St Patrick’s Grammar School in Armagh will stop using entrance exams to select pupils with immediate effect.
The creation of the new mixed-ability secondary school will mean an existing college – St Brigid’s – will now be wound down.
St Patrick’s will be allowed to increase its pupil numbers to accommodate those who would have typically attended the nearby St Brigid’s.
Opponents of academic selection view the move as significant and say they now expect other Catholic grammar schools, which have so far resisted demands to change, to follow suit.
They say the fact that St Patrick’s governing body chairman Cardinal Sean Brady is the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland should encourage more schools to abandon academic selection.
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