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Re: age adjustment

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:23 pm
by EmeraldE
Perhaps it is to take into account emotional maturity? That would assume that the younger the child the more challenging it may be to manage the workload/ stressors on the day (clearly not so for all kids). As there is no way to actually measure maturity for every child the system is, in reality, a crude tool designed to merely level the playing field. If there was no standardisation then the parents of the youngest DCs might be upset and claim it was unfair. I guess there is no perfect system, just as fair a one as can be realistically managed.

Re: age adjustment

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 1:01 pm
by stroudydad
Hi Emerald, surely if emotional maturity was included then there would have to be some standardisation for gender..?? I just don't understand why they meddle with age but nothing else when there are bigger factors. Anyway not wanting to upset anyone else here endeth the rant. :)

Re: age adjustment

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 1:59 pm
by capers123
stroudydad wrote:Hi Emerald, surely if emotional maturity was included then there would have to be some standardisation for gender..?? I just don't understand why they meddle with age but nothing else when there are bigger factors. Anyway not wanting to upset anyone else here endeth the rant. :)
Apart from Pate's, gender doesn't matter in Gloucestershire.

There is a whole year (minus one day) between the eldest & youngest taking the test. It's been statistically proven (not sure by whom, but I'm sure the data is out there) that, assuming equal intelligence, the youngest child in the year will get a lower score than the eldest. It's less of a factor than when they first start in reception, but I seem to remember reading that there is still an effect come Year 11 (but by that point a very small one).

If there was no weighting by age, there would be more children in grammars born in September & October than there were July & August birthdays - which would not be fair. The adjustment is not done to penalise the elder children, but just to even it out so that all other things being equal, roughly 1/12th of each year comes from each month of intake.

Re: age adjustment

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 4:11 pm
by fairweathergardener
....and as for weighting s to compensate for gender ....as far as I am aware they take the top 120 ish at Pates regardless of gender....if that we're a problem, the school would have a lot more boys than girls or vice versa spread across all year groups....maybe it has? But, this isn't an issue for the single sex schools as Capers pointed out...

Re: age adjustment

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 4:44 pm
by stroudydad
fairweathergardener wrote:....and as for weighting s to compensate for gender ....as far as I am aware they take the top 120 ish at Pates regardless of gender....if that we're a problem, the school would have a lot more boys than girls or vice versa spread across all year groups....maybe it has? But, this isn't an issue for the single gender schools as Capers pointed out...

That is exactly my point, there is lots of evidence to show how gender does make a difference, no sighting is given but yet the mix is still at a roughly even level.. So why do it with age... What's wrong with natural selection?

Re: age adjustment

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 4:58 pm
by PaterGloucester
That is exactly my point, there is lots of evidence to show how gender does make a difference, no sighting is given but yet the mix is still at a roughly even level.. So why do it with age... What's wrong with natural selection?
Natural selection ? Not quite sure what you're saying, but a few years ago it was noted that boys were performing disproportionally better than girls at the Glos 11+. So the paper was tweaked to include more vocabulary-based questions (which girls tend to be better at) than maths-based questions (at which boys tend to be best).

Isn't this true, Capers ?

Re: age adjustment

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 5:22 pm
by Amber
Capers123 wrote:It's less of a factor than when they first start in reception...
I would absolutely refute that. Even when I trained as infant teacher in the Dark Ages, it was recognised what a massive disadvantage 4 year olds had in school vs 5 year olds. In my first job as a Reception teacher we had 3 intakes because of it. With some exceptions, young in the year children do very badly in the early years of school, especially if they are boys. By which I mean, they find it hard to get used to the routines, they can't sit still (because they are not designed to do so ) and they often struggle to stay awake. The age gap begins young and our school system perpetuates it.

Re: age adjustment

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 5:46 pm
by EmeraldE
In DD's year at Pates there are twice as many boys (20) as girls (10) approx in each class. In subsequent years the ratio has been closer to 50:50. The year after DD got in is when the 'tweak' aparently happened. Read into this what you will. As for emotional maturity, I am not suggesting that that's why they standarise results, just a thought really. I'm sure it is down to just trying to even out the playing field for the eldest and youngest. There has to be some system.

Re: age adjustment

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 6:03 pm
by stroudydad
So in reality the test is gender standardised, just that it's done per test rather than post.. Note to examination board. Please make this test for a boy, as my daughters weak point is the vocab.. :wink:

Re: age adjustment

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 6:31 pm
by trampoline
I think most parents would be hard pushed to argue that there is no difference in children 12mths apart in age so I have to agree that some form of standardisation must be fair.

I think it's across every aspect of their development. You've only got to look at sports teams. In the cities where they have large squads I bet a large percentage of the first teams in each age group have a disproportionate amount of boys from the first quarter of the year group compared to the last. They clearly physically develop so much in the space of 12 months and in my own DS, the emotional and intellectual development of him from this time last year to now is huge.

I know this is partly to do with schooling and peer groups and a whole host of other factors but in the very simplist of terms surely another 6-12 months on earth has afforded them the opportunity to learn more things including vocab!