11 Plus Exams Forum

For those waiting for news on the Newport/Walsall/Wolverhampton 2016 exam there is finally confirmation that the exam has been moved back to September, however it doesn't look like there will be just one exam across Birmingham & Warwickshire as has been rumoured. The exam is scheduled for Monday 19th September (information from Newport Girls High website)

Thanks for the info.

That is a shrewd move from the walsall consortium

- Stops the free mocks mob, although if KE is on the 12/9 it is a reverse scenario and I would be hoppin on the tram from wolvo, if the dates are not exact.
- Keeps a distinct population cohort roughly from the black country
- keeps scoring and cut offs comparable

The shirley mockateers will be rubbing those £50 notes together, indeed they will

PP

Thank you for this info! Was anxiously awaiting .... At least we now have a date to work towards.

I think the move to September is very good news for the Walsall consortium both from the schools,parents and childrens point of view.It will stop the record number of tourists using it as a free mock outside of those around the Birmingham conurbation who are genuinely looking to take the exam as an alternative to schools in the Birmingham consortium.I was genuinely shocked by the numbers taking the exam at QM boys this year in July as I went to drop off my dd at her school.

My niece(another one) is taking the exam this year and whilst she is in the year below her brother she is almost 2 years younger and therefore the exam is that much harder for her.Her mum and dad think it will be harder for her to gain a grammar school place.The fact there will be two exams has reduced the pressure of everything being based on one exam.They are genuinely looking at the four girls grammars within commuting distance of Walsall namely KE handsworth, QM girls, SCGSG and WHSG.

It also appears to mean each consortium will continue to mark the exams in the same way.In Walsall the exams are marked with a third for each of the following skills areas namely verbal reasoning (incorporating elements of English), non-verbal reasoning (incorporating elements of Maths) and numeracy.


In Birmingham the exams are marked 50/50 between Maths/non verbal reasoning and verbal reasoning/comprehension/literacy skills.As a result I think the Walsall exam is kinder to those stronger in maths and non verbal reasoning and the Birmingham exam to those stronger in the literacy skills.It certainly seemed to work that way for my youngest dd when she took both consortiums exams last year.

For my niece the fact the exams are marked in the way they are means as she is stronger in maths and non verbal reasoning the Walsall exam is likely to favour her over the Birmingham.I still remember a time about 11 years ago when the QM boys and girls exams were just verbal and non verbal reasoning.

Good luck to everyone taking the exams and with this news everyone taking the walsall consortium exams gets over a couple of months more in preparation time unless you were planning to take both consortiums exams.

Quasi +1

Agreed Quasi!

When I looked at the results breakdown we received from Walsall consortium last year, under data protection, I did get the distinct impression that they have also started using 50% weighting for English. But let me dig the email out and see if we can work out.

Will join back in the debate on Tuesday with you guys.Leaving for a couple of days at the Natural History museums in Tring and London and a birthday party day after.Will be interested if the marking has changed for Walsall not seen it announced and the fact the average score is standardised at 300 would suggest not.

Thats's true! Still standardised out of 300 so not feasible to have 50% English weighting. Trying to find my email

MSD wrote:Thats's true! Still standardised out of 300 so not feasible to have 50% English weighting. Trying to find my email

Our scores here are reported around a standardised mean of 300 but there are only two papers - they just multiply each by 1.5. I assumed that this is because the previous test (it changed for 2015 entry) was reported in this way, but although that one consisted of three papers, one of them accounted for 50% of the overall mark and the other two, 25% each, so the '300' score was still the result of a further calculation. I'm sure yours is much simpler, but it luv goes to show that things are not always at they appear to be