Registering for the 11 Plus exams

[Goodbyekitty]

Information packs are available from the schools themselves and I presume any forms would need to be posted to the foundation office in Edgbaston.

It's important on any form that it is signed (or ticked online) by the parent or legal guardian of a child.
You can certainly help someone fill in the form but cannot make the application for them, if that makes sense.

Hi um, have just phoned up the Birmingham Secondary schools admissions as Bishop Vesey said all applications will have to be online.

They also said that there are no paper application forms and that it would be okay for me to use my email address again.

I find that so strange and again so sad for those parents who are computer illiterate and do not have access to the internet as they may lose out.

It is also very sad to hear about parents having to shoplift q1+ papers from the shops too.

[KenR]

One interesting fact about the exam that was "sneaked in" under the covers last year is that the "Age Standardisation" weightings & methodology for the B/Ham Consortium schools are now exactly the same as Warwickshire schools; viz. a 50:25:25 ratio for Eng-VR, Maths and NVR question types. This has still not been made clear in the B/Ham consortium admissions brochure.

I personally have always had a concern about the Warks approach of using a 50% weighting for English/VR as I feel it disadvantages immigrants and ethnic minorities where English is not the first language.

[Goodbyekitty]

KenR it just goes to show that although the grammar schools try to show that they want to reach out to the poorer sectors of society, children who also attend normal state schools will lose out to children from the private sector.

Even I was baffled with some of the words required for a 10 yr old sitting the test to know.

And when they also tell you the test are meant to be tutor proof and not to tutor, you can almost scream.
No way would my son have covered some of the subjects in school in time for the Exam.

[Daogroupie]

CEM is the most untutorproof exam format I have ever encountered.

Students can absolutely be taught how to do really well in CEM exams.

CEM has actually removed the "tutorproof" boast from all of their reference materials. DG

[Goodbyekitty]

Really Daogroupie? And so they should.

[mpquikster]

I personally have always had a concern about the Warks approach of using a 50% weighting for English/VR as I feel it disadvantages immigrants and ethnic minorities where English is not the first language.

Have you any data to back up your feeling Ken? Would be interesting to submit an FOI to the schools to see how many of their intake are "immigrants" and "ethnic minorities".

[Nard]

CEM is the most untutorproof exam format I have ever encountered.

Students can absolutely be taught how to do really well in CEM exams.

CEM has actually removed the "tutorproof" boast from all of their reference materials. DG

I totally agree the Birmingham exam is not tutor proof. I am talking from experience.

DS1 - 206 (no tutoring)

DS2 - 243 (tutored)

I think those results speak for themselves.

[quasimodo]

I personally have always had a concern about the Warks approach of using a 50% weighting for English/VR as I feel it disadvantages immigrants and ethnic minorities where English is not the first language.

Have you any data to back up your feeling Ken? Would be interesting to submit an FOI to the schools to see how many of their intake are "immigrants" and "ethnic minorities".

I think you are missing the point.

The schools may have 100% "immigrants" or "ethnic minorities"."The issue is those children who do not have English as a first language who are thereby disadvantaged by the change.I think it is very valid to come to this conclusion.

Durham CEM who set the 11 plus exam say this about the MIDYIS test for year 7 children who don't perform well in vocabulary as compared to other parts of the test.


"Typically these might be pupils where English is a second language, or pupils from more
deprived areas or both. Able pupils with English as an additional language, and hence a
depressed vocabulary score should be able to demonstrate a truer measure of their ability
through the Maths and Non-verbal section scores.

Students with low Vocabulary scores may not know or understand the meaning and use
of many common words or phrases that are used in teaching.
This may well impact on learning and subsequent achievement.

Pupils with lower than expected Vocabulary scores can be encountered in any school. For
schools with a selection test it is not unknown for pupils’ Vocabulary scores to be lower than
their Mathematics scores and there can be several reasons for this.

In many cases it may be the case that pupils’ command of English will improve through
the natural course of events, but it might be useful to consider that the Vocabulary score
measures their understanding of words and so the school may wish to take positive action
to improve their vocabulary by a wide range of experiences such as debates and visits.

In some inner city schools it can be that the pupils come from a particular ethnic group
and, although born in this country, still have English as their second language. They may
be fluent in ‘street English’ but may require a wider range of experiences to enrich their
language and gain precision in its use - ‘Vocabulary is caught not taught’.

Discussion groups are good ways of widening the use of vocabulary but care must be taken
in organising the groupings so that pupils with low vocabulary scores do not congregate
into the same groups. Although it seems that everyday words with different meanings cause
the most problems, technical words may do so too. Glossaries might help but it is probably
better for pupils to produce their own which is more likely to ensure understanding."

I think KenR makes a very valid point.

[um]

Some interesting notes there.

It is not just an issue of whether a child has English as a first language. It's much deeper than that.
Children are exposed to vastly varied amounts and levels of vocabulary at home, even if their parents are both English speakers. This has a lot to do with 'class' but well-off families can often be so busy working that children miss out a lot there, too.

It's also a generational thing. I was brought up with poetry and songs in abundance from my maternal grandparents - we were regaled every weekend with rhymes, riddles, northern folk songs, WW2 songs and stories of evacuation and rationing, as well as classic poetry and my grandmother's love for Shakespeare - and this to a great extent founded and grounded by own literacy and identity.
Children may have parents who speak English well and are professionals, but don't have grandparents or older people around them who speak English.
They may also attend schools where English is spoken incorrectly and in a very limited way. When I took ds2 to his prospective school (the one he'd been offered a place at for Reception, age 4) in Birmingham, the teacher came over to us, saw the butterfly he was colouring in, and said cheerily, 'It bes purple, isn't it'. The next day I found him a place at another school, 6 miles away.
Many years ago (over a decade ago) I was in a cafe in Stratford Upon Avon. On the table next to me was an elderly man with a boy about 3 or 4 years old. I presume he was his grandson. The man was talking a little loudly, to be fair, so I could hear the full conversation clearly.
The level and depth of the conversation, vocabulary and sentence structures being used was astounding. That small encounter taught me a lot. I'd forgotten the rich vocabulary around me when I was younger and had not been in the habit of talking to my children in that way at all.
By the time my youngest was 5 months old I was asking him to kindly consume the superfluous macerated carrots in the rotund and transparent glass jar that had been purchased merely a week earlier from our local convenience score When he started school in Year 2 (he was at home before that) the deputy head told me gently that she didn't think any of the other children could understand what he was saying

[KenR]

I personally have always had a concern about the Warks approach of using a 50% weighting for English/VR as I feel it disadvantages immigrants and ethnic minorities where English is not the first language.

Have you any data to back up your feeling Ken? Would be interesting to submit an FOI to the schools to see how many of their intake are "immigrants" and "ethnic minorities".

No detailed data across a large sample although I have seen evidence of this with individual scores. Quasimodo's last post which references Durham CEM's data on MidYIS clearly supports the hypothesis. The point I would make is that the weighting used to be 33:33:33 but is now (having adopted the Warks weightings) 50:25:25 for Eng-VR, Maths, Non Verbal respectively.