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Schools told end action if they want shared cash

Schools taking part in shared education programmes will receive extra money for four years
Schools taking part in shared education programmes will receive extra money for four years Schools taking part in shared education programmes will receive extra money for four years

Cash for schools spearheading a new shared education push will only be paid if teachers end a boycott of controversial pupil assessments.

About 7,000 members of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) have been involved in the industrial action.

It has included a refusal to recognise new school assessment arrangements it claims has "no value to pupils, parents or teachers and is distracting from the real education of pupils".

Now, principals are being warned that full compliance with end of key stage `levels of progression' is a mandatory condition of shared education funding.

A £25m 'Delivering Social Change Shared Education Signature Project' aims to provide programmes in schools across the north over the next four years.

The idea is to create "a more cohesive education system" in which children from different community backgrounds can be educated together.

New funding will "provide opportunities to embed significantly greater levels of sharing across our school communities".

A call for applications is targeting as many as 600 schools who can demonstrate a significant commitment to shared education.

Schools whose applications have been approved have received letters from the Education Authority (EA) telling them how much money they will receive, subject to terms and conditions.

All schools must agree to regular monitoring arrangements, which will rely on pupil outcomes at the end of Key Stages 2 and 3, using the levels of progression.

The EA letter reads: "Full compliance with the statutory assessment process is, therefore, a mandatory condition of the funding."

This has angered unions who have, for the past two years, been boycotting the arrangements, which they claim are no good to parents and tell teachers nothing.

As recently as last month, the INTO issued a bulletin urging members to "continue with the boycott of the new assessment arrangements" as part of a programme of action short of strikes.

The advice is that members should not use the levels of progression to assess or grade pupil achievement in any moderation of pupils' work and they should not use them to report pupil outcomes to parents.

In addition, no assessment data should be submitted to Department of Education (DE) or CCEA exams board, the union has said.

INTO northern secretary Gerry Murphy said members are unhappy.

"The imposition of a condition after the applications have been received suggests the DE had at best embarked on a process to identify schools interested in participating in a shared education project without giving proper thought as to what information they might later need to evaluate the success of the project, or DE saw an opportunity after the selection process has begun to pressure schools into releasing data the schools had been withholding as part of legitimate industrial action," he said.

"If the latter is the case then DE's commitment to shared education has been de-valued by such a cynical exercise. INTO remains determined to find an assessment methodology that works for schools, teachers and parents and DE employing 19th century industrial relations approaches is, like their failed assessment policy, futile."