Kent scores?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:56 pm

Has anyone thought of requesting the data on raw scores for particular standardised scores from KCC under the Freedom of Information Act? Won't tell you about this yr, as the difficulty of papers could be different, but would settle the debate about the past.

I did this for another LEA, and got the answers I wanted, several months ago.

Haven't looked, but I'm sure KCC will have info on their website about FOI if you go digging.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 3:56 pm

Under FOI Act, you would have to write to request the information and they have to respond by the 20th working day after receiving the request. They can also charge for this service. A long process and KCC is extremely cagey, worse than any other LEA I have dealt with.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 4:52 pm

All true, but writing does include email, both for the request and the reply, so it's not exactly a quill pen and pigeon post job. On charging, they may charge, but probably wouldn't. In any event, they would say in advance. And while they may take the max allowable 20 days, there's no particular reason that they would.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. There seem to be a lot of people concerned about this rather confusing issue, so if they want to know the answer, they should ask. Phoning would be simpler, but runs the risk of getting an ill-informed official not fully in the picture. Doing it formally means you might get the right answer.

Just a thought.

Glad it's all over!Nearly · Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:23 am

Regarding the scores, I spoke to someone at KCC a few days ago. Obviously they can't say what the pass mark will be as it is standardised, but I was told that it depends on how all the children do. Therefore, last year for example, most children struggled with the maths paper and as a result the pass mark was lowered and they had to get either : (I can't remember which she said now) 24 or 26 out of the 50 questions right to pass. It was one of those and I know it was roughly 50% anyway. So it all depends on how all the other kids found it. If everyone found it easy, the pass mark will increase and vice versa.
Personally, my daughter found the maths ridicously easy this year compared to the practice papers she has been doing. She said she finished it in 30 minutes and had 30 minutes to check all her answers again. In the practice papers, she only ever finished with 5 minutes to spare. I wonder if they made it easier because of last years paper being too hard? The VR she found about right and the NVR she had to guess 8 altogether because of running out of time.

kwntmum1 · Post by **kwntmum1** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 10:19 pm

I'm glad you said that as my son also says it was one of the easiest maths paper he has done. He also found the VR straightforward and guessed a couple of the NVR. However, I have heard from another boy, who is hoping for a place at Judd, that he found the maths paper very hard! That makes me worry that my son didn't read it properly but he insists that he did and that is WAS easy! We really did revise this subject intensively so I will just have to have confidence in him! Roll on March 2!!!

Glad it's all over!Nearly · Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:02 pm

Hi kwntmum1. I felt exactly the same when she told me. It sent me into a panic thinking she must have missed a page. But my daughter also worked really hard on her maths at home because it was her weakest area a few months ago but now is her strongest. I just hope I didn't neglect the other aspects too much - the 8 missed questions in NVR really worries me. The wait is killing me!....

kentmum1 · Post by **kentmum1** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:34 pm

Me too! especially as he did well in all his school and tutor tests. It feels like one big build up and it's all been too good to be true so far, so we will feel quite deflated if these results are not good! I am confused about all the standardised scoring though. There is so much talk of a pass of 120 equating to approx 50%. However, in one test at school, he ran out of time on a NVR test and got 7 wrong and was given a score of 115!. He has an October birthday. so no allowances were given. I can't believe that you can get half a paper wrong and still pass, it seems unbelievable.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 2:33 pm

Anonymous wrote:Under FOI Act, you would have to write to request the information and they have to respond by the 20th working day after receiving the request. They can also charge for this service. A long process and KCC is extremely cagey, worse than any other LEA I have dealt with.