New 11 Plus Procedures Public Consultation

[Marylou]

I'd have thought two relatively straightforward, machine-marked VR tests already is the cheapest way of doing it... If you start introducing all sorts of other elements into the test, especially anything that involves human markers, won't that push the cost up?

[Lillie]

The changes are because the GS now have to PAY for the testing process.

They are looking to save money ...

I am wondering how they going to save money if they still use Bucks CC (now effectively another third party) to administer the test? Being academies, do they now have to pay the council for this service? Plus goodness knows how many man hours will be put into coming up with a new format, if that is what they decide to do. It doesn't seem like they will save money from this process, but the tests do definitely need to be looked at.

[Marylou]

I am wondering how they going to save money if they still use Bucks CC (now effectively another third party) to administer the test? Being academies, do they now have to pay the council for this service?

The problem is that if they are going apply the same tests throughout the county, then these will have to be administered centrally by someone and this will inevitably involve cost whether the schools outsource testing to the council and pay for it (bearing in mind that the money that was previously used for this purpose is now in theory going straight to the academies anyway) or set up an examinations body of their own. There is also the issue of which schools should have to pay for the testing - primary or secondary? Primary schools have a duty to ensure that their pupils will progress to the most suitable form of secondary education, so presumably any that are not LEA-funded would have to contribute. As for the secondary schools, it doesn't follow that it should be just the grammars that pay because the whole point of the test is (according to the council) to find the most suitable school for the individual. It's not about "pass" and "fail" - ergo the burden should be shared by all the schools, whether from their own budgets if academies, or the LEA. Not wanting to be controversial here, just logical.

And, as you say, any savings on administering the tests are likely to go out of the window once time has to be spent on devising a new format, regardless of whether this is done by the schools themselves or outsourced to an examination provider. They want to develop a new test to discourage coaching and somehow make it "fairer" - but that ain't going to come cheap! Ideological and budgetary interests are completely at odds here.

[Guest55]

I think that needing to pay for the testing procedure was overlooked by many GS in the rush to become academies.

[Marylou]

I think that needing to pay for the testing procedure was overlooked by many GS in the rush to become academies.

Sound of nail being hit firmly on the head.

However, given the speed with which the opportunity to reformat the test was seized upon, I do wonder whether there were some that knew exactly what was going to happen...

[pippi]

The current tests cost around £500,000 pa, so presumably something along those lines will now have to be shared by the 13 grammar schools. This used to be top-sliced from the LEA budget, but I don't think there's any question about who's got to pay for it now that the grammar schools are all academies. Presumably an opt-in system would be cheaper.

A while back I made an FoI request for the minutes of the "11+ Steering Group" and got this response (from Dr Fenton who chaired it): "An examination of our records has confirmed that no minutes were kept of the meetings to which you refer as they were informal discussions only. The 11+ Steering Group was subsequently disbanded and some of the members transferred to the Headteachers' Admissions Working Group".

[slough mum]

Will this also apply to 12+ and 13+?

[scary mum]

Some are setting their own tests, others using BCC. There are some other threads mentioning it - see any recent ones with 12+ in the heading.

[Lillie]

[

The current tests cost around £500,000 pa, so presumably something along those lines will now have to be shared by the 13 grammar schools. This used to be top-sliced from the LEA budget, but I don't think there's any question about who's got to pay for it now that the grammar schools are all academies. Presumably an opt-in system would be cheaper.

A while back I made an FoI request for the minutes of the "11+ Steering Group" and got this response (from Dr Fenton who chaired it): "An examination of our records has confirmed that no minutes were kept of the meetings to which you refer as they were informal discussions only. The 11+ Steering Group was subsequently disbanded and some of the members transferred to the Headteachers' Admissions Working Group".

This just gets curiouser and curiouser. I find it hard to believe that no record was kept of the "11+ Steering Group" meetings when they were discussing such an important issue. And isn't the Headteachers' Admissions Working Group just the same thing by another name? They must be making some decisions if they are saying there will be a consultation in January.

[Garnett]

I suspect that one of those decisions is going to be to allow each individual grammar school to set their own admission score. Have heard that Borlase is planning to raise their admission score to 130 - due to being heavily oversubscribed.