5% of test pupils on free meals

It has emerged that five per cent of those taking one of the new grammar school entrance tests claim free school meals.

School meals are normally free for pupils who come from a financially disadvantaged background.

Over 7,000 pupils are to sit the test set by the Association for Quality Education (AQE) on Saturday.

The AQE is an umbrella group of 34 state sector grammar schools who oppose the scrapping of academic selection.

AQE has written to parents warning them about any special circumstances they need to indicate before their children sit the exams.

If they think their child's performance has been affected by illness or a traumatic event, they have been told to gather evidence of that immediately and not wait until the exam results are revealed.

The AQE charges £35 for the exams but families with children on free school meals do not have to pay.

Across Northern Ireland 6% of children at grammar schools currently claim free meals.

Sinn Fein MLA John O'Dowd, who sits on the assembly education committee, claimed the figures showed how academic selection was "unequal".

"The average free school meal entitlement in non-grammar schools across the north is about 17%. In grammar schools it is 6%. These factors alone expose what a socially unjust system selection is," he said.

"I would call on all those who are genuinely opposed to the socially unjust practice of academic selection to recommit themselves to ending it, and not by accommodating further testing on the false promise of 'give us more time and we will change'.

"The facts are the grammar lobby has had 50 years to change and they have continually held onto their socially unjust system."

Some Catholic grammar schools are also defying the education minister Catriona Ruane by holding entrance tests.