CSSE - Essex - An issue for appeal or not?

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bythesea
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Nov 10, 2020 2:52 pm

CSSE - Essex - An issue for appeal or not?

Post by bythesea »

My DC sat the CSSE 11+ in November. There were 3 different sittings, Saturday 7th, Monday 9th and 23rd November. My DC sat on Monday 9th November. They did surprisingly bad in the English section and unfortunately did not get the required score to gain entry IC. We were quite shocked and thought there may have been an error.

Based on comments in the Essex forum, it now appears that the Saturday paper was based on previous forms of the English paper, short 1/2/3 mark questions, multiple choice, SPAG were unmarked, and a few other features, all of which my DC completed in mock settings with excellent scores. Monday's paper, however, appears to have been based on a new format (used last year, 2020 paper only available if purchased) which had very different features such as marks for SPAG, longer more extended 4/5/6 mark answers, no multiple choice and a different synonym section. The 2 x CW task were also very different one a concrete description, one abstract.

I feel my daughter would have performed much better with the format she was familiar with, rather than the new style paper she has not seen before (we did not purchase it). Her friendship group who are all similar in ability, those who sat the Saturday test passed, the Monday test did not. Obviously I have not seen the past papers and am going on comments from other parents and forum members.

I feel it's very unfair as these are clearly two entirely different papers, but I'm unsure if there is anything I can do about it? Thoughts please?
akb
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2019 1:36 pm

Re: CSSE - Essex - An issue for appeal or not?

Post by akb »

bythesea wrote:My DC sat the CSSE 11+ in November. There were 3 different sittings, Saturday 7th, Monday 9th and 23rd November. My DC sat on Monday 9th November. They did surprisingly bad in the English section and unfortunately did not get the required score to gain entry IC. We were quite shocked and thought there may have been an error.

Based on comments in the Essex forum, it now appears that the Saturday paper was based on previous forms of the English paper, short 1/2/3 mark questions, multiple choice, SPAG were unmarked, and a few other features, all of which my DC completed in mock settings with excellent scores. Monday's paper, however, appears to have been based on a new format (used last year, 2020 paper only available if purchased) which had very different features such as marks for SPAG, longer more extended 4/5/6 mark answers, no multiple choice and a different synonym section. The 2 x CW task were also very different one a concrete description, one abstract.

I feel my daughter would have performed much better with the format she was familiar with, rather than the new style paper she has not seen before (we did not purchase it). Her friendship group who are all similar in ability, those who sat the Saturday test passed, the Monday test did not. Obviously I have not seen the past papers and am going on comments from other parents and forum members.

I feel it's very unfair as these are clearly two entirely different papers, but I'm unsure if there is anything I can do about it? Thoughts please?
Never thought this is possible. It is ok to have different sets of papers for different days, but changing the style/format is not fair in my opinion. My son sat the exam on 9th Monday and his English score was below the expectation. Even with that he got a good enough score to get a place in to KEGS under OOC criteria so we didn't bother much.
akb
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2019 1:36 pm

Re: CSSE - Essex - An issue for appeal or not?

Post by akb »

It may be good idea to get the raw marks for English date wise under the FOI to check the impact of this.
Etienne
Posts: 8978
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:26 pm

Re: CSSE - Essex - An issue for appeal or not?

Post by Etienne »

Some initial thoughts .....
The first question for the panel is "Have the published admission arrangements been correctly and impartially applied?" If the answer is 'No', the second question is "Would the child have been given a place if the arrangements had been correctly and impartially applied?"
In other words, it is not enough to show that the admission arrangements were not correctly and impartially applied. There would need to be a case to show that the child should have obtained a place.

If the panel decide that the admission arrangements were correctly applied, then another approach would be to say that there were extenuating circumstances which explain a lower than expected score. However, extenuating circumstances on their own are never enough. There would have to be an academic case to show that the child should have obtained a place.
https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/appea ... cation#b11" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And if the school is oversubscribed, as it probably will be, there would need to be reasons for wanting a place that are sufficient to outweigh any prejudice to the school.
https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/appea ... -school#c2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Etienne
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