Thousands of children receive transfer test results

About 12,800 children in Northern Ireland have received their transfer test results online on Saturday.

They got the results from a body called the Schools Entrance Assessment Group (SEAG), which runs the common transfer test.

All primary seven pupils who sat the tests in November received their results via a website their parents log into.

In all, 63 post-primary schools across Northern Ireland use the test to decide which pupils to admit into Year 8.

Pupils sat two test papers on two separate Saturdays in November 2025.

Each paper had 56 questions on English or Irish, including comprehension and spelling, and Maths which pupils had an hour to answer.

Speaking ahead of results day, Keith Wysner, principal at Whiteabbey Primary School, described getting the results as "one of life's biggest lessons".

He said the test "imposed upon us by Northern Ireland's education system is unfortunate, as it tests pupils at 11 years old, when some are not as cognitively developed as others".

As results this year are received online, Wynsner said his role as principal will continue as he is on hand to answer calls from parents.

"There will always be disappointments, those that buck the trend, but our team will be as pastoral as they can be."

Seaview Primary School principal Corrine Latham said the week leading up has been "relatively calm".

She said a letter had been given to all parents at her school, to "let the parents and pupils know that this test does not define them".

She added that the test "is a premature indicator of future success, it is only designed to test numeracy and literacy", and that "there are so much more aspects to education".

Anxiety does not just fall with the kids however, as Latham stated that parents "have to make the choice as to what school is the right one for their kid".

The SEAG test began in 2023 and was the biggest shake-up to the transfer procedure since 2008, when a state-run transfer test ended after about 60 years.

The then education minister, Sinn Féin's Caitriona Ruane, had called it an "outdated and unequal education system", which labelled 11-year-olds as "failures".

But many grammar schools continued to use academic selection to admit pupils, and used two separate tests run by AQE and PPTC.

That system ended in 2022 after grammars set up the SEAG company to run a common test.

In a statement to BBC News NI, the chair of SEAG Deborah McLaughlin wished pupils getting their results "every success".

"We would also like to thank Primary 7 parents for their support, and acknowledge the commitment of the staff in the 63 post-primary schools who help run the SEAG Entrance Assessment," she said.

The transfer test has continued to prove controversial, however, with a number of criticisms of academic selection.

Research from the Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement (CREU) at Stranmillis University College, for instance, said that academic selection had significant social, educational and economic consequences for pupils.

A paper from Queen's University Belfast published in 2022 also claimed that academic selection perpetuated division in wider society in Northern Ireland and "disadvantages the already most disadvantaged".