11+ outcome 2018

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anotherdad
Posts: 1763
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:33 pm

Re: 11+ outcome 2018

Post by anotherdad »

Spot on, kenyancowgirl. "Meaningless drivel" in this instance means "I've only just come to understand how the system works and I don't like being told."

blaised, by all means attack the messenger, I have a thick skin, but the message is perfectly clear and will have been given to you when you registered for the Bucks test. Feigning ignorance now is a little odd. I notice that you haven't actually answered Sally-Anne's question.
Tinkers
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Location: Reading

Re: 11+ outcome 2018

Post by Tinkers »

Can all posters refrain from being rude please.
DSDSDD
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Re: 11+ outcome 2018

Post by DSDSDD »

anotherdad wrote:There are at least two this year with scores of 120.75, one of whom would almost certainly have qualified automatically if you hadn't entered the process as a mock/back-up.
Even though I completely disagree with this concept of 'exam tourism', i.e. sitting exams just as a means of preparation/practice(sp?) even though there is no intention to apply for the school concerned, I'm not convinced by the above statement. Surely the 2 children mentioned would have still received a [standardised?] score of 120.75 irrespective......???
anotherdad
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Re: 11+ outcome 2018

Post by anotherdad »

DSDSDD wrote:
anotherdad wrote:There are at least two this year with scores of 120.75, one of whom would almost certainly have qualified automatically if you hadn't entered the process as a mock/back-up.
Even though I completely disagree with this concept of 'exam tourism', i.e. sitting exams just as a means of preparation/practice(sp?) even though there is no intention to apply for the school concerned, I'm not convinced by the above statement. Surely the 2 children mentioned would have still received a [standardised?] score of 120.75 irrespective......???
No, because the standardisation selects the top-scoring portion and deems them as qualified by giving them a score of 121 or more. I think this year the percentage of qualifiers in the Bucks test was 34%. A tourist applicant who qualifies has taken one of the finite qualifying places that another applicant close to 121 would have taken had the tourist not sat the test.

To give a simplified example, suppose 90 people enter a test in which the highest-scoring 30 will be deemed qualified for the one very small grammar school (the other school being a small upper that will take in up to 60 other children). If one of those 30 is a tourist and someone who cannot or would not take a place anyway, the top 30 scores only contain 29 eligible children and 31st-90th highest scoring applicants are deemed unqualified. Now, when no.31 gets their result (say they're on 120.75), they probably go for a review. If successful, they go back into the qualified pot and they'll get a grammar place because they live near enough and the tourist won't. If however, their review is unsuccessful, the single grammar school in my simplified example will either take 29 children, or another unqualified child will have a successful review and take the spare place. That child might be the 50th highest scoring applicant or the 32nd, or even the 90th! Had the tourist not applied in the first place, no.31 would have been no.30, i.e. an automatic qualifier, with a score of 121 or more. The tourist has put at least one child through the cost and hassle of a review that would be unnecessary if the tourist hadn't sat the test, and exposed those children with reviewable scores to a relative lottery of reviews, with the stress and administrative costs associated.

Out of county applicants to the Bucks test (not including the partner schools on the borders) are all told all of this before they can register, so those that feign ignorance or innocence are fibbing.
ToadMum
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Re: 11+ outcome 2018

Post by ToadMum »

blaised wrote:Sigh.
It is sad to see people being rude without any background information.
I haven't moved house in 20 years.
Anyways, I don't have to read this meaningless drivel.
If you have lived where you have for so long, you have had plenty of time to inform yourself of the options available locally at secondary transfer and to investigate the requirements of alternative schools, wherever they may be, if your local offer is not to your liking. Without wishing to be rude, I seriously can't imagine - for myself - having found out so much about any school, that I know that I would like my DC to go there, without also having found out along the way whether there is actually a chance of them being able to do so.

How did you know, for instance, that QE has no catchment area, but not know that all Buckinghamshire grammar schools do? Or did you just assume that no secondary schools do and just got lucky with QE's admissions policy actually coinciding with that belief?
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx
DSDSDD
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Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2018 10:36 pm

Re: 11+ outcome 2018

Post by DSDSDD »

anotherdad wrote: No, because the standardisation selects the top-scoring portion and deems them as qualified by giving them a score of 121 or more. I think this year the percentage of qualifiers in the Bucks test was 34%. A tourist applicant who qualifies has taken one of the finite qualifying places that another applicant close to 121 would have taken had the tourist not sat the test.

To give a simplified example, suppose 90 people enter a test in which the highest-scoring 30 will be deemed qualified for the one very small grammar school (the other school being a small upper that will take in up to 60 other children). If one of those 30 is a tourist and someone who cannot or would not take a place anyway, the top 30 scores only contain 29 eligible children and 31st-90th highest scoring applicants are deemed unqualified. Now, when no.31 gets their result (say they're on 120.75), they probably go for a review. If successful, they go back into the qualified pot and they'll get a grammar place because they live near enough and the tourist won't. If however, their review is unsuccessful, the single grammar school in my simplified example will either take 29 children, or another unqualified child will have a successful review and take the spare place. That child might be the 50th highest scoring applicant or the 32nd, or even the 90th! Had the tourist not applied in the first place, no.31 would have been no.30, i.e. an automatic qualifier, with a score of 121 or more. The tourist has put at least one child through the cost and hassle of a review that would be unnecessary if the tourist hadn't sat the test, and exposed those children with reviewable scores to a relative lottery of reviews, with the stress and administrative costs associated.

Out of county applicants to the Bucks test (not including the partner schools on the borders) are all told all of this before they can register, so those that feign ignorance or innocence are fibbing.

Thanks for the explanation and apologies for my ignorance as I'm not au-fait with the admissions process round your neck of the woods, nor am I a statistician. However, I would have assumed that

a) standardisation does not take into account sample size;
b) the grammar school would have set the 'qualifying' level of 121.00 to maintain a minimum calibre expected of potential students; and
c) knowing that many more applicants than the PAN will meet this threshold of 121;
d) this then allows the school to build a buffer/waiting list, should any of the first 30 offerees (determined either by highest-scoring or distance) decline their place.

Or am I missing summat?
Amber
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Re: 11+ outcome 2018

Post by Amber »

DSDSDD wrote:a) standardisation does not take into account sample size;
b) the grammar school would have set the 'qualifying' level of 121.00 to maintain a minimum calibre expected of potential students; and
c) knowing that many more applicants than the PAN will meet this threshold of 121;
Standardisation absolutely takes account of sample size. Think about an 'average'. If say 30 people have scores ranging from 10-65 on a test, the mean would be obtained by adding them all up and dividing by 30. If you suddenly add in another 20 people who have scored nearer 65 than 10 (which mimics what happens when you add in a self selecting group of highly tutored individuals to another group of 'opt out' candidates of mixed ability), you raise the average.

What you are apparently missing is that the 11+ is not a criterion referenced test. The qualifying standard of 121 is not an actual score - if you did it like that then theoretically you could have everyone passing or, conversely, no one passing. The schools cannot set an absolute standard they want their children to attain because they could misjudge it and end up with no one or way more than they needed. What they want is the top however many children, not all those who can get 10 questions right or whatever, as you can't predict that. It is a norm referenced score - as in, it is determined by the cohort and the range of scores they attain. The pass mark is decided after the test, after scores are in, and that can only be done when you look at the whole cohort. In fact they don't qualify 'many more candidates' than they need because they can tailor it exactly to the right numbers for the schools. If they need 50 children they can actually pass 50 if that is what they want to do - that is how norm referencing works and it is how Bucks is able to guarantee a gs place for all successful children in its catchment areas. It has nothing to do with the calibre of children they want, and everything to do with the calibre of children who sit the test.

Hence, adding in extra children, who are likely to be highly coached and score highly, raises the pass mark ('121') for everyone. This means exactly what anotherdad says it does - children from the group who take the test on an opt-out basis will be disadvantaged by the addition to the cohort of those who have opted in. As this group can not then take places at the schools, they force the borderline opt-out candidates into appeals, which they almost certainly would not have to enter into if the pass standard '121' had not been falsely inflated by exam tourists. The more exam tourists who take the test, the more the pass mark is inflated, assuming that the tourists score more highly than the 'average' opt-in candidate.

This is why people who are in catchment for Bucks grammar schools get so cross with people taking the test from other areas when they have zero chance of gaining a place at one of the Bucks schools. I think you can see their point really!
Justinterested
Posts: 65
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:16 am

Re: 11+ outcome 2018

Post by Justinterested »

All Another Dads explanation makes perfect sense. What I cant understand however is Guest 55 s repeated claim that 2 Bucks pupils miss out for each tourist qualifier. Please could someone explain this to me ? I understand that 30% qualify so 1 does and 2 dont but in case of a tourist qualifier I cant see how that displaces more than one Bucks child !
DSDSDD
Posts: 104
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2018 10:36 pm

Re: 11+ outcome 2018

Post by DSDSDD »

Thank you for the response.
Amber wrote:In fact they don't qualify 'many more candidates' than they need because they can tailor it exactly to the right numbers for the schools. If they need 50 children they can actually pass 50 if that is what they want to do - that is how norm referencing works and it is how Bucks is able to guarantee a gs place for all successful children in its catchment areas. It has nothing to do with the calibre of children they want, and everything to do with the calibre of children who sit the test.
Without condoning 'exam tourism', how is this different, e.g. to the qualifying score being determined to capture the 'top 50' candidates who by sheer coincidence all happen to be within cathcment, the 50 offers then being made only to these local/opt-out candidates for the 50 places, but then 10 of these being declined?

Surely it's the school's fault for allowing 'out of catchment' candidates to take the exams in the first instance and as I suggested in my earlier post, wouldn't the more pragmatic approach be to 'qualify' more candidates than the PAN, subject to the caveat that a qualifying score doesn't guarantee a place, and then allocating the places on score/distance. Redbridge is an example of this.
anotherdad
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Re: 11+ outcome 2018

Post by anotherdad »

DSDSDD wrote:Surely it's the school's fault for allowing 'out of catchment' candidates to take the exams in the first instance and as I suggested in my earlier post, wouldn't the more pragmatic approach be to 'qualify' more candidates than the PAN, subject to the caveat that a qualifying score doesn't guarantee a place, and then allocating the places on score/distance. Redbridge is an example of this.
It would be illegal to disallow OOC applicants. because among them are people genuinely moving into the area. As to your pragmatic suggestion, that is exactly the approach some of us have been advocating for some time, but the schools don't seem to be interested in implementing it.
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