Sutton Grammar admissions for 2012

[loopylou]

I have submitted my form online but am concerned I may have missed some information. All of the other schools ask for more details than the online form at Sutton Grammar seems to request (eg present school, present Head teacher, lots of parental details). Have I missed a page on the Sutton online application if I have only filled in my son’s name, address and DOB details?

[admissionslady]

The Admissions Code says that the only information sought on a Supplementary Form should be such information that allows schools to apply their admissions criteria. We only have a Supplementary Form so that we know in time who wishes to apply to the school (and therefore to take our exam) - so we can get information about the exam to parents well in advance.

So all we need is your name, address, telephone and email, and your son's details and photograph (for identification purposes).

You haven't missed anything.

[loopylou]

Thank you for your help - I am relieved I hadn't missed anything

[mynameisbond]

Hi admissions lady - thank you for all your very helpful comments on the forum. I am really hoping you will be able to answer my burning question ! I am well aware that the scores given to children in their entrance tests are standardised scores and these depend on the cohort of children taking the tests at that specific time.

My questions is this - is there any way you could indicate with a ballpark figure as to how well a child has to be scoring, ie their raw score, in order to "generally" be considered for a place at Sutton Grammar this year or indeed in previous years. This is the sort of information that I feel most parents are desperate to have access to, so that they can assess whether their children may be of selective ability. I know the raw score will change from year to year but maybe if we all knew our children had to aim for say over 95% or over 80% then we would be able to gauge whether we should be putting them through such testing.

I have asked this question of most girls and boys grammar schools I have visited and been met with a wall of silence, being told that the raw score changes from year to year - I know that !! Any such answer could always be couched in terms of an explanation of raw versus standardised scores and how a total mark is worked out. I really don't understand the secrecy surrounding this process.

Here's hoping !!

[loopylou]

mynameisbond - Sutton grammar do mock tests through June and July that are designed to give a rough guide as to how well your child performs on the tests and whether they might be of selective ability

I guess the reasons for not being to definite on this issue is that:
- it varies year to year. Some years I suspect it varies a lot and perhaps having false hope or falsely pessimistic expectations based on previous years won’t help.
- a child of selective ability won’t always get a place so, in a way, knowing that you child can definitely pass the test doesn't really help you to decide whether all the tests are worth taking or not. Every year there are children who pass the test but do not get a Grammar School place
- children don’t perform the same in real tests as they do at home. Some children lose as much as 10-15% of their marks due to the stresses of the exam room. Some children are motivated by the test conditions and do a bit better than they might do slumped over a desk at home.
- it depends not just on the numbers taking the test and their calibre that year but also how many children take up their places on offer day. In tough economic years less children might take up independent school offers and go to Grammar School whereas in better years their places would have gone to slightly lower scoring children and therefore children with slightly lower scores would stand more of a chance of getting a place.
-it depends on the birth rate and number of boys in a year. We have been told by various people that the 2012 entry is a boy-heavy year so therefore there might be more competition. Other people have said the complete opposite.


Saying all that - with an average of 95% I shouldn't think you would need to worry if that's the mark across all papers!

[mynameisbond]

Hi loopylou - I totally understand all the points you are making in your posting as we went through this miserable process with our daughter last year. Putting all that aside, I still think it would be useful to have a general ballpark figure - if schools year on year could say eg last year raw scores gaining places were 90%, year before 85% etc etc it would be helpful to know what to aim for in practice papers. I know many kids who did miserably in the Sutton Mock and gained GS places and the Sutton Mock is simply no more than its name suggests - it does not determine whether or not your child will ultimately be successful, it is simply a practice test under exam conditions.

I also think the population at large simply does not understand the process of standardisation therefore if we were being inclusive we would all be hearing more about actual raw scores which to the majority are more easily understood.

[loopylou]

You are right that very few people understand standardisation in relation to these tests and a rough figure would help some people. For us, and many others I suspect, it wouldn't really influence the decision about entering our child for the tests. We are going on the basis that our child is in the top sets at school, has the right attitude for Grammar School, is currently above level 4b in all SATS testing (end of Year 5) and is keen to take the tests so therefore even if the score at home was 50%, we'd still enter for the 11+. I am willing to admit however that we haven’t gone through this process before so may be horribly naive as to the realities of it.

When considering the Sutton Grammars, they all say that they set their own questions and the format seems more likely to shift -eg Nonsuch adding extra elements this year - so perhaps they would say that knowing the pass mark last year equated to 85% or above would only help if you had a copy of the test as well or if they told you that the test was comparable to Bond 4th level papers or the latest Letts 11+ books. I might be wrong though and maybe parents DO know for certain what sort of level these tests are pitched at and could therefore gauge useful insights from knowing raw score data.
We haven’t done this before so I might be blindly optimistic in thinking it doesn’t matter too much and that all fairly bright children should sit the tests and see how they get on? Is there an official reason that the information you want it is so hard to find it out?

[mitasol]

There are too many variables to give a percentage on practice papers but I do sympathise with the uncertainty.

I'm afraid it is the nature of the tests that % are irrelevant. The passmark % for an easy test will be high but the % on a very hard test will be lower. Similarly there is no way of knowing how a practice paper will compare with the actual test. Other unknowns are how many and how clever the children sitting the test will be.

Therefore standardised figures are given because they provide information on how the child performed relative to the other children sitting the test.

If you are looking for a rough estimate to decide whether to go through with testing, then I would use last years Sutton mock figures as a cautious and very rough estimate - 70% on VR was the average score. 89% put you in the top 6%. So, if it was my decision, then I would take practice paper scores over 70 as worth a punt and scores over 89 as promising. Obviously, the higher the better, and different schools, will have different pass marks.


http://www.suttongrammar.sutton.sch.uk/ ... ults.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... utton+mock" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
2010 Sutton Mock discussions

[mynameisbond]

Mitasol - I think it would be dangerous to assume anything concrete from the Sutton Mock as this is simply a mock test and no indication of definite selective ability. Loopylou - there is no official reason for me wanting this information other than the fact I feel there is a lack of transparency in the whole process given the fact we all know % scores will change year on year and we feel we have a handle on which practice tests are harder than others etc. I have heard that if you were to appeal if not offered a grammar school place then you would then receive details of your child's raw scores. GS entry is simply dictated by rank order (apart from some schools with distance criteria), whereas private schools also refuse to give our % scores as they have flexibility re who they offer places to as they can look at interview/ school reports etc. I would just like to understand why the secrecy ?

[mitasol]

I think it would be dangerous to assume anything concrete from the Sutton Mock as this is simply a mock test and no indication of definite selective ability

I agree and think I gave all necessary cautions. The Sutton mock information is interesting because it links the percentage score to the standardised score, covering a full cohort of 2285. That type of information is in very short supply. It can only give you an idea - it is certainly not definitive for all the reasons I gave above.

I do think that even if you obtain a percentage passmark you still won't have anything concrete or proving definite selective ability.

There is a freedom of information request for Lincs scores but this covers age standardisation and only gives standardised scores and age. http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/r ... xamination" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; You could try requesting something similar.