September 2018 anyone?

[Raych]

Well my DD had her mock test at Shirley today and she was shocked by how many maths questions you had to do in the time, so thats something we need to work on straight away. Like others, we have come into this situation very late. We only started on the Bond books in July and its such a hard balance, wanting to give her a relaxing holiday but also giving her the best chance for the test. Some of the children who attended today, said they were off to do more revision that day!
I know my daughters bright, but keeping her brain working at peak performance in the summer holidays is definitely a challenge

Yes I’m shocked at the amount of work some children do, then that makes me think we’re not doing enough,, dd has been at her grand over night and hasn’t done any homework,, there was only a few 10 min tests ,,, I’m having a breakdown and her Gran thinks I’m crazy ,,, I need wine

[Candel]

Hello everyone
I did this all last year too so I thought I'd be calmer and know what was going on this time... but no! Different children obviously mean a different experience entirely and I'm finding myself alternating the 'it's fine' and 'no, it's impossible!' feelings every other day. Though there's less pressure on dd in some ways because she has a good plan B, she puts pressure on herself by wanting to do 'as well' as her brother even though I keep trying to tell her the 11+ is not a matter of 'better or worse' just different strengths and what one person does on one particular morning.
Anyway, we're plodding on when we get some quiet time - and the work itself isn't doing her any harm for the future.

I don't know if any of you have come across this discussion regarding raw scores but I found it really helpful last year and it seems to reflect our experiences last year too.

https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum ... m&start=60

I reckon my ds scored about 75% overall in the real thing - a bit less on vr and a bit more on maths/nvr and that translated to 242 (october birthday, 120 ish on each). Hope that helps!

Good luck everyone, it's nice to know you're all out there worrying as much as me!

[Raych]

Hello everyone
I did this all last year too so I thought I'd be calmer and know what was going on this time... but no! Different children obviously mean a different experience entirely and I'm finding myself alternating the 'it's fine' and 'no, it's impossible!' feelings every other day. Though there's less pressure on dd in some ways because she has a good plan B, she puts pressure on herself by wanting to do 'as well' as her brother even though I keep trying to tell her the 11+ is not a matter of 'better or worse' just different strengths and what one person does on one particular morning.
Anyway, we're plodding on when we get some quiet time - and the work itself isn't doing her any harm for the future.

I don't know if any of you have come across this discussion regarding raw scores but I found it really helpful last year and it seems to reflect our experiences last year too.

https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum ... m&start=60

I reckon my ds scored about 75% overall in the real thing - a bit less on vr and a bit more on maths/nvr and that translated to 242 (october birthday, 120 ish on each). Hope that helps!

Good luck everyone, it's nice to know you're all out there worrying as much as me!

Hi Candel , thank you for your post seems everyone is in the same boat ,, one day no problem another day having a melt down,,

Raw scores totally over my head don’t understand this at all my daughter is July born so only just turned 10 does this mean she gets extra marks or will she be scored against dc in her birth month ??? Also do you get a breakdown of what was scored in each section in the Birmingham exams

Thank you

[halsea]

Raych my daughter was born in July, so I know that she will be given extra points compared to her friend who is born in September, but I can't find any info on how many points. I know that my daughter has to score 25 higher than a pupil premium child to get the same place.

[Caveman47]

Raych my daughter was born in July, so I know that she will be given extra points compared to her friend who is born in September, but I can't find any info on how many points. I know that my daughter has to score 25 higher than a pupil premium child to get the same place.

Hmmm this is interesting. I didn't know that your birth month was taken into consideration with the scores.

The son I'm currently tutoring is an August child and I must admit he is a little behind on my older son that was born in October and has a place at Grammar school for Sept.

This is why I decided to start a little early with my youngest son who'll start year 5 Sept.

This forum is a real eye opener.

[Raych]

Raych my daughter was born in July, so I know that she will be given extra points compared to her friend who is born in September, but I can't find any info on how many points. I know that my daughter has to score 25 higher than a pupil premium child to get the same place.

Hmmm this is interesting. I didn't know that your birth month was taken into consideration with the scores.

The son I'm currently tutoring is an August child and I must admit he is a little behind on my older son that was born in October and has a place at Grammar school for Sept.

This is why I decided to start a little early with my youngest son who'll start year 5 Sept.

This forum is a real eye opener.

Yes a September child has been exposed to 12 months more vocabulary than an August born child I believe that’s why not a 100 percent sure though

[Raych]

Raych my daughter was born in July, so I know that she will be given extra points compared to her friend who is born in September, but I can't find any info on how many points. I know that my daughter has to score 25 higher than a pupil premium child to get the same place.

That’s interesting I didn’t know it was that much of a difference with pupil premium,, so if PP cut off is 200 a non PP child would need to score 225 for the same place ,, also are there more pupil premium places this year

[Inner Chimp]

Yes my DD did the Shirley mock does anyone know whether their scores are really accurate or reflective of the real exam? They have stated those that scored over 74% in their last test got a Grammar place I would be interested to see if that is true? Can anyone comment

[helen0209]

Summer born children are not allocated more points as such. The scoring is standardised, so in basic terms they will be compared with children born within the same month.

Raw scores are not given out by the FO anymore, as I asked last year for DS2.

All children will have a raw score for each paper / section which essentially is what they actually scored for that part e.g 12 out of 18. These are then standardised with regard to the other children born in a similar time period to give the score that you will receive in the post. You will get one score for NVR / Maths and one for VR; these combined will give the total.

Yes, PP children do not have to score as highly as non-PP children. Around 25% of places go to non-PP children apart from Sutton Girls who don’t have that policy and Handsworth Boys as they already have around 50% PP children each year in their intake.

There are plenty of summer born children who secure places - my DS2 for example only turned 11 last week, so was similar to your children that you are mentioning this time last year. The standardised scoring does try and make it a more even playing field to take account of the fact they have had less time on this earth in comparison to a winter born child.

[helen0209]

Yes my DD did the Shirley mock does anyone know whether their scores are really accurate or reflective of the real exam? They have stated those that scored over 74% in their last test got a Grammar place I would be interested to see if that is true? Can anyone comment

Hi Inner Chimp - DS2 scored 66% in January and 56% in May; unfortunately I can’t find the August result, but know it wasn’t as high as the January one. He went on to score 217 and 333. I’m sure Crazycrofter won’t mind me mentioning it (as it’s already in a post from last year), but their DS scored around 35% in the August mock and went on to get 213.

Their 74% is subjective, and I believe it depends on which school you are aiming for. It could be that those that scored over 74% got a place, but so did those who scored less.

The mocks to me were more about him getting used to the environment, the number of people, how to mark the answers on the paper etc. and to give some guidance on where we should focus a little more (as if we didn’t already know though)!