kent maths paper this year

perplexed · Post by **perplexed** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:28 pm

What was it like? Someone on another thread has suggested that the "style" of the maths paper in Kent changed this year.

Does anyone know if it was different in some way? If it was, how did it compare with the types of question in the NFER sample maths papers?

Is it ever possible to get hold of a real Kent 11+ question paper?

Bexley Mum 2 · Post by **Bexley Mum 2** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:59 pm

Perplexed - I don't recall my son saying anything about the maths paper other than that it was OK. And, having practiced NFER papers and done the Bexley test (set by NFER) I think he would have told me if it wasn't what he was expecting. He did say there were some algebra questions which he just left. I don't know why, when LEAs discourage preparation for tests, they allow algebra questions which those who haven't been tutored won't be able to do as algebra isn't on the KS2 syllabus.

thehorder · Post by **thehorder** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:07 am

The word is that the maths paper was hard and caused the problems with kids passing.

Bexley Mum 2 · Post by **Bexley Mum 2** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:18 am

But surely it doesn't make any difference how hard or easy the paper was? My understanding is that children are being measured against their peers, not being asked to achieve a fixed number of correct answers. So if the paper was harder than usual (and it sounds as if it might have been) then a child would have had to get fewer questions right to score 115 or 120 etc, etc than in a year when the paper might have been easier. But then I only have a very tenous grasp on how standardisation works!

thehorder · Post by **thehorder** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:22 am

Quite right Bexley Mum 2, they find the average of each subject, and they are marked against their peers, so as you say it shouldn't matter..... but it does seem to have caught quite a few out.... Maths seems tobe the one that a lot of kids failed on... in our school especially... Luckily my dd subject she preferes and is best at is maths so I am sure it gave her the edge.

Bexley Mum 2 · Post by **Bexley Mum 2** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:39 am

Curious isn't it? I wonder if it's an indication of more children being coached with a focus on NVR and VR so that they do relatively better in those subjects? I know I've always tended to think - maths and english, they do those at school, we'll concentrate on the reasoning. But I'd love to know how it all works!

yoyo123 · Post by **yoyo123** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:25 am

The problem with the maths is that it is quite knowledge based in parts.

The children take the test right at he beginning of year 6 (even in Kent they have only done 3 months) so may not have come across teh work yet. It was true a while back that the test included work not done in KS2 at all. Certainly among my pupils the maths has been the lowest score

denis denis · Post by **denis denis** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:00 pm

My son's teacher said the maths paper was harder than usual this year. My son is on the G&T register for maths and he only scraped a pass, was expected to do much better.

perplexed · Post by **perplexed** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:34 pm

So how does all this fit together? The distribution of maths scores must still be a normal distribution with the top 25% passing. So logically it should not make any difference whether the maths paper is extra hard or not, or whether children have covered all the material at school or not.

Or are the parents of those children who were well tutored in maths to cover the 11+ syllabus, (and are also good at maths), and got high scores not taking part in this forum, and are not at the schools that people on this forum use?

Bexley Mum 2 · Post by **Bexley Mum 2** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:58 pm

Perplexed - my son got 128 for maths, 136 for VR and 124 for NVR. So he did reasonably well in the maths test (September birthday so won't have got any extra marks for age). I seem to remember he thought the NVR was the hardest and the maths and VR were OK.