Non Grammar selection tests

[Shropshire Lass]

Something I don't quite get. Two of our local comps are proposing to introduce selection tests; one of these will be the NVR test from NFER. The idea is to "ensure that the Academy admits the full range of ability of applicants". The results be sorted into 5 ability bands and 20% of the available places will be taken from each band - across the range. I'm not a statistician but I thought a normal distribution has a peaky bit in the middle and little tails at each end. . . Did I miss something?

[Guest55]

Does it say the bands are of equal width?

[loobylou]

St Marylebone does this. I don't think the bands are of equal width in terms of spread of results but they are in terms of number of students. So they take the same proportion of intake (ie 20%) from the students coming in the top 20% of results, next 20% etc... So presumably approximately the middle 60% would be from the central (peaky) bit of the normal curve and the top/bottom 20% would be from each end.

[Shropshire Lass]

Thank you - I get it now. That makes sense

[Amber]

I worked in a school which did this. It is known as fair banding and is usually only applied if the school is oversubscribed. It is to ensure that it gets a fair or 'comprehensive' intake. The tests are NVR on the whole and there is absolutely no point whatsoever in preparing for them as doing 'well' won't confer any advantage.

[ToadMum]

They aren't really selection tests, they just divide the applicants up into subgroups, within each of which the oversubscription criteria are applied (if necessary). A lot of the schools in places like the London Borough of Lewisham use banding as part of the allocation process, as does Thomas Telford.

[PettswoodFiona]

Coopers School in Chislehurst, London Borough of Bromley do this. As Amber says it is called 'fair banding'. There is an assessment in the November for all who have selected the school on their CAF. It isn't designed to be something children have to strive to do best in, just be themselves. Each band of ability will then have different offer differences. As this particular school is close to a grammar area the top band is often all offered and then distances vary depending on which band you are allocated. It can make it hard for appeals or even understanding why you do / do not get a place. Whilst the idea is to ensure they get a mix of all abilities some people say that the very idea of having to turn up for an assessment means some of the lowest privileged children will miss out on the school as it will put off parents, children or both.

[um]

Ninestiles in Birmingham has a version of this.

My older boys took the test year ago and it was an NVR style test. They said it wasn't quite as difficult as Bond 9-10.
They band children and offer places to the top 10% regardless of where they live.
The other 90% of the intake are admitted on distance.

[um]

Coopers School in Chislehurst, London Borough of Bromley do this. As Amber says it is called 'fair banding'. There is an assessment in the November for all who have selected the school on their CAF. It isn't designed to be something children have to strive to do best in, just be themselves. Each band of ability will then have different offer differences. As this particular school is close to a grammar area the top band is often all offered and then distances vary depending on which band you are allocated. It can make it hard for appeals or even understanding why you do / do not get a place. Whilst the idea is to ensure they get a mix of all abilities some people say that the very idea of having to turn up for an assessment means some of the lowest privileged children will miss out on the school as it will put off parents, children or both.

I completely agree that in some sense it is 'selection by parental organisation'.

The deadline for the Ninestiles exam registration is very early and is not as well publicised as the local GS exam registration deadline.
I am aware of a number of families relatively local to the school who missed this in the past and therefore had no means of entry to the school at all.

[salsa]

Both Lewisham and Greenwich used to have banding, separating children into 5 bands. So, your child may get a school and your neighbour wouldn't. Lewisham abolished banding last year and Greenwich are phasing it out. They've gone from 5 to 3 bands. I was talking to the head of a Lewisham school and he said that the government didn't want banding anymore. Mind you, that was back in October last year, so things seem to be going in the opposite direction now.

The idea was that a truly comprehensive intake would have 20% of each band. In reality, children had to take an externally marked exam in year 5 which would only indicate how they performed on that day for English and Maths. Anyway, I don't know how the schools in Lewisham will be comprehensive if they will now go by distance. Greenwich left it up to the schools to come up with their own test! So, how could you really band a child if you haven't compared them to the whole cohort? The other issue, of course was that you could say your child was on a top band if they went to a private school, as they didn't take part in the test. Now, this would be an advantage as all schools had less applicants applying from the top and bottom bands as they were on both extremes of the attainment curve.
Parents also used this information to see how many applicants from the top band applied to a school and whether they had fulfilled that band. This because, if there were not enough children in a particular band, the school had to give the places to children in other bands. So, a comprehensive school does not necessarily have a comprehensive intake.
Salsa