Pass mark for Warwickshire?

[jacquie]

Jacquie,

Out of interest, how do you find out the scores of those you have tutored? To be meaningful these must be the raw scores, which are not given out as a matter of course. Do your parents all 'phone to ask for the scores & then pass them on to you?

Charlotte[/quote

Yes they do tell me. I write down the scores and positions for everyone, pass or fail. Last year 100% of my pupils passed for either Rugby HIgh or Lawrence Sherrif. I only get into statistics and figures as far as it helps me to judge capability and likelihood of a child passing. Each year my list of results grows and it helps me give realistic feedback to children and parents. Before Warwicks started releasing scores to parents, I used my own records of practice paper scores, from year to year. From this I could see who passed and failed the final exam, and the range of scores they had achieved on different papers in tuition, helped me judge who might pass and fail each year. I was always right, which gave me confidence in my judgement. Each year is a new page , however, and I can only judge on past experience. The hiccup year was 2006, when there was a problem , with, I believe ,some papers being given to schools as practice papers, and then those same papers were used in the exam.
This may have been the reason why the scores were disrupted. Actually , looking up the scores, the child I mentioned who came 25th, actually scored 277 out of 280!
That year messed up the Private School results too- as so many children who had private schools as a 'safety net', took up their places as they didnt get into grammar school. I did find that my private school predictions were wrong in some cases that year, as the standard was much higher than usual.
I'll be interested to see the results with the new literacy and maths elements added and whether my predictions and results are as good.

[Charlotte67]

Thank you for your detailed response.

My number 2 child will be sitting the exam next year so I'm very interested in knowing what happens this year!

Perhaps you can fill Bad Dad in on the scores that were needed to 'pass' last year. I do understand his skepticism about the children missing so many questions, but I am convinced that this is true in at least 2 cases (that I know, so presumably many more).

Char

[Bad Dad]

Yes, I would be interested to know that. Jacquie, you have cheered me up with your comments about standardisation favouring boys by such a large amount! (Having said that I do also have a daughter but she is only in year 2, so plenty of time to worry about that later).

Might be a bit off topic, but I would also be keen to hear from someone with so much good experience about your approach and preparation material for the new test. It is a bit late for this year, but my next child is in year 4 now so it will be here soon, plus I know Ed's Mum has been asking about the best approach for her year 5 daughter and I expect Charlotte might also be interested.

[jacquie]

My approach is to teach the children literacy and maths, for a year or two, as if they are going to go to grammar school! I don't make a big deal about the exam, until later in the year, when I do a concerted exam technique course and ''final polish'' in August. So children come for a year or more of solid academic study. I also teach creatively, with the aim of developing self confidence, self esteem and study skills. My theory is if the children work at the required levels, and can cope with those requiered levels, they will find no problem with the exam. Having said that, the children arent all geniuses, but hard workers, who have not had the chance of a 'good enough' education! I have been told by some of my ex pupils that other boys in their class cannot cope with the work. I absolutely have no interest in cramming- getting someone through, whatever the cost, who would not benefit from the grammar school education. I know this is possible, particularly on the old verbal reasoning only exam. My aim is to get children there who will love it and who will thrive.
Sorry,. really rushed now.... with work prep!

[Bad Dad]

Hi jacquie - Thanks again for your helpful comments. Are you able to tell us the approximate raw scores required to pass last year based on your data?

[jacquie]

I will look up later, but I am really busy with this years at the mo! But actually, personally I am not interested, as it does not seem relevant. The exam is so different this year, I am 'waiting and seeing' with interest.

[Rugbymum]

Thanks for the replies - I know the changes this year are positive (i.e fairer) but there is so much uncertainty as it is all so new and different, and that is making me pretty nervous

[fm]

Jacuie is correct. I tutor in Birmingham where we have the Durham exam and it really is a case of a quite different exam with quite different skills required so quite different children gaining entry.
I know of children who have been in the top 30 (of 1000) for Sutton which is an NFER based exam who have failed to make King Edward by a considerable margin. I also know children who have made KE who have failed to gain entry into Sutton Coldfield (even though they did target it--and not just for practice).

If your new exam is anything like ours, the exam will favour intelligent, well-read children with a natural ability in non-verbal (as opposed to being trained up to do the usual NFER ones), a wide vocabulary and problem solving/data reading skills in Maths. Again if it is like ours, a good mark is nowhere near 90% in Maths--it's more like 60%+ due to the sheer volume and complexity of the work.

I know of at least 5 children who did only half of our mental arithmetic section and still gained entry. My own daughter is still sure she didn't manage much of the maths problem section but was one of the few to finish the mental arithmetic and she gained entry (on the back of her non-verbal, I suspect, because she's just gained 4's in her English Sats!).

One of my cleverest pupils last year could never do non-verbal unless she had already practised the type and scored exceptionally badly but was such a bookworm with high English comprehension skills she did phenomenonally in the English and fairly good in the maths to make up for a disastrous non-verbal.

My biggest piece of advice would be not to second guess the result. Clever children will tell you they have done disastrously because they are used to managing everything and they certainly won't do so in this exam so they will think they have failed (as did my daughter and some of my cleverest pupils). My one pupil who failed last year was the most confident he passed!

In my opinion this type of exam is probably fairer than the NFER exam and I have been told there are not so many fkids now struggling to keep up in the King Edward schools because they have got in on the back of massive training in VR and non-VR. The only issue I would take with it is the fact that some very clever, creative children who are turned off by the repetitive nature of primary maths can miss out.

[Rugbymum]

fm - thanks for your post, very informative and helpful

I have to say that I was worried about the pass mark being 80-90% because the new test will have something like 100 questions to be answered within 45 minutes . When my son was doing the old format practice papers he got mainly 85% but I am sure this will be different with the new tests.

[jacquie]

oooooh...It has been 45 minutes to complete a 100 questions for some years- decreased from the original 50mins. Ithink speed was one of the elements they trusted would get them the brightest children.