• The Irish News carried this story on 15^th February.

‘A GRAMMAR school is facing a legal challenge over admissions criteria that give priority to children in its fee-paying prep department.

It has been claimed that Belfast Royal Academy (BRA) has ignored guidance relating to recommended methods of selecting pupils.

With grammar entrance tests cancelled this year, schools have devised alternative criteria.

Amid warnings from lawyers, most abandoned efforts to use different forms of academic selection in lieu of transfer tests.

BRA adopted non-selective criteria but is facing a judicial review this week.

It has been taken on behalf of a P7 pupil at Holy Cross Boys’ PS in Ardoyne.

The board of governors of BRA, Education Authority and Department of Education have been named as respondents.

BRA is the only co-educational grammar option for children in north Belfast. It has 200 Year 8 places.

For applicants to be in with a chance of being admitted, they must first prove they entered the school’s cancelled entrance assessment.

Lawyers have highlighted issues with several subsequent tie-breakers.

It will first award places to those enrolled in its preparatory department – Ben Madigan.

After that it will prioritise pupils whose siblings currently attend BRA; those whose siblings previously attended; children whose parents are past pupils; children of staff members and then pupils attending a feeder primary.

These feeder schools are those that have “sent the most pupils to Belfast Royal Academy over the past seven years”. A list is provided in a table in ranking order.

Lawyers argue that the prep department is a private fee-paying school which automatically excludes a large proportion of children from a disadvantaged background.

They add that criteria on children of staff, past pupils and past siblings are all explicitly “not recommended by the Education Authority”.

It is further claimed that if feeder schools are going to be used, “to split them in terms of priority is illogical, irrational and implicitly contrary to the Education Authority guidance”.

The manner in which that criterion is applied “is discriminatory against those from a Catholic background”. St Patrick’s PS in the New Lodge area is 500 metres away from BRA. There are 570 pupils and it does not feature as a feeder. Holy Cross Boys is also nearby but it too is not listed.

Ciarán Toner from Finucane Toner law firm said the Department of Education had given clear guidance on the recommended criteria schools should use.

“This has been completely ignored,” he said.

“In BRA’s entrance criteria the board of governors have disregarded the department’s recommended criteria, they have introduced three criteria that the department explicitly state that they should not use and then they guarantee an automatic place to all of the children in their fee paying prep school.”

BRA did not respond to requests from The Irish News for a comment.‘

‘Sebastian’ said, in reply to the article : “A very unfair and partial view of the world. The most monolithic or mono cultural schools in Ireland remain the Catholic Grammar Schools of the North – barely a single pupil from another faith or none. The statistics are there for all to see on the DE website and looking at them today for the first time, I see that BRA is one of the most diverse schools on the island, both in terms of religion, socio-economic background and special needs. For example, St Dominic’s High School, St Malachy’s College and Dominican College all avail of the exemption to not disclose the number of Protestant pupils were such number is less than 5 and they all suppress the disclosure of the number of pupils of other faiths. If you are serious about ending discrimination, then this is the place to start.“

 

It is true that BRA is the only co-educational grammar school in North Belfast. In fact it is the only non denominational grammar school in that area. 

Here are the criteria that are in issue:

ADMISSIONS POLICY
ADMISSIONS CRITERIA FOR ENTRY OF PUPILS TO FORM 1 (YEAR 8) IN SEPTEMBER 2021 

“applicant” “candidate” 

“parent/guardian”
“entitled to free school meals” 

“child of the family” 

– means the parent or guardian who completes and submits the Transfer Application on behalf of the candidate.
– means the child who is stated on the Transfer Application as seeking to gain admission to the School. 

– means a person who at the date of application has legal responsibility for the candidate.
– means applicants who are listed on the Education Authority register as entitled to Free School Meals at the date on which their parent or guardian has signed their post-primary Transfer Application, or at any date up to and including 12th April 2021 (no later than 4 p.m.). – means individuals who have both parents in common or children who reside with the same family at the candidate’s normal home address (including foster children and step brothers and sisters living with the candidate at their normal home address). 

“eldest”

– means the eldest or only child in the family, with eldest sibling twins (or other multiples) regarded as joint eldest. The “eldest child/boy/girl” criteria will also apply in the case where a family has not had the opportunity to enrol an elder child, such as in cases where the elder child could not attend mainstream school (e.g. attends a special school) or where a family has relocated to Northern Ireland.

3 Belfast Royal Academy will apply the following admissions criteria for admissions in September 2021 only in priority order for those children who have applied to sit the AQE assessment*: 

supplied);

permanent teaching, administrative, or ancillary staff of Belfast Royal Academy; 

In the event of a tie for a remaining place or places, which is not resolved by the application of the criteria above, then the Board of Governors will select an applicant using computerised random selection. 

*Belfast Royal Academy will seek verification of registration with AQE. 

** Feeder primary schools are those that have sent the most pupils to Belfast Royal Academy over the past 7 years. A list of feeder primary schools is provided in the following table in ranking order starting with the highest number of pupils sent over the last 7 years, according to data and records available to Belfast Royal Academy. 

The maximum number selected from each feeder primary school will be in proportion to the average number of pupils who were successfully admitted to Belfast Royal Academy over the last 7 years.
In the event that the number of applicants from a feeder primary school, and to whom this criterion applies, is in excess of this proportionate number, the remaining criteria (vii) – (ix), set out above, shall be applied in priority in order to admit applicants. 

This criterion will be applied to the feeder primary schools in ranking order as set out in the table below. 

If, prior to the conclusion of the selection process, the Board of Governors receives information from a feeder primary school concerning the educational performance of pupils attending that school and applying for admission to Belfast Royal Academy, and the number of applicants exceed the average number applicable to that school, the Board reserves the right to use that information to admit applicants. 

3.vi.1 Cavehill Primary School
3.vi.3 Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School 3.vi.5 Mossgrove Primary School
3.vi.7 Mossley Primary School
3.vi.9 Ashgrove Primary School
3.vi.11 Glengormley Integrated Primary School 3.vi.12= St MacNissi’s Primary School
3.vi.14= St Therese of Lisieux Primary School 3.vi.17 Forth River Primary School
3.vi.19 Whitehead Primary School
3.vi.21 St Mary’s on the Hill Primary School 3.vi.22= St Bernard’s Primary School
3.vi.25 Hazelwood Integrated Primary School 3.vi.27= Lowwood Primary School
3.vi.29= Carrick Model Primary School
3.vi.31= Harmony Primary School
3.vi.33 Thompson Primary School 3.vi.34=EdenBrooke Primary School 

3.vi.2 Whiteabbey Primary School
3.vi.4 Templepatrick Primary School
3.vi.6 Greenisland Primary School
3.vi.8 Carnmoney Primary School
3.vi.10 Whitehouse Primary School
3.vi.12= Carr’s Glen Primary School
3.vi.14= Seaview Primary School
3.vi.14= Cliftonville Integrated Primary School 3.vi.18 Ligoniel Primary School

3.vi.20 St James’s Primary School
3.vi.22= Springfield Primary School
3.vi.24 Holy Family Primary School
3.vi.26 Glenwood Primary School
3.vi.27= Springhill Primary School
3.vi.29= Kings Park Primary School 3.vi.31= Loanends Primary School
3.vi.34= Fairview Primary School
3.vi.34= St Vincent de Paul Primary School

The Department of Education issued a Circular 2016/15 about criteria, here are the relevant parts:

Admissions criteria that are not recommended 

“Boards of Governors should carefully consider the content of their school’s criteria and where guidance is not being followed the reasons for this should be clearly recorded (e.g. in the relevant Board of Governors minutes). If a school fails to follow guidance and does not have sufficient reason for doing so the school may not be indemnified by the Education Authority if legal proceedings are initiated against the school. “

It can be immediately seen that BRA, in giving first preference to its prep and failing to use free school meals entitlement as its first criterion, has ignored the advice of the Department.

Further, it is using criteria which are not recommended by the Department.

As the Department points out , failure to give proper weight to the Circular may well result in a Court striking them out.

It is difficult to know how the Board of BRA, containing five lawyers, came to this decision.

I do not know if the  pupil from Holy Cross Boys applied to sit the transfer test. That is a prerequisite for application to BRA and to many other voluntary grammar schools which are not using academic criteria this year. One might have thought that if the boy was anxious to attend BRA he might have applied to sit the AQE test.

It is also argued on his behalf , according to the Irish News, that the criteria are discriminatory against “those from a Catholic background”. A glance at the list of feeder schools will provide an answer to that allegation. BRA has a fine tradition of admitting pupils from all religious backgrounds and none. The proportion of pupils from a Roman Catholic background is in excess of twenty percent. As ‘Sebastian’ observes, this is in contrast to admissions to Catholic schools- see for example St Malachy’s , down the road.

BRA has about 14% of pupils receiving free school meals, well in excess of the voluntary grammar school average of 4.8%. It would have been no imposition and no concession, to follow the guidance of the Department and place FSMs as the first criterion.

By inexplicably failing to do so, it has created a hostage to fortune. The Holy Cross Boy will not be the last challenge.

[For advice on admissions criteria, if you are a litigant in person, contact vandaconsultancy.com ]