Thousands of Northern Ireland children to receive transfer test results

Children across Northern Ireland will get their transfer test results on Saturday morning – the first results from a new single post-primary test system.

The Schools' Entrance Assessment Group (SEAG) test consisted of two papers to be sat on two Saturdays, two weeks apart, in November 2023.

Each paper featured English and mathematics questions, which will be presented as a mixture of a multiple choice and open questions.

Irish language versions of the test were also available.

How many pupils sat the test?

12,700 children from over 700 schools.

Why was the test introduced?

The test returns to a system similar to what Northern Ireland had prior to the 11-plus tests being abolished in 2008, a decision made during Martin McGuinness's tenure as Education Minister.

However, schools then introduced their own unofficial tests run by two private companies for academic selection - PPTC for mainly Catholic grammars and the AQE for other grammars.

How will pupils get their results?

Children and parents will no longer be waiting for a postal delivery like the old 11-plus system.

Instead they’ll be able to access the results online.

“Tomorrow morning the parents should go to their account on seagni.co.uk and they should login to their account with their email address and password as they’ve been doing throughout the process,” SEAG Chairperson Michael Caville said.

“When they access their account there is a results jab available to them and they just click on that results tab and the score and the band will be available to them.”

What will the results mean?

The two most important bits of information are the Total Standardised Age Score – or TSAS – and the band. They are what are being used by the member schools to administer their admissions process.

“The TSAS is the score out of 282 with an average of 200 and if parents want to compare that against historic AQE or PPTC scores that information is available in a table on the guidance for parents section of our website,” explained Mr Caville.

What if you have no internet access?

The results will also be available sent to primary schools on Saturday morning. Parents are advised to contact their school if their struggling to access the result.

What if the system crashes?

SEAG say the system has been tested robustly and can cope with double the amount of traffic expected on Saturday.

Is there support?

A team will be in place to respond to email queries on Saturday morning. They can be contacted via admin@seagni.co.uk.

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