has anyone got up to date news on the 2012 exam in essex?

[Minesatea]

The problem with that is that applicants for the Chelmsford, Colchester and Southend schools are not mutually exclusive groups. The results will be known before the decision as to which schools are applied to is taken.

Exactly, but when you apply to the CSSE you have to declare your DC's current primary school so they will know who is in catchment for Southend and who is not.

[First-timer]

I don't see why that would mean that girls applying to Colchester/Chelmsford have to sit their exam there. Southend has already had to deal with the issue of catchment without having to physically separate the children.

[Minesatea]

I don't really but it seems to be coming from Southend as they are not intending to give their pupils any choice of which school they sit the exam.

Southend has already had to deal with the issue of catchment without having to physically separate the children.

In the past it has been the LA's computer that has to deal with this at the point the places are allocated, not the CSSE. In the future the CSSE will send out the scores and someone has said earlier in this thread that they will say whether the child has been deemed suitable for grammar school or not. For the non catchment pupils I don't see that this is possible because they won't know where they are applying and what score will be needed but for those in-borough to whom the 303 pass mark applies they could easily be told you are/are not suitable for a Southend grammar school.
Given the much shorter time to get the scores out and the fact that the LA will not be involved at this stage it could be simpler if they knew that all children sitting at sites A, B and C are in-borough whereas those at site D are out of borough.

Alternatively perhaps Southend want to move to the system of sitting the 11 plus in the catchment primaries as happens in other areas?

Realistically we are going to have to wait and see. Whatever changes are made though will affect everyone equally so try not to worry about it too much.

[Manana]

I would recommend that all the papers that used to be saved for September and October are covered by the end of the summer holidays. Nothing too tough for September.

Yes, that needs to be the case. I was just wondering which papers you wouldn't bother with-ie would you do only 8 The Tutors papers instead of 12 and only book 1 of the GL books, rather than both? With 8 weeks less-unless you do more than one paper each week-some need to be dropped, but which?

[HPDad]

One question I would like answered is whether the format of the papers will be the same. At 1.2 Nature of the Tests in the CCHS consultation document there is just the statement “to be confirmed” and the CSSE statement on the website is vague I think.

Under the proposals, they will only have about 3 weeks to mark and moderate 4,000 odd papers each for Maths and English. I believe the VR paper is already machine marked but will they have to adopt multiple choice formats for Maths and/or English as well to speed up the marking process? I understand that the Kent 11+ for example which is already held in September is all multiple choice bar a written piece that is only looked at if the child is borderline.

Hopefully things will become a lot clearer once the Admissions Code comes into force on 1 February.