Allegations of cheating

[Hopefuldad]

Its all about money, greedy tutors getting hold of papers charging high tution fees and garuanteeing success. Parents not wanting to pay high fees at indies for average kids succomb to this.

Result is:-

The kids that missed out suffer for this moment in time, they will move on and be succesful where they end up.

The genuine kids that got through suffer for 7 years as the intake is now watered down, and thus the school suffers.

Possible way to resolve this in the future is to make the school responsible for administering the test, and as they would want the best kids it would be in their interest to do it fairly.

Finally, only 14 parents complained prior the results and there are probably half a dozen results on this site. So everyone wants to whinge but nobody wants to do.

Arrgee1991, I agree with you time to move on.

HD

[arrgee1991]

The kids that missed out suffer for this moment in time, they will move on and be successful where they end up.

The genuine kids that got through suffer for 7 years as the intake is now watered down, and thus the school suffers.

... make the school responsible for administering the test, and as they would want the best kids it would be in their interest to do it fairly.

Arrgee1991, I agree with you time to move on.

Your point that kids will move on and be successful and it will be the school that suffers is a good one.

The school is suffering. There needs to be input from the primary school and there needs to be broader intake rather than just those capable of passing a coached multiple choice test. The true winners in the current environment (and not just in Redbridge) are the tutors.

AFAIK no one from my son's Redbridge primary will be going to ICHS, but a few of the boys are heading to independents, some with scholarships. ICHS have missed out on some clever boys with their parents happier to pay than go there.

It is very hard to move on for those whose child will be at a less highly performing school as a result of this, and they have my sympathy. But who knows, in a few years time, you may find that not going to ICHS was not half as bad as you thought it would be. There are some good schools in Redbridge, and some of those that were not so great a few years ago are improving rapidly.

[fusspot99]

I have been following this thread with some interest and I would like to say that it is very broad generalisation to tarnish all tutors with the same brush. There are some excellent tutors out there whose sole motive is not money.

Redbridge clearly are not prepared to (or can't) do anything about the one or two tutors who are driven by greed alone.

Mybe one option is to move this industry towards being regulated!!!!

[arrgee1991]

I have been following this thread with some interest and I would like to say that it is very broad generalisation to tarnish all tutors with the same brush. There are some excellent tutors out there whose sole motive is not money.

Good or bad is not the point. AFAIK no tutor does this for free, except parents, so money is a motive. The system is wrong in having VR/NVR tests as its sole selection criteria. The original point of these was they could not be "taught" and would identify the best pupils. However with a lot of coaching a moderate student can be improved to pass these tests. If that was not the case, everyone would be wasting their money.

[tomcat]

I think it would be brilliant if Redbridge did what Essex do. Test VERBAL, MATHS and ENGLISH.

This would seriously take the edge off focussed tutoring for NVR/VR . I think the local grammars would also be able to pick up the academic stars pupils once again if English and Maths were tested.

I know I promised I was going to move on from the cheating scandal - but the English paper would also sort out the cheating. If a bunch of kids were to see the paper in advance and memorised the "correct" answers, a well trained monkey could spot that anomaly - although not sure Redbridge would notice.

In Essex this year, the English paper was so hard, very few children scored "high" marks. Most children have been offered places with scores between 20-30 out of 40! The cheats would have been spotted a mile off asumming their tutors had identified the correct answers in the Essex system.

Just an idea given that this thread is now discussing a combination of cheating and intensive tutoring resulting in sub-standard selection of children.

[arrgee1991]

I think it would be brilliant if Redbridge did what Essex do. Test VERBAL, MATHS and ENGLISH.

... but the English paper would also sort out the cheating. If a bunch of kids were to see the paper in advance and memorised the "correct" answers, a well trained monkey could spot that anomaly - although not sure Redbridge would notice.

Just an idea given that this thread is now discussing a combination of cheating and intensive tutoring resulting in sub-standard selection of children.

Why not just test Maths and English and forget the IQ tests? After all that is what children are supposed to learn at school. At least then any additional tuition would have some value in that the children will advance their skills in subjects they will be studying to GCSE level.

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... &view=next" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Egan and Bunting’s study compared groups of children who were coached for at least a year, with those who had had no coaching. Pupils with higher ability benefited most from coaching, but that even when ability was accounted for, most children could double their scores as a result of coaching. The significant gains in scores attributed to coaching would have meant that, regardless of ability, none of the pupils who had not been coached, would have achieved a score in the top 70% required for selection into grammar school.

Egan and Bunting make the point therefore that, unless you can ensure equal effectiveness or access to coaching, then you cannot make assumptions about ability based on the verbal reasoning tests.

Also no test should be multiple choice.