11-Plus Proposal

[Tony Baloney]

Exams at 18 are worse. Tis balls when you just want to get wrote off, some fecker hands you an A-Level paper.
Ms Ruane, sort it out!!

Aye but you are a big boy by then and apparently able to make decisions for yourself e.g. will I go and buy a barrack and lie in the park or will I get the books out! Anyway sure you can batter away at A levels until you nail the results you need!

[Handy]

Exams at 18 are worse. Tis balls when you just want to get wrote off, some fecker hands you an A-Level paper.
Ms Ruane, sort it out!!

Aye but you are a big boy by then and apparently able to make decisions for yourself e.g. will I go and buy a barrack and lie in the park or will I get the books out! Anyway sure you can batter away at A levels until you nail the results you need!

A?

[Chrisowc]

This is a classist policy (is there such a word? and if so, apologies for the awful pun) and the woman is a complete buffoon.

If some good comes out of this, hopefully people will realise the type of muppets we have up on the hill.

......if I can't play cops and robbers I'm going home

[Handy]

Occupied 6 counties assembly is a complete joke - egotisical wankers thinking they can make a difference because .............. what, done time, hate prods, hate taigs, hate life - need to be on camera - need to .... f**k off and elect real politicians!!

[Donagh]

I agree with him that some kinds of means/transfer test is essential because then a child's ability and needs can be determined, in the most tangible way that there is at the moment.

The suggestions from Sinn Fein are ludicrous in the extreme and will have a serious detrimental effect on the education of children.  Lumping every child in to one stream will ultimately dilute education, imo.

The transfer test is essential to test the childs ability in what?

The ministers proposals don't say anything about lumping every child in the "one stream".

[Donagh]

Alongside some kind of transfer test should be the means for any student to opt out of it and go directly to a vocational route.  Whether the right place for that is a school or a training centre of some kind remains to be seen.

Why not have a transfer test that tests the students 'vocational' skills in plumbing and send all those that don't come up to scratch on to grammar school.

[Donagh]

I think the system is ok as is with regards to the 11 plus. I do think further on it is flawed.

The new proposals are not about getting more people into university but getting more of them to make theh right choices. We have one of the highest rates in western Europe of students leaving school with no qualifications - surely that is indication enough that there is something wrong with the system?

[Donagh]

What Ruane, the Shinners and all the 11-plus abolishionists can't seem to get into their heads is that selection will always exist.

Surely that should be:

"What Ruane, the Shinners, theh SDLP, the Catholic Church, the teaching unions, Queen's University academics, the majority of people here and all the 11-plus abolishionists..."

[Donagh]

kids should be put in a level of where they are at. and a means/transfer test is the only way

How can a test for a child at 11 years of age determine the level they are at for the rest of their lives?

It shouldn't but at 11 you move schools - end of!

I moved at 14.

If you were kept back - sobeit - maybe for the best.

Obviously.

[The bard of dunclug]

What Ruane, the Shinners and all the 11-plus abolishionists can't seem to get into their heads is that selection will always exist.

Surely that should be:

"What Ruane, the Shinners, theh SDLP, the Catholic Church, the teaching unions, Queen's University academics, the majority of people here and all the 11-plus abolishionists..."

Are you sure?

[stephenite]

Without stating the obvious....

Why not just have secondary schools and vocational schools? Sure, the rich can continue to send their kids to uber expensive schools if they so wish but it's certainly not a guarantee of a better education.

[Donagh]

In Northern Ireland for the past 40 years, places in the better schools have been determined by a simple IQ test. Perhaps not the most elegant or egalitarian of systems - but, regardless of religion, social status or background, every child in Northern Ireland has had a chance of attaining a top education.

But that's not true. The 11+ was an unfair test where the chances of passing was deeply influenced by where you come from e.g. take a look at the pass rates on the Shankill Rd comared to the Malone area. If anything, it reinforces the class divdes. It's not even a good indication of the so called academic ability it is supposed to measure i.e. if you give me the results of key stage 1 or 2 tests I'd be able to give you a better prediction of which students will pass their first year of university than anyone else could give with 11+ results.

Remove academic selection, and it will be replaced by financial selection. Perhaps not overnight, but over a period of years it will certainly happen.

Financial selection is already in place witnessed by the amount of children who get through the test because their parents can afford grinds.

[Donagh]

This is a classist policy (is there such a word? and if so, apologies for the awful pun) and the woman is a complete buffoon.

Classist in what way Chris? In what way is she a buffoon?

[saffron sam2]

What Ruane, the Shinners and all the 11-plus abolishionists can't seem to get into their heads is that selection will always exist. There will always be better schools than others. There were always be a "market" for perfectionism in schools and there will always be a "market" for doing the bare minimum.

In Northern Ireland for the past 40 years, places in the better schools have been determined by a simple IQ test. Perhaps not the most elegant or egalitarian of systems - but, regardless of religion, social status or background, every child in Northern Ireland has had a chance of attaining a top education.

Remove academic selection, and it will be replaced by financial selection. Perhaps not overnight, but over a period of years it will certainly happen. Elite schools will be able to charge elite fees, and top schools will be able to charge top fees. Parents will pay, just as they do for school in England, and for college in the USA, to send their kids to these schools. Even if they aren't bright kids, just walking in these circles will open doors for them in life.

Sending your offspring to these schools will be an easy option for the rich, and a passable option for the middle classes, but simply not an option for the working classes. I'll digress for a second and state that this will, in effect, become another financial penalty on middle classes who want to prosper, and that it will inevitably lead to less procreation in the middle classes. Meanwhile those people who never cared for an education will continue to churn out babies and speed up the braindrain, and populate the lazydrain.

Lastly, the problem in Northern Ireland isn't academic selection, but that successive Labour Governments, and now their Stormont equivalents, do not place any value in non-academic education. If our leaders would stop branding the trades and skills as equivalent to dropping out, and instead reinforce their place, their abolsute need, in society, then students - even those as young as eleven - might not feel so "tainted" at missing out on a Grammar School place. If they then aimed a large portion of secondary/comprehensive education at teaching students key skills for life, then those school days would also be a more enjoyable, productive and fondly-remembered time.

Too many kids feel they have to go to Grammar School for the wrong reasons.

I would like a list of these better schools and the criteria you have used to decide how one school is better than another. A list of all schools from the best to the worst would also be useful.

I would also like details of this simple IQ test and the minimum required IQ to obtain a place in one of the better schools.

[thewobbler]

Saffron - if the be all and end all of education is examination results, then I'm sure you're quite capable of retrieving an academic results table from the internet somewhere. But this would probably be a pointless exercise, as you'll no doubt disagree with my rationale, and disagree also with the results. The truth though is that some schools are oversubscribed every year and some aren't...mostly due to to the performance of the school in examinations.

The 11-plus has evolved a tad over the years but at its heart, it is a test of verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, arithmetic and writing. This makes it, in essence, an IQ test. Just as when adults take IQ tests, contributing factors mean that the results are not always a reflection of person's intelligence. Just as when adults take IQ tests, the brain be trained to perform the tasks within to a better standard. The system is flawed, but it isn't without purpose.

On your last point, the IQ required to pass the test is variable. Around 30% of children taking the exam will be awarded grammar school places. So the score required isn't a set figure, but related to every other examinee's score. Get in the top 30% overall and you should pass.