School reveals entrance test plan

Foyle and Londonderry College held a meeting for P6 parents on Wednesday.

A Londonderry grammar school has made public the details of the entrance test it proposes to use to select pupils.

Foyle and Londonderry College will use the exam as the basis for entry to the school if cross-party agreement is not reached on the issue at the assembly.

The proposed maths and English exam was revealed to more than 100 parents at the school on Wednesday night.

The school is one of 30 members of the Association for Quality Education proposing to set a common test.

Last December, the Education Minister, Caitríona Ruane, announced that the test, commonly known as the 11-plus, would come to an end in 2008.

The principal of Foyle and Londonderry College, Jack Magill, said the school had no choice but to go ahead with academic selection.

"We've reached the stage of a kind of car-crash policy where we'll run the system into the ground," he said.

"There's no agreed way forward from where we stand at the moment, and the minister's minority view about the future of the 11-plus is something that really needs to be revised and revised quickly," he said.

One parent who attended the meeting on Wednesday night agreed the school had been left with no option.

"I think they have a hard job, it's not easy for them, and they're landed with a problem not of their own making, as are we as parents.

"I think we have to move forward now," he said.

Way forward

The education minister has said she has instructed officials to work on guidance which she will issue on the future of post primary education in the absence of agreement at the Northern Ireland Assembly.

"We are at the point where we have to take a decision if we cannot find an agreed way forward," said Ms Ruane.

"I want to find an agreed way forward and I want the DUP to work with me so we can bring in a legislative framework.

"If that doesn't happen then very very soon I will issue guidance and I have instructed my officials to work on that guidance."

In October, Lumen Christi College in Derry revealed a sample of its proposed selection test to parents of Year 6 pupils.

Year 7 pupils sat the final 11-plus paper last week.