Pass rate this year - probably nothing in this, but ...?

[Sally-Anne]

I am certainly not one to start rumours, given that I spend half my time on here dispelling them, but I am beginning to ask the same question as this member has done on her appeal thread:

Not much more to add at the moment. HT would not give figures of how many in the school passed but did say that this year there were quite a few near misses, as I said before 6 x 120 and at least 3 x 119 that we know of apart from dd. However, apart from a couple, we do not know the other scores. The HT did say that speaking to other primary head's that this seemed a common theme for this year. Not sure what that tells us!

I wonder how many in the County passed overall?

In my experience, expressions such as "talking to other primary heads" usually means one other head rather than a representative sample of at least half a dozen.

However, the local information I have is suggesting a similar pattern, so I thought that we could try for a representative sample on here. If you happen to know whether the number of qualifiers was up or down at your DC's school this year, let us know and we will possibly get a wider picture.

It does seem unlikely that the number was down substantially overall, and the numbers have been pretty consistent over the years, but who knows?

[3rdtime]

First post on the forum but this is my third time and I have relied on the useful advice on here so thank you.

DC 1 and 2 qualified comfortably and now very happy in grammar. DC3 got 119 and 112. Some extenuating circumstances for second score and we are meeting head later this week.

This year the school's pass rate is down significantly. Not sure if there is any truth in it but rumours suggest there were a high number of OOC applicants this year (60%??) which have in effect meant it was harder to meet the qualifying scores.

[proudmother]

Our schools results are up slightly this year - by about 3-4 children - with a few also scoring very closely, and very likely to go to review.

It will be interesting to see what the overall verdict is!

[SB888]

The numbers were consistent this year at DS's school - the range in recent years is 8-12 qualifying from a cohort of 60 (10 qualified this year).

[scary mum]

I don't know about this year but other years our local primary school has varied from 50% (DS1s year) to 20% (DS2) - with more on appeal, so fluctuations are huge year on year.

[ian35mm]

That wasn't my experience. I didn't have any real marginals (unless you count 117). Thirteen qualified. Quite different from what you are suggesting.

Scores edited out by Moderator.

[tumpa]

@3rdtime - I think you may be right. My Ds also was in OOC category although we live in bucks. This is because my ds goes to a non bucks school. Also met a lot parents on the day from Milton Keynes who come under OOC
My Ds got over 121, so quite relieved.
[edited by moderator]

[mumski3]

DCs school success cases down - only 4 out of 32 achieved 121 or above! 9 last year.

[newgirl]

I wondered if the tests had been quite easy, especially the 2nd test as it seems to be that the older children in the year didn't do well on that. Resulting in there being too many children with high marks and therefore age standardisation had come into play quite dramatically - resulting in the older ones doing better in the first test and dramatically lower results in the 2nd test. Probably wrong but is that anybody else's experience or just my DS and several of his classmates? My first child was only two marks different but this time quite a variation. if it's too easy just too difficult to seperate them.

[buzzybee]

Sally-Anne, thanks for the thread !

It does seem that the 2nd test caught a lot of children out. My daughter missed by 2 points in the 2nd test whereas many that passed by quite considerable marks on test 1, spectacularly dropped in test 2. So frustrating that she got such a good score on the 2nd test, I'm intrigued what the raw score was.

I don't know for sure still how many children passed in her year but we know of a definate 11. Last year 19 passed. We have lots of near misses as I said earlier, so lots of appeals going in. I'm a bit worried how it will affect her chances of appeal if there are more than normal from the same school? Will the selection panel cap successes from one school if there are many of similar outcomes? Thankfully her 1st test score was only 1 point lower than her 2nd test and the Headteacher did say that was a good thing that the 2 scores were close to each other.