Remarking/Looking at answer sheet

[highspiritz]

Has anyone experienced getting a paper remarked or even viewing it? My son is very strong in maths and was top tier for the same amongst his peers, yet achieved the lowest scores when compared to English and Reasoning. Any help is much appreciated. His age is 10 years and 11 months making him one of the older ones to do the exam.

Obviously he passed the Kent test but is devastated with the maths results. I am not sure how he could go wrong so badly in maths while he was getting top scores on his practice tests.

[Jannj]

I would also like to know the answer to this . My son too is extremely strong in maths and always has been . He has achieved near perfect scores in everything thrown at him yet it was the weakest score of all three at 124. He is puzzled and so are we! What went wrong ?

[missalooni]

I don’t have the answer I am afraid but just to say we had exactly the same experience. DS very strong in maths but got the lowest score by far- and is one of the oldest. Another thread suggested that the standardisation seemed to have a huge impact on maths score this year?

[highspiritz]

This standardisation nonsense is another grey area. Thanks for your replies. I guess we will have to just wait and see what happens with the admissions. Lets hope 'all for the best' and all the best to you all. Hope your son/daughter gets their choice of school.

[LocalTWmum1]

Hi I requested a remark on my youngest son's papers last year as I felt his reasoning score in particular fell short of where it perhaps could/should have been. The Admissions team were extremely helpful and hand-marked all of his papers and emailed the next working day to confirm the scores were correct. The machine marking process is extremely accurate for sure, I just needed to eliminate the possibility his answers on the longer reasoning paper hadn't got out of step somehow! You can email to request a remark via kent.admissions@kent.gov.uk. HTH

[scary mum]

This standardisation nonsense is another grey area.

Standardisation is not nonsense, it's designed to make sure everyone is compared fairly. Your DC will only have been compared to other children born in the same month. No points are added or deducted for age. If the youngest and oldest children have the same scores on the papers there will be no difference in the raw score needed for a particular standardised score. In general, there is usually a small difference, with older children needing slightly higher scores for a certain standardised score.
It is a recognised & accepted statistical tool

[highspiritz]

This standardisation nonsense is another grey area.

Standardisation is not nonsense, it's designed to make sure everyone is compared fairly. Your DC will only have been compared to other children born in the same month. No points are added or deducted for age. If the youngest and oldest children have the same scores on the papers there will be no difference in the raw score needed for a particular standardised score. In general, there is usually a small difference, with older children needing slightly higher scores for a certain standardised score.
It is a recognised & accepted statistical tool

I was told that the 10 years 11 months children will lose at least 4 marks per paper on average. Thats 16 marks over English, Maths, VR and NVR. They are all year 6 pupils and should be challenged equally in my opinion. So should they make all school grammar standard or close the existing ones. Again that would be fair and stop people from moving targeting schools. My younger one will however benefit in a years time as he will the one of the younger ones. However I still believe he should be marked equally without any standardisation because you or me cannot understand or work out how it works. But thank you for your response.

[Broomleigh]

Your younger one won't "benefit" in a year's time, he'll be treated equally alongside all the candidates of the same age. If he doesn't change his attainment level (and particularly in Kent's case, his ability to cope with an extremely long set of tests) between 10 years and 1 month and 10 years and 11 months, I'd be very worried.

As for standardisation being bad because you don't understand how it works, presumably you won't ever get on a plane without 3 years training in aeronautics?

[Poplol]

Your younger one won't "benefit" in a year's time, he'll be treated equally alongside all the candidates of the same age. If he doesn't change his attainment level (and particularly in Kent's case, his ability to cope with an extremely long set of tests) between 10 years and 1 month and 10 years and 11 months, I'd be very worried.

As for standardisation being bad because you don't understand how it works, presumably you won't ever get on a plane without 3 years training in aeronautics?

Actually there's a potential benefit if you are younger. Research suggests that September children do better than Summer born kids. Now in a test like the 11+ where you have a 'bright' August born child being compared to others in their cohort that would not have done as well as the  older children this would result in a higher standardised mark for that child. Secondly we can see from the raw marks that were posted that the younger kids had higher scores awarded albeit in certain subjects. Finally please find below an extract from GL which further validates that age is an important factor in standardisation of scores.

‘Standard Age Score’. What does this mean?
The Standard Age Score (SAS) is a recognised benchmark against a national or local sample
of students of the same age. It’s the best and fairest way to measure a child’s performance
relative to the other children who took the test.
For a selective system like the 11+, we identify how well the entire group of candidates has
performed. Then, by incorporating an age adjustment that is based on a tried and tested
statistical model
1, we take each child’s age into consideration when awarding a Standard Age
Score. The SAS usually ranges from 69-141.
Standard Age Scores are adjusted to account for the exact age of the pupil – an important
consideration given that the ages in a typical year group will vary by almost 12 months and that
the oldest children will typically achieve higher scores than their younger counterparts. The
SAS also provides a fair comparison between the different tests used, regardless of differences
in test difficulty or length.

[countrylifeKat]

I think standardisation for age is the only fair way to do it - and I speak having had an 'oldest in year' and a 'youngest in year' - both passed, one scored much higher than the other (and not necessarily the way round you'd expect) but being completely honest, that is a true reflection of their respective abilities. They are 'judged' against others in their birth month - all good.