Bexley 2016 test format. CEM or GL?

[salsa]

At our primary 17 went to C&S. DD also has friends from her riding stables that are going there so for us that is a good thing.

DD did the Kent test at Wilmington girls last year. Total chaos. Reception of the children was not very friendly in addition to the long queues. DD was told to go to her letter and sit. Had it not been that we were there with children who were very nervous I think I would have had a quiet word with the man in question.
Timings were completely out. When we arrived to pick up our DC someone from the school came outside and told us to come back later ( can't remember how much later but worth to leave and come back) because they still had to do the last paper. Needless to say that when the DC came out they were very hungry. All they had taken in was a mid morning snack and a drink. Not ideal to do a test at lunchtime when they are hungry imo. The lady from the school told us that it was the fault if the examboard that the timings were out. I never really understood what she was on about. Kent DC had already done the same test so any problems with timing should have come to light then I would think. It would have been easy for KCC to send a blanket email advising the test would overrun and bring something for lunch.

My friend's DC was in a group where someone was using a calculator during the maths test which was only taken away by the invigilator after someone has said that they thought it was not fair. Never found out what happened with that particular paper.

In terms of the Bexley test I remember that when DD came out of the exam she said she just managed to finish on time and that she only guessed two questions in the whole test. I don't know where the claim that some DC would have had to guess 2/3 per section comes from but I don't think that most who passed CEM did so because they were lucky with their guess work.

Definitely a bad experience for those children. However, it may have been that school being poor at administering the test? Was this everybody's experience of the test as an out of area child?

[Muggle]

My son had a really good experience when he sat the test at WGSB last year. It was well organised and friendly, the boys were split into small groups that each went off with a teacher to a classroom. No problems with tests overrunning.