Birmingham Consortium Pass Marks 2005-2018

Eleven Plus (11+) in Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Wrekin

Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators

KenR
Posts: 1506
Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2006 6:12 pm
Location: Birmingham

Birmingham Consortium Pass Marks 2005-2018

Post by KenR »

Edited in 2018 to reflect 2014-2018 last-scores offered as of allocation day.


Please note: SCHOOLS DID NOT OVER-OFFER AS USUAL ON ALLOCATION DAY FOR 2015/2016 ENTRY SO THE SCORES FOR ENTRY DROPPED RAPIDLY DURING MARCH 2015 as children were offered places from the waiting lists.

For more info see http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... 11&t=44272" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Um

.....................................................
Through various posting over the last few years I have been able to document the respective pass marks for the various KE Foundation Grammar schools.

I thought that parents with children taking the test this year might find this useful when making their LEA preferences:-

I have shown the pass scores below for each KE and Birmingham Consortium Grammar Schools relating to entry into the respective schools from Sept 2005 through to Sept 2018 (viz. exam taken in Nov. 2004 to July 2017).
The rounded average age standardised scores per paper or section are shown as AV
For ease of reading the format has been changed to one provided by realexamstartnow - thanks


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHB------> KE CAMP HILL BOYS
5Ways---> KE FIVE WAYS
CHG------> KE CAMP HILL GIRLS
Aston----> KE ASTON
KEHW----> KE HANDSWORTH GIRLS
BV--------> BISHOP VESEY (from 2011 entry)
SCG------> SUTTON GIRLS GRAMMAR (from 2011 entry)
HGS------> HANDSWORTH GRAMMAR SCHOOL (from 2015 entry)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NPP---> Non Premium Pupil
AV----> Miniumum Average Age Standardised score (rounded up)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+-------------------CHB--------|--------5Ways------|---------CHG--------|---------Aston------|---------KEHW------|----------BV----------|---------SCG---------|---------HGS---------+
+-------------NPP--------AV----|---NPP-------AV----|----NPP-------AV----|----NPP-------AV----|----NPP-------AV----|----NPP-------AV-----|---NPP--------AV----|---NPP-------AV-----|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
2005...|...347...|...116...|...330...|...110...|...323...|...108...|...324...|...108...|...317...|...106...|...........|...........|..........|..........|...........|...........|
2006...|...341...|...114...|...329...|...110...|...329...|...110...|...327...|...109...|...319...|...107...|..........|...........|...........|..........|...........|...........|
2007...|...343...|...115...|...328...|...110...|...321...|...107...|...324...|...108...|...318...|...106...|...........|...........|..........|..........|...........|...........|
2008...|...346...|...116...|...330...|...110...|...325...|...109...|...328...|...110...|...317...|...106...|..........|...........|...........|..........|...........|...........|
2009...|...351...|...117...|...333...|...111...|...330...|...110...|...328...|...110...|...319...|...107...|...........|...........|..........|..........|...........|...........|
2010...|...353...|...118...|...336...|...112...|...328...|...110...|...331...|...111...|...321...|...107...|..........|...........|...........|..........|...........|...........|
2011...|...232...|...116...|...223...|...112...|...222...|...111...|...217...|...109...|...211...|...106...|...215....|...108...|...207...|...104...|...........|...........|
2012...|...234...|...117...|...225...|...113...|...225...|...113...|...216...|...108...|...215...|...108....|...212...|...106...|...210...|...105...|...........|...........|
2013...|...240...|...120...|...227...|...114...|...229...|...115...|...220...|...110...|...216...|...108...|...217....|...109...|...211...|...108...|...........|...........|
2014...|...235...|...118...|...224...|...112...|...226...|...113...|...214...|...107...|...215...|...108....|...217...|...109...|...215...|...106...|...........|...........|
2015...|...243...|...122...|...232...|...116...|...231...|...116...|...224...|...112...|...219...|...110...|...219....|...110...|...215...|...107...|...207...|...104....|
2016...|...239...|...120...|...233...|...117...|...235...|...118...|...221...|...111...|...223...|...112....|...220...|...110...|...218...|...109...|...209...|...105....|
2017...|...240...|...120...|...233...|...117...|...235...|...118...|...222...|...111...|...222...|...111...|...220....|...110...|...217...|...109...|...208...|...104....|
2018...|...242...|...122...|...232...|...116...|...236...|...118...|...220...|...110...|...224...|...112....|...222...|...111...|...218...|...109...|...208...|...104....|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+


A few points to note:

Further Update- The scores above are the pass marks for the last successful candidate gaining entry, not all candidates achieving that score would be offered a place due to distance factors. So 1 further mark would be required for guaranteed entry in that year.

The 11+ exams for Bishops Vesey (Boys) and Sutton Coldfield Grammar (Girls) were included in the KE Foundation exams for the first time for the Nov 2010 exam via an examination consortium. In the same year the KE & B/Ham consortium exams were age standardised across 2 papers rather than than the three Maths, Verbal & Non Verbal sections. As a result the age standardised pass scores are lower than in previous years. To work out the average Age standardised score per section or paper, divide the 2005 to 2010 entry results by 3 and the 2011 entry results by 2. For the July 2016 exam going forward, the CEM paper was a common paper used by both the Birmingham Consortium Grammars and Warwickshire Grammars. Birmingham adopted the Warwickshire CEM standardisation methodology with a 50% weighing given to English/verbal questions and the other 50% being an average of the NVR and Maths section standardisations

The trend is broadly similar year on year with Camp Hill Boys being the the highest pass mark and Handsworth Girls the lowest (relative but still tough to get in to). Sutton Grammar was the lowest for 2012
It's slightly easier for girls to get places in KE Grammars due to the fact there are more places. The "lowest" boys pass over the last 6 years was 324 (Aston) whereas the lowest girl pass was 317 (Handsworth)

It's important to use your preferences wisely, in particular if you really want to maximise the chance of a KE Grammar education for your child, irrespective of the journey time, them make sure that you include KE Aston(Boys) and KE Handsworth(Girls) as respective choices in your preferences for your Son/Daughter somewhere on the LEA preference list.

For those parents in neighbouring LEAs to Birmingham with limited preference choices (e.g. Worcs and Dudley), think very carefully about your choices. We have seen examples of children who have narrowly failed to get a place at say Five Ways or Camp Hill Boys who were not able to get a place at Aston or Handsworth, even though they passed because that particular school was not included as a preference.

Most importantly don't put a local comprehensive as a higher preference if you really want your child to have a KE Grammar education. There is no penalty for putting KE Grammars (or LEA Grammars) as your 1st or 2nd choice. Every year we have 1 or 2 parents whose child passes the KE Grammar exam but then isn't offered a place because they put another school as a higher preference.

Note: Updated with 2009 figures -
Note: Updated with 2010 figures -
Note: Updated with 2011 figures -
Note: Updated with 2012 figures -
Note: Updated with 2013 figures -
Note: Updated with 2015 figures and HGS-
Note: Updated with 2016-2018 figures and HGS-



Posts edited and consolidated into a Q&A below
Hope this helps
KenR
Posts: 1506
Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2006 6:12 pm
Location: Birmingham

Post by KenR »

Question:The information is useful but in context how are these scores made up? (sbecks)
Further information on how the total candidate score is calculated:-

There are 2 papers. All of the questions in both tests are consolidated into either an English/VR, NVR or Numerical classification and marked. The raw scores are then converted into 3 standardised scores for each respective category and then Age Standardised. (See article on Age Standardisation linked from the home page of this site).
Note: the above only applied until the Non 2010 exam, from that date onwards they simply age standardised each of the 2 papers and then added the scores together
For the July 2016 exam onwards, the Birmingham consortium shared the 11+ exam with Warwickshire and used the Warwickshire standardisation methodology. viz. the different English/VR, Maths/Numerical and NVR questions were Age standardised separately and the total candidate score was a total of the English/VR score added to the mean/average of the of the Maths and NVR scores

The actual number of questions may vary year by year, but in 2005 for example there were 100 Eng/VR questions, 82 Numerical questions and 70 NVR questions.

The 3 Age Standardised Scores are then added together to give a total composite score. You can see, for example, that the minimum composite pass score was 347 for Camp Hill Boys in 2005 - this was the lowest total score for the last child to enter the school in Sept 2005. This is equivalent to an average Age Standardised score of 116 for each of the categories. (3 x 116=348). Obviously 347 (or 348) is the key and you can achieve this via a variety of ways e.g. 107+ 112+ 129

An Age Standarded score of 116 is equivalent to about 86th candidate percentile for each particular paper. ie 14% of candidates taking that paper achieve a score of 116 or higher.

For typical 11+ exams, the maximum standardised score is usually 140, however for the KE exam set by the Univ of Durham I understand this can be higher. You will see in later answers that the maximum score for a very small number of children can be higher. The minimum is 70 and the average (50th percentile) is 100.
KenR
Posts: 1506
Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2006 6:12 pm
Location: Birmingham

Post by KenR »

Question: What is the total mark possible for each paper leading up to a maximum possible composite score? (kevin8)

The maximum standardised score is most NFER type 11-plus exams is normally 140 or 141, so the theoretical maximum score in these exams is therefore 420. However you will see later that a very small number of children can score higher in the KE & B/Ham Univ of Durham 11-plus exams due to the difficulty of the exams. However the normal NFER distribution will still apply and anyone scoring above 139 on each section will be within the top 1% of candidates and the average score about 100. These high standardised marks do not necessarily relate to top raw scores.
mike1880
Posts: 2563
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 10:51 pm

Post by mike1880 »

Question: What's the break down of allocated marks for each paper? if there's such thing like that?

Can you also tell me the test arrangement for the KE Exams You mentioned that Eng and VR are a combined paper and similarly maths and NVR. Is that the general arrangement or does it change year to year? (kevin8)



There are two papers of 45 mins each with a 15 min break in between.

Each paper is made up of 3 or 4 sections of about 10-15 mins each. Each section covers one subject such as English Comprehension, verbal reasoning, non-verbal, numeric/maths. As far as I understand it, there will be at least one section of each type in both papers(ed- but not always - see previous post on exam content), and there is likely to be more than one verbal section (different types of verbal reasoning).

The scores for all the questions of each type from both papers are totalled to give three scores: verbal, non-verbal and numeric. So there might be say 100 verbal, 75 non-verbal and 80 numeric questions in total on the two papers (the number of questions could be different every year). From this you get what's referred to as the "raw" score for each subject – say, 80 out of a 100 for verbal, 70 out of 75 for non-verbal and 50 out of 80 for numeric.

This is where it gets baffling:

Every test is "standardised" - the average "raw" score is identified (and this depends on the child's age, remember). This score is "standardised" at 100. So if the average "raw" score for a child of average age (Feb/March birthday?) is 65 out of 100 in the verbal questions, then 65/100 equates to a "standardised" score of 100; the average child with September or August birthday would score higher and lower respectively, so the standardised score for them might correspond to a raw score of something like say 70/100 and 62/100 respectively. The standardised score for everyone is then calculated from the comparison of their raw score to this average score, modified by the spread of raw scores ("standard deviation") that were achieved, to give a score in the range from 70 to 140 (ed-or slightly higher for KE exam)

So our hypothetical child with the above "raw" scores might end up with "standardised" scores of say 115, 118, 125 = 358 (excellent result!!!).

That's why the maximum possible score is 420(ed-or a bit higher): 140 each in verbal, non-verbal and numeric. The "raw" score needed to achieve a "pass" depends on (a) the child's age and (b) the breakdown of their three scores and (c) the standardisation of each of the three scores (which itself depends on the scores achieved by each and every other child taking the test that year...).

Hope that's clear now :lol: Hopefully you can see now why no one can give you a straight answer about what you have to do to pass! There is more explanation of this kind of thing available if you trawl through the old posts.

[edit: I've heavily edited the above after reading the standardisation pages again because I was talking absolute rubbish - read the NFER pages:

http://www.nfer.ac.uk/nfer/research/ass ... sation.cfm

Mike
Nervousmum
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:02 am
Location: Birmingham

Post by Nervousmum »

Question: Can you provide some evidence & examples of KE scores over 140

I was told by the Foundation Office at King Edwards that last year the lowest mark of anyone getting into Five Ways was 330 and the top mark was 443. If the mark is a composite of 3 papers with 140 maximum on each then the maximum score is 420 - so how did someone get 443?!
fm

Post by fm »

Question: Any other evidence of scores over 140?


The person who told me the top score of 440+ was the parent of successful entrant who discovered his child's scores through quoting the data protection act. I remember thinking what a wide gulf there was between the last score of a KE, 317, to the top score.

Re: the Sutton score I quoted. A child with 43/45 in VR was standardised to 133, the one with 44/45 achieved 141 so I would have thought anyone with 45/45 would have even higher (unless there was no one higher).
Nervousmum
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:02 am
Location: Birmingham

Post by Nervousmum »

Question: Has anyone asked the KE foundation office about the top scores and why they are different to NFER?

I did as suggested, and phoned the King Edwards Foundation Office. To summarise a rather long conversation - the admissions office tell me that 140 is not the maximum that a child can get on one of their standardised tests. They tell me that the 443 figure for the top mark for Five Ways last year was definitely correct - and that their tests are different to other schools, and hence the usual cap of 140 in other tests does not apply.
fm

Post by fm »

Question: What about the English/VR scores, is this really a good measure of ability?
On a slightly different topic, I have often wondered how they compute the English/VR score. While I imagine they just add up the maths and non-verbal, giving each right answer equal weighting, I'm not sure it would be sensible to do this in the English part.

While the vocabulary is now a smaller proportion than it was as at 58 words (used to be 78), it must yield almost the same number of marks as the other sections (I don't want to be too specific as sick exam is next Monday) but isn't necessarily a great indication of a child's ability in many other aspects of English (arguably it just proves child has good memory and educated parents who talk a lot). Certainly my youngest has a reasonable vocabulary but quite indifferent English skills otherwise (4's in Sats on year 6); in fact, she's living proof of my theory that Sats levels, while an indication of ability and performance, do not directly correlate to grammar school entrance.
KenR
Posts: 1506
Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2006 6:12 pm
Location: Birmingham

Post by KenR »

Question: Can anyone explain why the top age standardised score for Univ of Durham KE 11+ is higher than NFER? Can anyone shed any light on this?

I've done some further research and found some interesting information - it seems that although the maximum scores for normal 11+ and CAT tests are 140/141, occasionally the maximum scores can be higher for different types of tests. It looks as though this comes down to the distributional factors for more difficult tests such as the Univ of Durham CEM Tests.

If you take a look at the following DCSF Research Paper:-

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/data/up ... /RR665.pdf

And in particular take a look at Table 32 - on page 55-56, you we see that this give the statistics for various types of CAT and MidYIS tests, including the min & max scores. You will see that whereas the CAT max scores are all 141 some of the MidYIS CAT scores go up to 163, 165 or 168. There are also some charts in the back of the paper that show the distributions.

This is explained in the paper as follows:-
Closer analysis of KS2 matched to CAT/MidYIS scores

This analysis was based on KS2 results matched to either CAT or MidYIS data for 84374 pupils assessed at KS2 in 2001/02 and 2002/03 and assessed by CAT3 or MidYIS in Year 7 the following September. This data was also matched to PLASC data from 2002 to 2004.

CAT3 data was drawn from 5 LEAs and MidYIS data from 2 LEAs. In total, the sample contained matched KS2 to CAT records for 44668 pupils and matched KS2 to MidYIS records for 39710 pupils.

Both CAT and MidYIS tests varied in central tendency and dispersion. Standardised age scores (SAS) achieved in MidYIS tests tended to be over 100; whilst standardised age scores on CAT tests were closer to 100. This was likely to be due to variations in the ability of pupils tested: KS2 results achieved by the MidYIS cohort tended to be higher. Whilst scores achieved in the three component tests of the CAT battery ranged from 69 to 141, standardised age scores achieved in component
MidYIS tests varied in range, with less dispersion noted in vocabulary scores. The table below summarises these findings: -
So in summary, the some of the KE Foundation Papers are so difficult that you get much lower mean value and very wide distributions of scores, so in this case the maximum Age Standardised Scores can be higher. I have to say that I didn't know that - I stand corrected!
fm

Post by fm »

Question: Is there any relationship between Age Standardised scores and IQ - does a score of 100 equate to an IQ of 100?
I am not an expert but I do not think the 100 for the exam has any connection with an IQ of 100.

I have always assumed they score each component of the exam and work out the average mark for the cohort taking the exam. Thus if the middle score (child 2000 of 4000) was 30/70 in the non-verbal, then that score attracts standardised score of 100 and the rest are arranged accordingly.

Now, the cohort doing the exam is mainly far brighter than the general population. So, if you attain the average score, that means you are average for the children sitting the exam but that still probably makes you fairly smart.

Teachers at one of our local schools used to tell the parents that 120+ in their NFER tests at school were a good indication of likelihood to pass the KE. I have had success with some children round the 112+ mark if they have more to give, but once they go below this success is unlikely. But these would be my lower end candidates and not the ones likely to achieve Camp Hill Boys.

I really don't think they equate to the same thing.
Locked