TWO Derry school principals have said they are withdrawing some pupils from sitting certain exams in January because of the impact of coronavirus.
Some Lisneal College and St Cecilia’s College pupils will sit certain GCSE English and Maths exams next summer and not in the new year as planned.
This is because of “unprecedented levels of pupil absence” due to self-isolation, Lisneal’s principal said.
Michael Allen said that about 135 Lisneal pupils would be affected.
Education Minister Peter Weir has said exams in the North of Ireland will go ahead and described them as “the most fair and accurate way of determining student’s grades”.
On Tuesday, the Scottish government announced that next year’s Higher and Advanced Highers exams – the equivalent of GCSEs and A-levels – would be cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Martine Mulhern, the principal of St Cecilia’s College, said she took this decision in October following concerns brought forward by pupils.
Principal Martine Mulhern
“I responded in terms of their concerns, and they really felt that they were not going to get their courses finished in time and in a way that they would have wanted.
“There was a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress and I thought I would prioritise the wellbeing of pupils.”
The principal of the all-girls’ secondary school in Creggan estimated that up to 100 pupils have needed to self-isolate in the period from September to October.
“If you have one child who tested positive in a class bubble then you’re taking out that full class.
“It was a luck of the draw and that is the frightening things about examinations, is it going to be a measure of how much a child was able to get into school or how much they weren’t able to get into school?”
Mrs Mulhern said some pupils in the all-girl school were losing “six to seven weeks” of in-school teaching, while others “were missing absolutely nothing”.
Michael Allen, principal of Lisneal College in the Waterside
“How on earth can I expect students to sit exams when they have missed up to six weeks of learning – it is absolutely ridiculous,” Mr Allen said.
“We have 135 pupils in Year 12 and 109 of those have been affected [self-isolating].
“Sixty of those pupils have been out for over four weeks and two pupils have missed the entire school year having to quarantine because of poor health.”
Both principals explained that this decision will now mean that pupils will now need to sit more exams in the summer.
“The risk is because we have withdrawn in January, these are now additional exams pushed down the road so pupils now have more [exams] because they are not in a position to sit these now,” said Mr Allen.
Mrs Mulhern added that it was essentially a case of “kicking the can down the road”.
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