Latymer Part 2 Test letters

[ToadMum]

It is nothing to do with ability. It is to do with the fact that it is harder to make English papers the same level. It is much easier to make Maths papers the same level.

As has been explained this impacts standardisation so it is fairer to have the same paper.

However if Latymer has confirmed in an email that it is a different paper then in the few days that are remaining there is really not a lot that can be done.

Hopefully it will be around the same level. DG

I am struggling to understand your logic. It can't be that difficult to set a compatible paper. You love the hype. I am sure if there is a different paper it will be compatible to the one sat this weekend. Stop putting doubt in people's minds where there is no need.

The CSSE has been managing it for years.

It is perfectly possible that the Latymer English department has a better grasp of how to assess skill in their subject area than the HT has of the law as it relates to school admissions .

[lastminmum]

Of course it's possible to make English papers that are similar in difficulty.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to set English GCSE and A Level exams year on year that are of the same level. It would also mean that the DAO English paper is easier for some dc depending on the year it was sat.

[nyr]

People should have doubts. This whole situation is fishy.

Very fishy indeed, as demonstrated by the school's very deliberate obfuscation of the data released and not released for recent FOI requests relating to the round 1 tests.

[streathammum]

Of course it's possible to make English papers that are similar in difficulty.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to set English GCSE and A Level exams year on year that are of the same level. It would also mean that the DAO English paper is easier for some dc depending on the year it was sat.

Of course some exams may be easier some years than others. That's why scores are standardised - so that results from different years can be compared, and so that the same number of children pass each year.

There has been a lot of debate about whether GCSEs have got easier over the years. This year, there was an explicit recognition that the percentages of children getting each grade would be consistent with previous years - this means that even if the exams this year were harder than previous years, there would still be a significant proportion getting top grades.

I suppose I think that this whole thing is just not quite as straightforward as the school wants it to be.

[piggys]

Of course it's possible to make English papers that are similar in difficulty.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to set English GCSE and A Level exams year on year that are of the same level. It would also mean that the DAO English paper is easier for some dc depending on the year it was sat.

Exactly. There is a lot of hyperbole and hysteria on this board and an assumption that schools don't know how to set exams and don't know how to mark them. They do. It is pretty easy to set different English exams of the same level of difficulty - you just need to know what you are doing. Whilst it seems clear that the school's admissions process has been majorly messed up, please do not conflate their incompetence with that of the English Department.

[streathammum]

I'm sorry if I'm sounding hysterical, I don't mean to. I don't feel particularly hysterical

I do, though, wonder what the school is planning to do - how it's going to create the final rankings. I've been raising my concerns because I think parents should have access to this information.

It is possible that this is all in hand and there won't be any problems. Equally, it's possible that this will be an extension of the pig's ear that this process has been to date. The school's comms has been poor which means that questions and concerns remain unanswered.

[whatsupnow]

Now that the school has segregated the OOC Candidates by asking them to take the Part 2 test on a different day, could we trust the integrity of the school management to mark the answers just as fairly or is it basically a waste of time sitting this one as their minds are already made up ...Might be worth raising a FOI later to compare the scoring on the OOC papers with the IC ones and also the weightage taken into account for arriving at the final score !

[Italian]

I'm now wondering if all the parents here are aware of all the financial issues that the school is facing at the moment. My daughter is at the school and we are reminded every week. They have now cut lots of A level subjects due to this. Are all the OOC children taking the test going to move in the catchment area? I really doubt it.This mess was caused by the parents who used the first test as a mock exam, looking at the numbers of children who took the first test it's the majority of OOC. If now your children are allowed to take test, it will be fair knowing the school principles. Do you really think that they will give same test as first one after two weeks? This would be definitely a unfair advantage for OOC as it's a composition and children could easily memorise what to write.

[CestMoi]

Well said, Italian.

I don't have a child at Latymer as it's an awkward commute from here but I do think the school is taking a kicking here reputationally that it doesn't really deserve. The heads at Latymer and St Michael's have been clear about the financial issues their schools face and are looking to avoid unnecessary expenses. Other schools have some independent funding which helps.

That's not to say that the school has done a great job here but it was motivated by a push to protect funding for kids at the school, rather than spending on pupils whose parents have no intention of moving into catchment and never will be pupils. I exclude the handful here who are adamant they're moving of course.

[Stroller]

This mess was caused by the parents who used the first test as a mock exam, looking at the numbers of children who took the first test it's the majority of OOC.

Let me fix that for you.

This mess was caused by the school (1) having poorly drafted admission criteria, (2) scheduling their stage 1 test to be one of the earliest in the country, (3) taking it upon themselves to ignore and deviate from THEIR published determined admissions process, (4) inviting hundreds of local children, whose original rank wouldn’t have made the grade, to have another bite at the cherry, (5) not rescinding the flawed decision to invite hundreds of local children who wouldn’t have qualified had the published process been followed correctly when it became clear that they couldn’t get away with their devious plot, (6) causing needless additional complexity and angst by refusing to accommodate ‘local’ and OOC children on the same day for the stage two exam.