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Exams body apology after 11-plus test fails to start on time

Many schools have retained the right to use academic selection, but children now have to undergo different unregulated tests
Many schools have retained the right to use academic selection, but children now have to undergo different unregulated tests Many schools have retained the right to use academic selection, but children now have to undergo different unregulated tests

AN exams body is to apologise to parents after the first 11-plus exam of the year failed to start on time.

Close to 9,000 pupils sat paper one of the Common Entrance Assessment (CEA) on Saturday.

Organisers, the Association for Quality Education (AQE), said it received an "unprecedentedly high" number of entries.

It ran three supplementary centres to meet the demand for spaces, due to a higher birth rate. Schools, the group said, had a limit to the number of candidates they could accommodate.

This meant some children had to attend Belfast Met's Titanic and Castlereagh campuses or South Eastern Regional College in Lisburn instead of their preferred school.

Slow registration at two college test centres meant the papers did not start at 10am as planned. It is understood the delay was eight minutes in Castlereagh and six at Titanic.

AQE joint chief executive Stephen Connolly said, across the board, the assessment went smoothly.

"There were problems at both the Titanic campus and Castlereagh with slow registration which resulted in queues. This meant that the assessment began late in both centres," he said.

"We are already in the process of reviewing the situation in these centres. We are, needless to say, very sorry indeed about the problems. I will contact all parents directly with an apology and some reassurance about assessments two and three."

On Saturday November 17, thousands of children will take the GL Assessment papers used by 26 Catholic grammars, six non-Catholic grammars and two integrated schools.

The second and third CEA papers will be taken on November 24 and December 1.