Now that Kent have published the scores, I gather it is possible to try and predict some cut -off scores... how?
I was trying to have a look for Judd but my eyes glazed over...

There is nowhere near as much detail on the spreadsheet as there normally is, so predicting cutoffs is more difficult and less precise.

I’m very happy for others to disagree with me, but my very hand wavey guesstimate would be Judd 383 first round in catchment.

I agree that the 2019 spreadsheet makes it much more difficult to make specific predictions but a general comparison can be made with previous years. We have done this for girls to get a picture of the TGS cut off.
If we assume first round cut off is usually 370 approx and takes those with about the top 17% of pass marks, the first round cut off this year will rise to about 379 and then drop slightly in subsequent rounds.

Generally there are considerably more children who have scored 380 and higher in 2019 than in 2018 (at least 20% more). I can see that generally that will mean an increase in cut off scores for The Judd and TGS as well as other schools with high cut offs.

I also think it's going to make the Skinners' new area catchment smaller. A lot more boys scored 360 or over than in 2018. So the miles distance from the school is inevitably going to be less than in 2018.

Take all of this with a pinch of salt please. Just our take on the spreadsheet which is harder to examine than previous years due to the grouping together of so much information.

The difference in score from 2018 seems less pronounced at the high end of scores, so OOC Judd maybe 405. This could be wildly inaccurate though!

I am of a similar view, I think IC scores may experience a bigger jump as it appears a huge increase between 370 - 390 range. But who knows?

Data is heavily summarised this time and even banded in many instances so requires a little bit of faffing and assumptions to make it usable for your personal purpose.

KCC could have been slightly more helpful (as they usually are), at least could have provided level of granularity as previous years but there you go not much we can press for.

It is very clear though that the 400+ scorers are way higher this time than previous years; which is no surprise given the jump in threshold pass mark from 323 to 330. Given we’re dealing with over 16,000 applicants in all cases, I wouldn’t attribute any thing to the cohort being any clever than previous. The obvious seems to be that the 3 tests as a collective was easier hence increasing number of scorers at each mark, noting that overall pass rate remained almost unchanged (minutely up).

Now what’s my take incase you care to know? As an OCC parent interested in Judd, son scoring between 410-415, I had been waiting for the data to have a feel for what we were up against, without making any assumptions about how safe he is based on historic thresholds. On the basis of the numbers together with previous, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the ‘Outer’ cutt-off to be above 408 but unlikely to be beyond 413. Please note this is only based on a very quick and rough ‘back of the envelope’ checks. Others may have different interpretations and assumptions.

On one hand I feel he’s safe but there is the small uncertainty. Whilst hot housing into ‘Inner Catchment’ looks a no-brainer to eliminate this uncertainty but we will remain, but I think ‘inner catchment’ should brace as there is likely to be some inflow by families scoring 385-400.

See you in March 2020.

Thanks all.. it’s going to be touch and go!

The other consideration on Judd's cut off scores is Skinners new admission policy. As scores are so much higher this year more boys are going to qualify for Skinners who traditionally wouldn't have been considered super selective. If they take up the places at Skinners it will have a knock on effect on Judd, with less "super selective" places available it will push up the scores needed to get into Judd even higher than they have historically been.

That would be my guess anyway, not that I am in any way an expert on the matter!

Although the main effect of Skinners’ taking boys that might not have gained a super selective place previously will be on the boys living in Sevenoaks and beyond who score between 370 (40 points above grammar threshold) and the Judd cut off score. They would have been allocated a super selective school in previous years, but are unlikely to get one for 2020.