How will we know if it's been a high pass rate this year

Eleven Plus (11+) in Lincolnshire (Lincs)

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roll17
Posts: 37
Joined: Sat Mar 27, 2010 8:17 am
Location: Lincs

How will we know if it's been a high pass rate this year

Post by roll17 »

My daughter has passed but like alot of others we live out of area.

How can we find out if this year seems to be a high pass rate or not????

The majority came out of the exam saying it had been easy particulary the NVR paper?

If thats the case then surely an easy paper does not reflect on the top 25% of children?

Would the LEA ask for an easy paper to try and stop paprents from diffenent counties/areas getting their child a place?
Thank you

ROLL17
r o l l 1 7
Alex
Posts: 1097
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:10 pm
Location: Lincolnshire

Re: How will we know if it's been a high pass rate this year

Post by Alex »

The tests are designed to select the top 25% of Lincolnshire children in the selective areas of Lincolnshire. The standardisation process only includes these children, not children from the non-selective areas or from out of county. The pass rate within the county differs quite a lot from area to area with nearer 30%+ qualifying in some areas and well below 25% in others. However, the 25% across the county remains and there are sufficient places across all the Grammar schools to accommodate all the children who pass - just not always in the areas where they are wanted. The difficulty of the paper cannot affect the number of out of county children who get in; the size of the cohort will do, but has remained fairly stable in recent years.

Papers are set by NfER and they do do some testing year to year of the relative difficulty of tests so they should be fairly much the same. In any case the children are being compared to each other to select the top 25% so the difficulty of the paper would not be an issue unless you had large numbers of children getting all the questions right which could skew the distribution curve. Incidentally there always seem to be lots of people who say the papers were easy!

Across the county roughly 14% of Grammar School places are taken by out of county children but obviously this varies considerably from area to area.

Does this help to explain things? Do ask again if it is not clear.
roll17
Posts: 37
Joined: Sat Mar 27, 2010 8:17 am
Location: Lincs

Re: How will we know if it's been a high pass rate this year

Post by roll17 »

Thank you Alex, although I am still a little confused.

If they are being compared to each other where does the 220 pass mark come from then?

I am interested in KGGS in Grantham and had been led to believe that 220 was the pass mark therefore there could be lots of girls in the Grantham area that have qualified to that mark and therefore the places would go to them. Therefore us out of county don't stand a chance.

I am relieved to hear that alot come out saying that it was an easy paper. I think I get thrown because my daughter is exceptionally bright already doing yr 8 work and therefore the test wasn't a challenge for her.

That is why I am anxious to get her a place as I feel that any other school would let her down.

Regards

Roll17
r o l l 1 7
Alex
Posts: 1097
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:10 pm
Location: Lincolnshire

Re: How will we know if it's been a high pass rate this year

Post by Alex »

Scores for 11+ tests are standardised scores which allow comparisons across tests of different lengths and also contain an age adjustment element which is related to the actual scores obtained by the cohort in any particular test. It is a bit complex to explain so here is a link to NfER's explanation which is a lot clearer than mine would be!

http://www.nfer.ac.uk/nfer/research/ass ... sation.cfm

The important thing to realise is that the children are being compared with each other rather than against a predetermined pass mark, so the standardised score which equals a pass will be set at so many standard deviations away from the average on a normal bell distribution curve.

As KGGS allocates on siblings then distance, what will matter is how far away you live from the school whether in Lincolnshire or Notts or Leics. The year before last the school was not oversubscribed so all qualifiers got a place. This last year it was oversubscribed. There are usually a few successful appeals. There are always cross border children at the school as Grantham is pretty close to to the county border but the distance may not always go as far as, say, Newark.
Alex
Posts: 1097
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:10 pm
Location: Lincolnshire

Re: How will we know if it's been a high pass rate this year

Post by Alex »

If you are in Notts there is an interesting document here which talks about the "Lincolnshire Drift" from Notts into Lincolnshire schools and gives some figures.

http://itsacr02a.nottscc.gov.uk/apps/ce ... esApp2.pdf
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