Age Standardization in Independent school

[veryhopeful]

All,

I am wondering if someone can help me find answer to this question.

Does Independent school do Age Standardization as Grammer schools?

I am particularly looking for KES/KEHS school.

Thanks in Advance

[mike1880]

I don't believe they're standardised - few if any independent school entrance tests will be standardised. In most cases the schools set their own papers, they simply don't have the resources (or probably the knowledge) to standardise them.

Mike

[pist]

I would phone and ask. I'm not in your area, but the knowledge I have of some very selective indies around our area, is that they most certainly take age into consideration - although i don't know If they have a particular mathematical formula for doing so.

[reeyah]

I don't believe they're standardised - few if any independent school entrance tests will be standardised. In most cases the schools set their own papers, they simply don't have the resources (or probably the knowledge) to standardise them.

Mike

Had a chuckle at your post Mike . 'no knowledge'

[mike1880]

No slight intended - standardising test scores is a complex and expensive operation, it requires (a) very sound statistical knowledge, (b) a large reference group to standardise against and (c) a large enough test cohort to make it worthwhile. Given that only about 1000 take the two tests (~600 KES/~400 KEHS), a standardisation exercise would actually be a bigger operation than running the test itself.

If any allowance is being made for age it would therefore likely be somewhat subjective and approximate, as I suspect happens in the indies pist refers to. (For example, you could probably graph scores against age in Excel and plot a trendline. That's "taking age into account" but it isn't "standardisation".)

Mike

[pist]

Yep, I reckon Mike's right - and as much is asessed in interviews at most indies, the admissions process is usually rather more subjective than at grammars anyway.

But if you have a summer-born child, it's nice to know if age is taken into consideration in some way (at my dcs' v selective school, the age-spread seems pretty even and teachers are well aware of the difference between the older and younger pupils in the age group).