Another "tutor-proof" test..

[tiffinboys]

Sunshine? Well, yes few days in a year.. would save vitamin D costs as well. Yes, why not? It's a win win situation

I am just not sure there would be enough children travelling two hours from every direction to merit a direct bus.

Don't worry. Once Kent distance policy is done with, there would be coaches from Slough or Harrow or Kingston to Judds and Tonbridge.

[MedievalBabe]

Children don't just travel huge distances for GS but also specific faith schools and also Independent schools. I know of children who leave home before 7am to travel to school 6 days a week, don't leave school until 6pm and then travel for 1-1 1/2 to get home again because their parents can afford for them to attend a prestigious independent rather than an independent closer to home.

[tiffinboys]

I know of children who leave home before 7am to travel to school 6 days a week, don't leave school until 6pm and then travel for 1-1 1/2 to get home again because their parents can afford for them to attend a prestigious independent

Sounds more like a punishment to me. Perhaps matter for NSPCC?

[pippi]

On this theme we now have the "rise of the 'tutor-proof' exam":
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -home.html
Towards the end there is more enlightenment from CEM:

The kind of child who’s likely to get into a grammar school probably knows 20,000 words already. How many extra words can you teach them? It’s not something you can really teach to.

So testing vocabulary is going to improve access? There's a few words for that type of logic..

[tiffinboys]

There should also be a way of checking if the tests are at appropriate level. It seems some vocab and some schools' maths tests are way beyond KS2, making coaching a necessary evil.

[southbucks3]

Believe it or not, the cem test that led to hundreds of successful reviews in Bucks last year was tested on a large local cohort of year six children prior to fully developing and releasing the exam.....They apparently ignored the results.

[Lillie]

Watching the video clip I'm still not convinced a test can capture the "potential" of late developers who don't develop until their teens. This test is taken by some at barely 10 years of age. The interviewee seems to imply an 11 plus test can test the potential of children, even those late developers who may not have performed well at so far at primary. Attainment at primary school must be important. You are not going to fare well in this test if you haven't performed extremely well in primary school and grammar schools don't want children who have not performed well by then either. Moving to CEM seems to have made the need even worse, as before some children with borderline abilities were creeping through with the old GL tests (I'm referring to my local area, Bucks).

I just wonder what is the magic formula that can make a school or so-called expert claim there is a test taken by children aged 10 which unlocks their potential?

[mystery]

The magic formula is a pair of blinkers and never doing a careful study of the successful people who failed the next wonderful test that never errs in its potential spotting.

[Tolstoy]

The magic formula is a pair of blinkers and never doing a careful study of the successful people who failed the next wonderful test that never errs in its potential spotting.

The magic formula is a pair of blinkers and never doing a careful study of the successful people who failed the next wonderful test that never errs in its potential spotting.

As this test has actually now been around for some time in Birmingham why are they not ramming the stats down our noses to prove that this test does cut down on the success of tutoring and opens up access to these schools for all. Been following the Gloucestershire thread on this one and guess what looks like most of those DC who have got places with this 'new ' style test were tutored. Obviously this is a specialist site but that's why I would like the facts not myths and legends.

[mystery]

Agree. But the people who purchase the tests do not want the facts. And if they commissioned a study of the facts from cem or gl it would cost more money. So the only way one can see if one test is better than any other is by interrogating "free to air" data - but it's not good enough for that purpose. So, it remains the case that nobody really knows.