EVEN by Covid standards, it’s been a bit of a white-knuckle ride on the roller-coaster of life these past few weeks, and as if an emergency appeal by the South West Acute Hospital for off-duty staff to come in wasn’t enough, we have the whole ‘hokey-cokey’ of disrupted learning, exams and assessments starting to brew up – something that every pupil, parent and teacher is fully aware of. Starting first with the transfer test, let’s look at what we have. Currently, there are two companies or consortia who run it, and Northern Ireland being as it is, each serves mainly, but by no means exclusively, one side each of our sadly still-polarised community. The ‘Post Primary Transfer Consortium’ that runs the GL exams, and represents 33 schools including St. Michael’s College and Mount Lourdes Grammar School, has already announced they it not be running any transfer examinations, and the responsibility falls on schools to decide how. This will not be published yet, so it’s a waiting game, I’m afraid. All the recent news though, has been about the Associations for Quality Education’s exam, commonly referred to by its initials, AQE. On January 5, it announced that following the tightening of Covid-19 restrictions and its initial postponement of the Common Entrance Examination, to give it its proper title, it would do a single test on Saturday, February 27, subject to there being no further lockdown. As if the situation isn’t messy enough due to the whole question of transfer tests being questioned anyhow, it’s become even more of a quagmire with the added CEE cancellations. Firstly, there’s the question of admissions. Normal entry criteria start with the transfer test score and then proceeds to a list of other criteria, which can include all kinds of everything, such as being in a school’s official feeder school, having family connections with the chosen school, being entitled to free school meals, and your date of birth. These additional criteria are usually ranked from second choice downwards, but for those whose test is cancelled, there is not going to be a test score. Therein lies the controversy. Why AQE? Well, that’s because at the time of going to press, some grammar schools are starting to withdraw from AQE’s hastily rearranged single exam date on February 27. This is a very dynamic situation, and we must stress, it could be updated by the time you read this. The unanswered question on every entrants’ parents’ lips, whether GL or AQE, is a simple one: "How is my child going to be selected if they don’t do a transfer test?" Sadly, at present, the answer is still the same: we don’t know yet. For Winston Glass, Principal, The Model Primary School, Enniskillen, it’s a case of wait and see as he hopes for an early resolution as soon as possible while realising the pressure that pupils, their parents and teachers are under. “As much as I would like a swift conclusion, I am very aware of the children who have worked really hard for this test – there are two sides to every story," he explained. Mr. Glass was also quick to thank parents whom, he says, have been most supportive of him and the staff. “They’ve had to get used to new skills as well, and I’m happy that our remote learning is all running smoothly now. It’s unchartered waters for everybody, and this year was always going to be problematic”, he stressed, adding that “parents, too, have been really engaged with online learning, getting to grips with new skillsets as well”. Primary transfers aren’t the only controversial ticket in town, though, as GCSEs and A-Level exams have also been cancelled, putting everyone in a difficult situation until it’s announced how “the alternative awarding arrangements and further details” will be released, to quote the Minister of Education, Peter Weir. What that will be, we don’t know, but talk is of moderated mini-tests, in-school assessments or ‘open book’ projects, putting enormous pressure on all systems. The word from the inside is that traditional study leave may well be cancelled with examination students doing any such assessments in that period. For Elizabeth Armstrong, Principal, Enniskillen Royal Grammar School, it’s a matter of “controlling what you can control [while ERGS] now enters another period of remote learning and GCSE, AS and A2 examinations are cancelled once again”, she clarified, pointing out that the whole “school community brings to the table the considerable learning and the experience we gained from the last lockdown in March”; a fair point, indeed. How schools manage with this pressure and, indeed, how young people cope too, is at the centre of a lot of discussions. The almost complete obliteration of ways the most gregarious members of society have to conduct their learning is far from ideal, and no amount of online Zoom meetings, Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams can ever take the place of real human interaction. Apart from the blindingly obvious fact that you can only teach so much online, in my own teaching career I’ve seen children get an extra step in their stride following a good choir practice, rugby match or one of those many unexplained moments in class where a group energy leads to a fantastic lesson and learning experience. For Miss Armstrong, the completion of a whole school questionnaire helped address some areas. From this she pointed out that “[ERGS] staff have worked hard and with real creativity, individually and collaboratively, to develop their online interactive presence as a way of ensuring that the strong purposeful relationships at the heart of productive learning in our face-to-face classrooms, are developed online in our virtual classrooms”,. She went on to say that “by integrating the virtual classroom into their ongoing learning and teaching while pupils are in school, staff are ensuring a smooth transition when pupils need to move to remote learning”. An issue that will resonate with many, if not all schools. For the students, especially those in Year 14 and who are about to leave school, it’s become a particularly harrowing time, as explained by Rory Gamble, Deputy Head Boy at Enniskillen Royal Grammar School – an applicant for Medicine at Cambridge University. “In the subjects themselves, teachers are really doing their best, for example in Chemistry and Biology, they have videoed themselves doing experiments and playing them to us”, he explained. Rory also talked of the difficulties beyond the classroom in trying to complete activities such as UCAS applications and the other areas related to being a Sixth Form pupil. “Opportunity has been demolished,” he added; “Sixth Form is the time you really look forward to, but there’ve been no formals, no social events and, for me, I’ve not had a Year 13 or 14, as such." For Head Girl, Rhea Holmes, the story is something similar – indeed, as it probably is for every Sixth Form pupil in the world. Rhea, who would like to read Economics at St. Andrew’s University, spoke of the constant support of her teachers but conceded that obviously it’s not the same as traditional schooling. “I’m probably a bit of a visual learner and enjoy seeing the topics explained it front of me, but the teachers are brilliant, though it’s not the same,” she said. Not having university open days was also a source of disappointment for both her and Rory, as explained by Rhea. “Looking around a campus in a virtual open day isn’t the same as being there in person. You miss out on getting the feel of the city and the area the university is in,” she added. Both pupils also spoke of their sadness at not being able to do competitive physical activity. For Rhea, “the two sports I enjoy, netball and tennis, no longer run because of restrictions and I miss being able to interact with my friends,” while for Rory, “I’ve just given up rowing, something I did throughout school; it’s pretty disappointing”. Against this, schools are doing what they can and in ERGS they have organised a wide range of extra-curricular events, including an online junior Drama production, ‘Erne Emergency’, last June; a Virtual Carol Service in December; online House Photography; and ‘Bake-Off’ competitions, and even the Languages department is planning a virtual German exchange. Other schools are not tardy in this respect either as more and more pupils and schools talk of virtual versions of almost all activities they used to do "back in the day". It’s maybe a bit too late for Rhea, Rory and their peers, but let’s just hope beyond hope that the vaccine does exactly what it says on the proverbial tin.