of academic selection as part of admissions criteria.
Our association, although it represents non-selective schools throughout the Province, is not primarily concerned about the preservation of our schools or our type of school. Our main concern, and I know this is shared by many, is that we really wish to have the child at the centre of our focus. The reason for our very existence, as Jim Clarke said, is that schools are there to provide the educational opportunities that will meet the diverse needs of children, with their wide variety of talents and abilities, at each stage of their development.
We want to see young people from Northern Ireland better qualified, more confident and more competent in their skills than ever before. I quote Jeremiah 29:11, where God says to his people:
"For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".
That is what we want for all our children — a hope and a future. We believe that if that is what we are interested in then we are not living in the 1950s, we are moving into the twenty-first century.
There is no reason for academic selection at the age of 11 — children simply do not need it. It is a device to facilitate a ranking order so that a particular type of school can select its intake. That is all it is. Why do we want to separate children artificially at the age of 11? What benefits are in it for them?
I can see why the grammar schools wish to have a pecking order, but what is the cost to the children — the children we serve? What are the negative effects on the primary school curriculum? George Buckley is with me today. He is the parent of a child at my school, but he is also headmaster of a primary school in Magherafelt, and I will let him speak on that point.
My paper clearly states our view that academic selection completely distorts the curriculum. It focuses our minds on things that do not primarily address children’s needs. There are now new proposals for computer-adaptive tests (CATs) — we have not learned the lesson that CATs will do exactly the same thing. For 40-odd years we have tried different methods of separating children artificially at the age of 11. They have all been doomed to failure. Now we are told that there is another system comprising 27 tests for children in primaries 5, 6, and 7. The simple question I ask is — why? Why do we do that? Why do the children need to do that? It is simply because certain types of institutions want to have a pecking order.
Education is not about pecking orders: it is about giving everybody hope and a future. Personally, and as an association, we believe firmly in all-ability schools — the Scottish or the Finnish models — but we accept that it seems as though we will not achieve that. The Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 gives us the opportunity to formulate an education system that meets the needs of all children and young people and creates a solid foundation for a learning society. When academic selection at the age of 11 is abolished, we can improve choice and flexibility for all pupils.
We believe in the formation of partnerships. We will build on the strengths of existing schools, including grammar schools, which are not threatened by the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006. Those partnerships will enhance educational opportunities and, if they are strategically placed, as the recommendations in the Bain Report suggest, we could form local networks of institutions and learning communities and offer a comprehensive range of courses and provision. All children would have a minimum entitlement regardless of where they live or their social-class backgrounds. We should not shut off possibilities for young people, rather we should ensure that they continue to learn and develop and gradually take decisions — along with their parents — on the sort of education and training that they would like and to which they are best suited.
The pupil profile, to which Mr Clarke referred, is designed to help parents and children to choose the most appropriate pathway. It is not meant to be a means whereby a particular school can choose its intake or deal with oversubscription. Mission criteria that best suit local networks of schools, including grammar schools and colleges, can be chosen from the broad categories outlined in the consultation document. Those local partnerships can be given the responsibility to develop appropriate criteria that best suit their community and students.
We cannot retain the present system. It is a socially stratified schools system suited to the 1950s. I do understand, however, why it was created in the 1950s. We need a system that promotes the skills of all our citizens, puts Northern Ireland at the top of the schools’ league, encourages entrepreneurship and ends false distinctions between academic and vocational study.
Mr George Buckley: Good afternoon. Mr McCrea asked me to come along to give a parent’s perspective. I am a product of the secondary school system. I am a past pupil of Ballyclare Secondary School, and I went through the selection procedure. I have two daughters; one proceeded through the grammar school system, and the other is in the secondary school system.
From a parent’s perspective, selection is fine if the child achieves the grade to which he or she aspires, which applies to around 25% of children. However, the impact of a grade that does not allow the child to go to the school of his or her choice can be devastating. Parents see at first hand that their child’s self-esteem is damaged when he or she is separated from friends of six or seven years of age. Regardless of having been told that a B, C or D grade is not a failure, society, children and parents regard those grades as failures, and the damage caused can be long term.
As a parent, I question why our children are put through that trauma. My two girls, because of the superb teaching that they have received, will probably end up receiving third-level education in the same place, and I am not quite sure why the selection system needed to separate them at 11 years of age.
Wearing my other hat, I operate within the school system as a primary school principal. Politicians have commented that there is a little distortion in year 7. That is not correct. There is a distortion in the primary curriculum for years 5, 6 and 7, and it is devastating. Our teaching is geared towards the selection test. We do not teach a differentiated curriculum to those children who select the test, and I tell parents that. Parents are under tremendous social pressure, because it is social engineering.
We do not differentiate. Children are taught at level 5, often above their individual ability level. They suffer as a result, and they are frustrated. That teaching method is contrary to the educational principles that have been set out for primary schools, yet schools have to teach in that way because the examination is competitive. Children go through that procedure in years 5, 6 and 7.
The revised curriculum, which has just been launched and which contains a foundation stage, is an enriched curriculum that will operate from year 1 up to year 7. That new curriculum will not dovetail into a system of selection. Neither the in-service training nor the structures that are being put in place for the pupil profile lend themselves to such a system at the age of 11. Therefore there is a huge anomaly.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): Members may now question the witnesses. However, I would appreciate it if they adhered to their five-minute time limit. For fairness, I will start with the DUP this time.
Mr Donaldson: Gentlemen, you touched on the implications that the Bain Report will have for the reconfiguration of the education system. Given Northern Ireland’s changing demographics, I accept that that change will occur. In light of that review and its consequences on the reconfiguration of post-primary education — never mind primary education — is now the right time to change the transfer procedure? Should that change now be put on hold and a temporary arrangement put in place until we see the outcome of the Bain Report and how the system will be reconfigured? Is now the right time to make those decisions about which the subgroup has to make recommendations?
Mr U McCrea: Perhaps Mr Clarke would like to comment on the strategic view; I have no comment to make.
Mr J Clarke: This is absolutely the right time. Earlier this week, Maria Eagle indicated that the Department of Education would take immediate action on the Bain Report proposals rather than wait until the Education and Skills Authority is established. The subgroup should bear in mind the comments that have been made about the curriculum. A new curriculum will be rolled out from next September, and, as I said earlier, we must ensure that we have coherence and connectivity in education policy.
Area planning recognises an area as a cogent unit. It involves ascertaining pupil numbers in an area, and it considers the kind of educational structures that are needed there. That may mean acknowledging that in some areas there are not enough schools and that in others that there are too many. Therefore relocation of schools may have to be considered.
However, area planning must be addressed within the right context. We need to know the kind of post-primary education into which we are transferring children. Until we know that, some of the other issues that we have discussed are irrelevant. We need to know what we are moving towards, and, as Uel McCrea said, parents want to make genuine choices.
As a community, we need to make real choices. As I have said, we must stop looking at education as the preserve of some and not the preserve of others or as an end in itself. We have to create a much closer link between our education system and our economy. If we want to buy people into the idea of a prosperous Northern Ireland, we must have an economy that underpins that concept. At present, there is considerable debate about the attitude of the Protestant community to education, and the results in the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts’ report question that.
Our educational success is another factor. Some 50% of our people go to university, but our economy can employ only 20% to 23% of graduates. Where do the rest go? We are exporting them. However, we may also be creating an even more insidious problem: people with degrees are working at sub-degree level, doing jobs that they could have obtained with GCSEs. That is not the best way to buy a community into the value of education. Our education system must therefore play into our economy.
The Bain Report has several strands. Besides addressing area planning, it considers school funding. Much of what we do, particularly transporting kids from one area to another, takes money out of the classroom. Therefore to answer your question, we must consider the big picture. Bearing in mind the work that has been done in the Catholic sector, with the agreement of education and library boards and other school providers, we could move quickly to area planning.
12.15 pm
Mr U McCrea: We are probably 50 years too late. However, that is a personal view. As a school principal for 20-odd years, I have seen youngsters coming in every year, and I know the damage that selection has done to them. My heart bleeds for them, and I say that this is wrong. I do not believe that an academically capable 11-year-old will lose anything by not having academic selection as one of the criteria for admission. I honestly believe that with all my heart. In the best interests of children — and long term, in the best interest of our Province — we should remove selection.
Mr Donaldson: Supposing that an academically gifted child ends up in an underachieving school on which inspection reports indicate that there is a problem. How does that benefit that child?
Mr U McCrea: There are examples of very good practice. I could take you to Birmingham, for example, where a group of educationalists came together and simply said that they did not want any sub-standard schools in their area. They share expertise to ensure that every child in the area gets an education of a very high standard. There is no doubt about the quality of teachers in Northern Ireland. We already know that they are better qualified and, I would say, have a greater commitment. We simply cannot allow the scenario that Mr Donaldson described to happen. Therefore, in partnership with others, we must ensure that that academically gifted child gets a first-rate education and that nothing blocks his or her way. Moving towards this system will not hinder a child like that.
The Chairperson (Ms S Ramsey): I wish to remind witnesses that they should feel free to forward any other information that could be relevant to the subgroup. If we have time at the end, members will ask questions.
Mr S Wilson: I have a question for each of the panel. First, Mr Buckley talked about separating children at the age of 11. It is inevitable: we had a submission this morning from one of the teachers' unions, which claimed that if we go for area-based schools, we could have youngsters separated on the basis that one house was in one place and another was 5 yards away. Separation at the age of 11 is going to happen where there is a choice of schools and oversubscribed schools.
You also mentioned the distorting effect of testing on the curriculum. Is it not your job as a principal to manage that? If you believe that the curriculum is being distorted, it is up to you to ensure that that does not happen.
I do not like talking about people’s personal choices, but you said that you chose a grammar school for your daughter. Were you not making a choice about the differences in schools when you made that decision?
My question for Jim Clarke is on the matter of choice. Mr Clarke was a member of the Costello Report team, and the main thrust of Costello at the time was that parental choice would be central when determining which schools youngsters went to. How can parental choice be exercised without producing the result that Mr McCrea described in which there is an artificial pecking order? People have perceptions about "good schools" and "bad schools", which will not disadvantage some secondary schools. The alleged emphasis on parental choice could result in some good secondary schools going to the wall while some bad grammar schools might be preserved — the exact complaint that Mr McCrea made in his submission.