PRESS RELEASE      

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Details of the 2021-22 Entrance Assessment released

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The Post Primary Transfer Consortium (PPTC) has today announced details of its Entrance Assessment for pupils who will transfer to post-primary schools in September 2022.

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The Entrance Assessment will, as in all past years, consist of an English paper and a Mathematics paper with Gaeilge versions available. It will be held on Saturday 13th November 2021 and the registration period for the Entrance Assessment will open on Tuesday 1st June 2021.

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The English and the Mathematics papers will be significantly modified to take account of the disruption to formal education experienced by pupils and the desire expressed by parents and teachers that the Assessment be held around November time rather than in January 2022.

A spokesperson for PPTC added that, “Over the past weeks and months PPTC has engaged with parents, primary school principals, its own members, its test provider GL Assessment  and other stakeholders to help shape and finalise plans for the Entrance Assessment.”

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PPTC confirmed that parents and teachers were very strongly of the view that the “tests” should be based on English and Mathematics, should be held during the normal time period after Halloween and before the Christmas break and should be adapted to reflect the disruption to schooling experienced by pupils who will sit the Assessment. A number of ways in which the traditional Entrance Assessment might be adapted to suit the 2021-22 situation have been suggested. PPTC has been working closely with GL Assessment to incorporate key changes.

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Specification guides will be available on the PPTC website (www.pptcni.com) in the week beginning 17th May 2021. For English these will set out specific steps that have been taken to reduce the overall demand of the Assessment - for example, by reducing the number of comprehension passages from 3 to 2. For Mathematics the specification will show that the overall demand of the Assessment has also been reduced – for example, by limiting both the topic areas which will be assessed and the content within some topic areas.

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The spokesperson added that, “PPTC was made aware that many parents would prefer the Assessments to be held in the pupils’ own primary schools; however, there was an equally clearly articulated view from primary principals and from a teaching union that the “tests” should continue to be held in PPTC schools. To ensure that all pupils have the same experience, the Entrance Assessment will continue to be held in PPTC Centres, with appropriate Covid safeguards in place.”

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A list of the PPTC schools which will host the 2021-22 Entrance Assessment is available on the PPTC website.