A PARENT of a girl who missed out on her place at Mount Lourdes due to the month she was born has described how “heartbroken” her daughter was when she found out.

On Saturday, June 12, thousands of pupils found out what school they would be going to in the next academic year.

For the first time in decades, transfer tests were not used to select pupils for prospective schools due to the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 23,000 P7 children across Northern Ireland were told on Saturday which school they have secured a place in.

The mother, who wanted to remain anonymous as they plan to appeal, told The Impartial Reporter that her daughter labelled herself as “a failure” due to missing out on grammar school.

There are three criteria for admissions to Mount Lourdes. In order of priority, an applicant who at the date of their application have another girl of the family (as defined by the Department of Education) currently enrolled in the school, or who have a girl of the family selected for admission to the school in the coming school year; applicants who are the first girl in the family to transfer to secondary education; and applicants ranked by date of birth as entered on the birth certificate, with the eldest being admitted first.

The parent said her child is the first girl in the family to transfer to secondary education but this has not been taken into consideration, and she has been assessed through the third criterion.

With another child already in a secondary school, the parent wanted to stress that speaking out was not because of a “parent’s ego” of wanting her child to go to a grammar school.

“The point is, she had her heart set on Mount Lourdes – she always wanted to go to Mount Lourdes. That opportunity was taken away because the transfer test was cancelled, so there was nothing to compete against.”

When they phoned Mount Lourdes on Monday to seek answers, they were told that due to being born in a certain month, the girl had missed out.

“My point to them was that if she would have sat the transfer test and passed the transfer test, regardless of what month of the year she was born in, she would have got a place in that school. I just find it very, very unfair that because my daughter was born in a certain month, she hasn’t stood a chance.”

Since Saturday the young girl has been crying and on Monday she came home from school to find out she was the only girl in her class that did not get into Mount Lourdes.

“She keeps saying to us: ‘I’m a failure, I’m a failure’. Trying to explain to an 11-year-old that you failed on nothing because there was nothing there to fail on, it’s very hard.

“And then they’re going on about children’s mental health. My daughter sobbed her heart out since Saturday – she just can’t process why, because she was born in a certain month, that she’s ‘not as good’ as somebody else, when she is,” added the parent.

It is believed that there were 129 applications to the Enniskillen Grammar school for 96 places, meaning there are now 33 girls on a waiting list at the school.

The parent also feels criteria like this could cause problems next year as academic selection for Mount Lourdes was cancelled, and warned that parents whose children are born in certain months might not apply for the school to avoid the disappointment for their child.

Another parent also contacted The Impartial Reporter about her daughter who missed out due to a May birth month.

She says that even though she could show the academic performance of her daughter, this would not be accepted by Mount Lourdes during the appeals process.

Michelle McIlveen, the new Education Minister, has pledged to do all she can to make sure every child caught up in a transfer process row gets a place in school

When contacted by The Impartial Reporter, Mount Lourdes declined to comment on the matter.