Age Standardisation

[scary mum]

Age is one of many factors that should be considered. State vs private education is another. My DD's school had no focus on the 11 plus whatsoever but I am pretty confident in my assumption that many of the private schools would have been hothousing for months if not years. Should this not be taken into consideration? All that is needed is a level playing field so taking into account only age is not fair in my opinion. Access and equal chances should be given to all.

These are just reasons why selection is unfair. At least standardisation attempts to even out one area of inequality.

[kenyancowgirl]

Age is one of many factors that should be considered. State vs private education is another. My DD's school had no focus on the 11 plus whatsoever but I am pretty confident in my assumption that many of the private schools would have been hothousing for months if not years. Should this not be taken into consideration? All that is needed is a level playing field so taking into account only age is not fair in my opinion. Access and equal chances should be given to all.

PalmerG....the system you are complaining about is an inherently UNFAIR system from the off. Some areas have NO Grammar Schools - some children grow up in households with barely literate parents, some with highly educated wealthy ones - if you want to worry about access and equal chances, you need to start back in the womb. Your worrying about state versus primary can be valid in some schools, but, my experience shows there are some truly poor private schools and some truly outstanding state schools - many private schools actually "prep" children for their feeder private secondary - they don't want people to leave and lose that income stream. You cannot fairly address private versus state - you cannot fairly address tutored versus not tutored - a child who goes to a paid tutor may be getting worse help than a child diyed at home, for eg, but you can bet your bottom dollar, if it gave them an advantage, the diy parents would say their child wasn't being tutored.

Age is unquestionable. You are born on the day you are born and it is evidenced with no ambiguity. There is also streams of research that prove the difference between effectively a year's birth can make on academic levels/maturity etc - a whole year just assimilating speech from the environment around you pre secondary, is massive - the research shows that this tailors off quite dramatically to "equal" through secondary. I am on my phone at work currently so cannot dig about to find the research but Google may help you if you are intereseted - or Amber/Guest55 can link when they see this.

Age standardisation gives equity to the process of the 11+. This is different to equality which may not make it fair.

[keepcalmand...]

Agree with the points that Wontsleeptonight is repeatedly making. With the age adjustment used this year, the average of the additional points given, i.e., 5.3 will make the average of the Overall Score higher than the past 4 years where age adjustment wasn't used.

Am I right to think that only by adding 5.3 [or if matters 5.31564 = (average Overall Score obtained by a child born 01/09/07 - average OS obtained by a child born 31/08/08) ÷2)] to each of the border points for the coloured zones, we can then get more realistic sense of the likelihood of success for this year?

Is it also the case that the Historical Guidance sheet may not be so straightforward to interpret for future years unless you know the discrepancy between the performance of the oldest and the youngest calculated for particular year??

[Kon]

My take here is, as someone already pointed out earlier due to the age adjustment calculation the whole population will be inflated by an average of about 5 points. I also read somewhere population this year increased from 6000 last year to 7000 (please correct me if I am wrong), which by the way will also stretch the score by about 5 if cut off numbers are similar (which should be the case as schools have not increased the class size or number of of classes). The combined effect is if a student needed 340 to enter a certain school last year, it is likely this is increased to 350 now. If someone can confirm the total students this year versus last year I can quickly re calculate this part of additional score if anyone is interested.

[aa06]

My take here is, as someone already pointed out earlier due to the age adjustment calculation the whole population will be inflated by an average of about 5 points. I also read somewhere population this year increased from 6000 last year to 7000 (please correct me if I am wrong), which by the way will also stretch the score by about 5 if cut off numbers are similar (which should be the case as schools have not increased the class size or number of of classes). The combined effect is if a student needed 340 to enter a certain school last year, it is likely this is increased to 350 now. If someone can confirm the total students this year versus last year I can quickly re calculate this part of additional score if anyone is interested.

From the standardisation report on the CSSE website it seems that 5,637 took the test this year.

[Wontsleeptonight]

I'm so glad someone else has picked up on this ...I thought I was going mad. I think there will be a lot of shock and heartache on allocate day where people have not had expectations managed.

I have raised with CSSE that some caveats around this year's scores need to be issued.

[mitasol]

I am not sure what adjustments are being made in Essex but most areas using age standardisation would not simply adjust scores up. They would balance the standardised scores.

[Wontsleeptonight]

But this is what they have done. The standard of 300 is achieved by a sept 1sy born child with mean scores on both papers, thus anyone younger with mean raw scores are boosted. In true standaisation you should have 50% above and below 300. This year more than 50% are above the score of 300, and thus is not standardised correctly to be comparable with previous cohorts ...and so we cannot use the coloured guidance in the same way as we did previously.

[RedDevil66]

Age is one of many factors that should be considered. State vs private education is another. My DD's school had no focus on the 11 plus whatsoever but I am pretty confident in my assumption that many of the private schools would have been hothousing for months if not years. Should this not be taken into consideration? All that is needed is a level playing field so taking into account only age is not fair in my opinion. Access and equal chances should be given to all.

There is no evidence that it produces results. In fact I know one pupil personally where this has had a negative effect, and many others at a private school in Essex where their ability has fallen short of the 11+ yet their parents still insist on the 'hothousing.'

[Leighmum2019]

But this is what they have done. The standard of 300 is achieved by a sept 1sy born child with mean scores on both papers, thus anyone younger with mean raw scores are boosted. In true standaisation you should have 50% above and below 300. This year more than 50% are above the score of 300, and thus is not standardised correctly to be comparable with previous cohorts ...and so we cannot use the coloured guidance in the same way as we did previously.

This affects mostly OOC then? There may be marginally more kids this year i/c who have secured 303 but given that the SS schools don't fill their i/c quotas it will just reduce the number of ooc places offered?