11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi Can anyone advise me whether it is worth appealing in relation to teh Readign exam. The school takes the first 100 (standardised mark above 335.2 - this equates to about 83%) my son achieved 326.90. I was surprised at the result and contacted the school who were very helpful and said my sons scores were maths 90%, English 88%, essay 86% but VR only 67% and this is what let him down. We only decided to go for the test at the last minute and did not know what to practise (we only found this website later). I see form your Q and A that not havign prepartaion for VR is nto a strong ground for appeal but, given his other marks which would have put him high up the list, could we aregue that the final score does not reflect his true ability ? any advice welcome
Many thanks

Wilf,

At the weekend I was discussing Reading entry and was told of a child who ranked at about 140 and appealed on the grounds of having had a poor year four due to disruption. The primary supported the appeal and it was successful. Hope this helps.

Thanks for sharing the scores it helps us to try and understand the system. I have tried to work backwards from my son's pass and conclude that he must have gone Maths 95% VR 90% English 75% Essay 75% or thereabouts.

Best wishes, you might want to read appeals section and FAQ and then post under appeals



stevew61

ooops,

sorry

you have posted under appeals, I must read rwice post once.

stevew61

Thanks Stevew61. That is useful. Unfortunately we had no disruption etc just ignorance ! No child form the school has ever got into Reading and I did not know any parents to find out information from. He did well in the subjects that he did at school but only looked at 1 VR paper that I downloaded from a website and I do not know if this would have been the same as the test. He obviously did not need any extra tuition in English or maths as I think these were like the SATs papers. He got 5a in all subjects in SATs year 5. I dont suppose that our ignorance is ground for appeal. Just seems a bit unfair.

Dear Wilf

My feeling is that you should put forward a case based on academic evidence. 5a's in year 5 mock SATs sounds good to me.

Best to play down the extenuating circumstances if they're not too strong. The technique is not to mention them in a written submission. If you're asked at the hearing (as is likely), then talk about the VR, but keep it low key and don't over-emphasise.

If you don't appeal, you'll never know ......