TWO teachers from St Oliver Plunkett Primary School in Lenadoon have launched a new website filled with resources for children sitting the transfer test. 

Damian Reed came up with the idea after learning how to code during lockdown and when his college Paddy Muldoon heard what he was doing, he got involved too.

"When we were working from home and part-time in school, I was really into coding and wanted to learn a bit of web design. I found that I needed a project to help develop my skills," said Damian.

"My passion is in teaching and trying to prepare children for Transfer so I thought that I would try and build something which would allow the children to do that. 

"The idea was primarily for the children within our school and when we launched it, we thought that we could do a lot more in terms of content. Paddy then came on board and we wrote a load of content including questions which would appear on the test and topic based questions in English and Maths.

"When Paddy came on board, other teachers were then saying how great it is and that we should open it up to others."

Paddy told us that when they launched it for their own students, the children loved the digital aspect of it which they had become accustomed to during lockdown.

"Once we started using it with our students other schools were asking what it was we were doing and we decided that it was time to release it to the public and spent the past six months preparing it to launch.

"A big part of our business model is making it as accessible as possible so any money that we make just covers our expenses. 

"We charge £10 for a year's subscription per student and we give schools a bit of a discount at £5 per student per year.

"Given the nature of the exam and the online stuff, we could be charging a lot of money but we are not out to make a profit from it."

Damian added that since launching in April, the website has been used by schools across the North and they have also had a number of parents purchasing subscriptions.

"One of the standout things for us is that there is a lot of content on there. When a child does a test, it records their result permanently and the parent gets an email so that they can log in and see their child's progress.

"Teachers also get a log-in which allows them to view the progress of their class and see if there are any areas where pupils are falling behind so that they can target their learning."

While there are plans to amalgamate both the GL and AQE exams, Damian and Paddy said that they will re-write the website to fit the format of the new exams. 

To find out more, visit their website www.transfertogether.co.uk