Hi

We are still in shock at our results yesterday for Gloucestershire. Our very able DS has failed to qualify for all schools, no rankings given at all and something seems to have gone disastrously wrong for him on the day. He and we have no idea what, he seemed quietly confident on the day and got an answer down for everything. We are familiar with the process, he has an older DS who qualified comfortably 3 years ago and is definitely less able. They had the same tutor and sat exactly the same mock papers and my youngest achieved double the score of my eldest.

Clutching at straws to see what can have gone so wrong for him, is it possible the computer has not read his pencil markings? Does that happen if they don't press hard enough? We will ask for a remark but I know there is no guarantee they will do that. Both my sons are very upset and so I feel we have to try to see what went wrong here with the test at least.

Any advice gratefully received.

I am so sorry to hear about the unexpected result - big shock when has older sibling who is at GS. There is a bit about remarks here: https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/appea ... cation#b55

I think it is going to be a case of appealing after March and meantime collecting evidence of academic ability

Very sorry to hear your news.

I don't know your area exams, I think they might be CEM, bit I do know how devastating it is when a very able dc does not do as well as expected.

Did he do any external mocks using the multiple choice answer sheet?

Some students get one out of sync on the paper, others don't mark it properly but this tends to happens to students who have not used the sheet before.

Did you do preparation using the exact exam format?

Was there anyone else in his peer group who did not perform as expected?

DG

And further to HM's post, if you want to appeal, remember that you actually have to name at least one of the grammar schools on your CAF, above any school that your DS does have a chance of being offered. If you don't apply, you won't be turned down and there is no reason to appeal. If you name e.g. your local school which admits on distance and you live 100 metres away, you may have applied, but you won't have been refused a place - you will have been allocated a higher preference and the applications for your lowest-ranked schools will be disregarded.

_________________
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we are in the same boat. Its so frustrating. How does the appeals process work? and any success stories? would be good to hear these.

My Dd failed both her 11 and 12 plus despite being top of her class and very bright. She got 141 across the board in her CAT tests so It was bewildering at the time. We got her into GS on appeal. When she started GS we were expecting her to be at the lower end of ability but found she was top of her classes. She did very well in all school tests but did less well than expected in the longer timed end of year tests. In year 10 I went and spoke to the head of year and she was put forward for SDLp testing. We consequently found that my Dd has Dyslexia and slow processing speed. This was masked by me teaching her to read using a dyslexia reading scheme called Toe by Toe. Her reading is fine in fact in year 6 she had a reading age of 15plus. I had no idea that very bright Dyslexics can seemingly read very well. My Dd reads text and words out loud perfectly. The problem comes in processing text, especially large amounts of text and comprehending the text in the fast paced 11 plus was simply beyond her. Having the diagnosis has helped my Dd because she gets 25% extra time (still not enough for her to level the playing field). I tell you this story, just in case you might be missing something with your DS. This is a link to the 37 signs of Dyslexia. https://www.dyslexia.com/about-dyslexia ... -37-signs/

So sorry to hear your news, I can only imagine how shocking and heartbreaking it can be especially when you know how able your child really is.

My friend was in similar situation a few years ago and later found out the DC had marked the answers horizontally across the answer sheet rather than vertically (or vice versa) and subsequently ALL the answers would have been in the wrong boxes.
The mistake was only realised when DC finished the paper in good time (evidently an able child) and went back to check. This led to furious rubbing out and corrections, for which, understandably, there was no time. Hence, ended up with a really poor score which was completely non indicative of ability.

Could this have happened with your DC? Would this explain why DC felt they had done well/ were able to answer the questions yet the results were so off?

If so, it would be worth considering appeals if you have adequate academic data to prove ability and any extenuating circumstances that may explain why this could have occurred.

Hope this helps and all the best.

Thank you for all the replies. He had the same prep as his brother and was familiar with the answer booklet style so we really have no idea what went wrong. We will ask if a re-mark is possible and if we can have a breakdown of his scores and go from there. I have also asked for a view from his teachers.

Sorry to hear your news. My son did the 11+ in Glos last year. He had done a couple of external mocks and had had no issues with the answer grid. However, he did manage to fill in his maths answers vertically instead of horizontally in one of the maths sections in the real thing (as described above). Luckily he realised his mistake half way through, and rubbed it all out and redid answers. I was amazed he passed after he told us what happened. I just thought I'd mention it, as it appears a child can still make this error even with prior practice. Good luck for your appeal x

Hi, how does one formally request a re-mark and scores for each of the sections please? This is for Gloucestershire, CEM. I have emailed info@cem.org but no reply, not even an acknowledgement. Is there a process? No-one seems to know.

My thread below 'An unexpected result' refers - a massive flunking on behalf of my son so a manual re-mark or at least scores per section is important to us as I feel it may give us some answers at least.

Many thanks in advance for any insights.