Hugely increased numbers for 11 plus this/last year?
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Ken, you know enough about how the exam works to know that can't be the caseAlthough the numbers taking the B/Ham KE Test have gone down slightly, the pass mark has actually gone up significantly. This suggests that the average ability of the cohort has gone up...
- average ability of the cohort in relation to the pass mark always stays the same. If the pass mark goes up it probably means the distribution of scores is more evenly spread (i.e. the bell curve is low and wide).Mike
Pass mark depends mostly on the numbers applying (as it should - there are a fixed number of places so if more people take the exam, the percentage passing has to get smaller), but its a loose relationship. Substantially fewer boys applied this year, but more girls balanced that. If the number applying this year is down again (and whether you think it will be is down to your own judgement) then the pass mark should be a bit lower overall - but that doesn't really help to say what it will be for any individual school.
Mike
Mike
Hi Mike
Silly mistake. Of course you are correct, if the total cohort numbers taking the exam go down then the lowest pass mark must also go down as there is a fixed number of offers.
However this year the minimum percentile pass marks have gone up (by an average of 3 percentile places - with the exception Aston which stayed the same). Camp Hill Boys was a record high of 351!
There be an anomaly somewhere along the line.
Where did you get the figures that that the total number taking the KE Exam had gone down this year? I just wonder if that is the case, or if the total number of pupils registering for the exam had gone down but the number actually taking the exam had gone up. ie less no shows.
I guess we will only find out when the KE Foundation publish their Annual Report later this year.
Regards
Ken
Silly mistake. Of course you are correct, if the total cohort numbers taking the exam go down then the lowest pass mark must also go down as there is a fixed number of offers.
However this year the minimum percentile pass marks have gone up (by an average of 3 percentile places - with the exception Aston which stayed the same). Camp Hill Boys was a record high of 351!
There be an anomaly somewhere along the line.
Where did you get the figures that that the total number taking the KE Exam had gone down this year? I just wonder if that is the case, or if the total number of pupils registering for the exam had gone down but the number actually taking the exam had gone up. ie less no shows.
I guess we will only find out when the KE Foundation publish their Annual Report later this year.
Regards
Ken
"Where did you get the figures that that the total number taking the KE Exam had gone down this year? "
Casual misuse of a handful of unrepresentative statistics - Camp Hill Boys first place choices were down by about 20 this year, despite the high pass mark, a quick look in this year's admissions Birmingham admissions guide showed that total applications (1st-6th choice - not quite the same thing but probably fairly close to it) were down as well, and similarly for most of the other KEs.
However you'll notice the beginnings of a back-track in my last post - as I've dug a bit deeper, applications to Camp Hill Girls and Sutton Coldfield have gone up substantially, so while boys' applications appear to be down about 3% (which is also about the reduction in overall cohort size in Birmingham so far as I can judge, by the way), girls' applications appear to be up by more, so overall grammar applications in Birmingham have perhaps gone up by about 1%, not fallen as I originally thought. "Average" KE pass mark, if there was such a thing, has also gone up about 1% from 325 to 328.
The pass mark for Camp Hill Boys is so different from the others that the population applying must likewise be quite atypical, I think.
Mike
Casual misuse of a handful of unrepresentative statistics - Camp Hill Boys first place choices were down by about 20 this year, despite the high pass mark, a quick look in this year's admissions Birmingham admissions guide showed that total applications (1st-6th choice - not quite the same thing but probably fairly close to it) were down as well, and similarly for most of the other KEs.
However you'll notice the beginnings of a back-track in my last post - as I've dug a bit deeper, applications to Camp Hill Girls and Sutton Coldfield have gone up substantially, so while boys' applications appear to be down about 3% (which is also about the reduction in overall cohort size in Birmingham so far as I can judge, by the way), girls' applications appear to be up by more, so overall grammar applications in Birmingham have perhaps gone up by about 1%, not fallen as I originally thought. "Average" KE pass mark, if there was such a thing, has also gone up about 1% from 325 to 328.
The pass mark for Camp Hill Boys is so different from the others that the population applying must likewise be quite atypical, I think.
Mike
Hi Mike
I think we seem to be reaching a broad concensus
e.g. 325 div 3 = 108.3 and 108 is the 70th standardisation percentile
328 div 3 = 109.3 and 109 is the 72nd standardisation percentile
So the min pass rate has gone from the 70th to the 72nd which is actually an increase of approximately 2.8%.
Not sure if you still have children who have to go through the system, but if so you might want to request some detailed stats and standardised scores from the KE Foundation Office. They were quite helpful when I requested the information some years ago.
Regards
I think we seem to be reaching a broad concensus
My only comment would be on the percentage increase. Rather than take the percentage increase on the consolidated standardised scores (e.g. 325), I think you need to look at the increases in the pass percentiles."Average" KE pass mark, if there was such a thing, has also gone up about 1% from 325 to 328.
e.g. 325 div 3 = 108.3 and 108 is the 70th standardisation percentile
328 div 3 = 109.3 and 109 is the 72nd standardisation percentile
So the min pass rate has gone from the 70th to the 72nd which is actually an increase of approximately 2.8%.
Not sure if you still have children who have to go through the system, but if so you might want to request some detailed stats and standardised scores from the KE Foundation Office. They were quite helpful when I requested the information some years ago.
Regards
I've got one more taking the exam in 2010 but playing with numbers is just a sort of security blanket for me - any old numbers will work, they don't have to be reliable!you might want to request some detailed stats and standardised scores from the KE Foundation Office
Good point on the percentiles.
Mike
