MY daughter decided on the next stage of her educational journey this week and picked her 'big school'.
She didn't sit the Transfer Test – because the schools she was leaning into either stopped it this year because of Covid or have never used the test for an entry requirement. So it was a relatively straightforward pondering of what school she thought she would like to go to, checking them out and making a decision together.
Having gone through the stress fest that is the transfer test journey three times thus far, it was a welcome relief to just look at schools, see what they offered and decide which one we liked best. There was no "you can't go there because you failed the test" or "I know you like that school and your friends are going but you need an 'A' to get in there" or all the other horrible conversations you have to have with an 11-year-old child whose world has revolved around the transfer test for a year.
Her teacher says she is more than capable of thriving in a grammar environment and she meets the criteria for admission, but she herself wants to go to one of our fabulous non-grammar schools.
Having spent a lot of time delivering projects in both grammar and non-grammar schools, I'm confident that there is not a lot of difference between them, that the curriculum is exactly the same, the teachers are just as fantastic in both types of school and the level of education she will get will not differ. I know my girl will thrive wherever she goes.
The grammar/non-grammar issue is often a controversial one. This time last year, our then education minister poured petrol over an already fiery issue by implying that secondary schools provided a "second class" option for pupils after the transfer tests were cancelled due to Covid.
Peter Weir said that the move "severely limits parental choice and children's opportunities". He later apologised for what he described as a "clumsy" tweet, but not before principals from Northern Ireland's brilliant and multi-award winning non-grammar schools took him to task over it, and rightly so.
But this attitude towards non-grammar schools does not start and end with one person, it is quite widespread, perhaps emanating mostly from people who have little experience within non-grammar schools or of the pupils who succeed there.
These types of attitudes insult not only the brilliant non-selective schools we have here in Northern Ireland, but also the students who have walked their corridors, who have dreamed of success, been nurtured in that success and have gone on to do great things.
All of our schools here in Northern Ireland are exceptional. Our teachers, grammar and non-grammar, are inspirational in their endeavours to lead pupils to be the very best that they can be.
I am very proud to have gone to a non-grammar school. I am proud to have had a fantastic education there, to have been supported and cheered on in my studies and indeed my future endeavours in life.
I know my daughter will have the same journey in her non-grammar school – the same as my sons in their grammar school – with exceptional teachers and a vibrant and challenging curriculum.
I know she will thrive in that environment, as I did, and I know she will prove those people who think that non-selective schools are somehow inferior to grammars completely wrong, as thousands and thousands of our secondary school pupils have done before her.
If people would look beyond the end of their nose they would see that our non-selective schools are turning out the most exceptional and passionate students who are setting the world on fire daily in whatever field they choose.
Writing them off is, quite frankly, laughable and narrow-minded nonsense.
