The dispute at Holy Cross School in Ardoyne, north Belfast, appears set to continue despite hopes yesterday that it might be resolved.
Catholic parents and children took an alternative route to the school yesterday morning after loyalists had suspended their protest because the children were sitting their 11-plus examination.
Instead of walking up the disputed Ardoyne Road, pupils went in by a back entrance. This angered the loyalist residents of Glenbryn, who claimed that their gesture of goodwill had been spurned. A residents' spokesman, Mr Stuart McCartney, said: "By walking up the Crumlin Road they are saying 'we will not accept your charity'. It is very childish. What we did was a mammoth step. We felt it was a very important date in every family's educational diary and that is why we suspended the protest. It has been thrown back in our face."
However, Father Aidan Troy, chairman of the school's board of governors, insisted that the decision had not been taken to cause offence. "There was no ulterior motive other than to make sure this was as stress-free a day as possible", he said.
Meanwhile, the North's Education Minister, Mr Martin McGuinness, has offered to meet the protesters. Mr McCartney said that he would need to discuss this with the other members of the committee before he could comment. "We appreciate his intention, but we need to work through the existing political representation we have", he said.