Age adjustment clarification

[Frostythesnowman]

Can someone help please? I was under the impression that everyone got their scores multiplied by some magic multiplier for standardisation. This multiplier is determined by the month of birth within the year. Am I right? So in effect, everyone gets points added, just that the August birthdays are multiplied by a slightly higher multiplier...am I right?

If I hear of one more child who says to my August birthday child that it's ok for her that she'll get loads of points added and that they, with September to December birthdays, will all start the tests with a disadvantage because they will automatically have points taken off rather than added, I will scream. I am sure this is not the case. They can't possibly have points taken off...can they? I'm sure it's the multiplier thing (one tutor told me that it's something like a multiplier of 1.6 for Sept to 1.72 or something for August....)

[Stressed?Moi?]

Hi

if you click on the "11 plus advice" tab at the top of this page there is a drop-down box explaining the standardisation of marking. I too ran the whole "it's alright for your 30 August born child" etc. No mention of the fact that his best friend is 50 weeks older than him and therefore had an extra 50 weeks of learning numbers, letters, reading etc than him, so I know where you are coming from. I believe the standardised marking system to be fair (albeit for my tiny brain, a bit complex).

[StJamesDad]

I am not sure how they do it (I think it is a bit of a mystery from memory) but I would not worry about it as it is what it is.
Personally I think it sounds fair to adjust mark slightly, but I know some do not.
Just get on with the prep and do your best on the day.
We avoided as much interaction with other GS hopefuls as we could because we had an idea of how silly it can all get.

[stroudydad]

Many people have many views on standardisation, is it fair? I guess it probably is, I feel it should be more transparent. What certainly is not fair is the fact your child is being made to feel like this by his peers. Remind him they are only being like this because they are worried he will do better than them.. Also perhaps remind him some of these would have been talking before he was even born!

[StJamesDad]

Oh, and don't melt!

[Okanagan]

You get an aidea of what standardisation tables look like from the links on this page.

[Frostythesnowman]

Thanks guys. As one of you suggested, i read the page on the main forum page and its a pretty good explanation and pretty much as I thought. Thanks. I hadn't spotted that.

[Rob Clark]

Frosty, there's also an interesting ongoing discussion about standardisation in the thread 'Are summer babies at a disadvantage'. You might like to know that most of the research shows that, if anything, summer born babies should be given even more additional marks than is currently the case

[capers123]

Can someone help please? I was under the impression that everyone got their scores multiplied by some magic multiplier for standardisation. This multiplier is determined by the month of birth within the year. Am I right?

Yes and no.

Yes, there is a magic multiplier, but rather than being the same figure each year, calculated just on the birth month, it's calculated by looking at the birth months (or date) for all of the pupils who have asked to have their scores shared by that individual school for that exam (aka 'the cohort'). Hence it will be different each year for the same school, and likewise each school will have a different multiplier in the same year.

This is one of the reasons that it's difficult to calculate positions of children who did not ask for their results to be shared but then decide after the result have come out that maybe they would like them sharing. To do so would mean that that child then needs to be added in to the calculation for that school, then the new weightings re-applied to all the pupils, and new ranking positions issued to all the pupils - which would be unfair on those who had made their secondary choice based on the original rankings.