Kingsdale School banding tests - how does this work?

On on the education.gov website, prior attainment information doesn’t seem to be available for the provisional 2018 results, but it is there for 2017 results.

I can't find the Dept of Education tables that show how many pupils in each attainment / ability band a school has. There used to be detailed information about a school - how many on Pupil Premium, how many low, middle and high attainers.

I seem to remember that Kingsdale did indeed have a high % of high attainers - which would make sense because of the many aspirational parents putting their children in for the banding test, and therefore skewing the band boundaries high.

prh, thank you

onewhitewhisker

The reason there isn't a problem with the normal distribution is that they arrange the band boundaries so that they have a roughly equal number of applicants in each band. If there are 900 applicants there will be 300 in each band. On a normal bell curve over 600 of the applicants will be in the middle (i.e. within one standard deviation of average). So, in round terms, the top band contains 150 high performers and the top 150 middle performers, the bottom band contains 150 low performers and the bottom 150 middle performers.

The week after offer day, I received a letter from Kingsdale with I my DD’s positions on both the scholarship and banding waiting lists. What I found strange, is that my DD was in virtually the same position on both lists.

A week later we were offered a place, so I wasn’t aware of moving up or down the list.

prh thank you again, very interesting. One more question (sorry!). as you say, it's the fair banding rules that an equal number is taken from each band. But surely, the normal distribution of intelligence would indicate that, generally, most children will score in the middle of the bell curve with outliers at both ends. I get how equal offer will work for schools that use 5 bands, where, effectively, 3 bands are given over to the hump in the middle, but if you only use 3, by taking equal numbers from each band aren't you skewing your intake towards both high and low ability and disadvantaging children in the middle, or whom there will be more? Of course if the cohort are already skewed in one or other direction then it will be a bit different, but there will still be a hump - just higher up or lower down.

I too have had conversations with people who have been told their place on the waiting list and how they have progressed.

But I haven't been in that position, so felt a bit cautious to say, since it is clearly against the code.

Could it be that it is the scholarship places that have numbered waiting lists? Though the people I know weren't up for scholarship places.

Kingsdale's ability bands are split so that the numbers in each should be roughly equal. The intake should therefore broadly reflect the ability range of applicants. If they get a lot of high achievers applying that will skew the results.

On the more general question, there is no direct external scrutiny but there is indirect scrutiny via the LA. As part of the admissions process the school will provide the LA with a ranked list of all the applicants in each ability band. The LA can therefore see how many applicants have ended up in each band. They will check that everyone who applied is on the list. They should also check that the numbers in each band are broadly in line with expectations. So, for Kingsdale, they would expect to see roughly the same number in each band. They wouldn't expect the numbers to be exactly identical but if, say, one band had twice as many in it as the other bands they should start asking questions.

thank you prh

Also - hope you don't mind being the fair banding guru! - do you know whether, for schools that use fair banding, there is any external scrutiny about where you put the cut-offs for your bands? Nor explaining very clearly but e.g kingsdale as a school wth no catchment area and a good academic rep gets a high volume of high achievers applying - as lots of people use it as their back up for the selective privates and grammars or indeed use those as the back-ups if their child doesn't get kingsdale. To me that would suggest the intake taking the test is skewed towards high achievers. if coupled with that you can put the band cut-offs where you like, doesn't that mean you could end up with a low band that's really low-medium, a medium band that's medium-high and a high band that's actually high-very high? That gives you one third very high achieving children and a good chance of having very few low achievers, which seems to me to skew the intake given that the purpose of fair banding is to make the school accessible to children of all abilities?

Not picking on kingsdale here - i know lots of schools use fair banding - but the combination of fair banding plus no catchment is more unusual and seems to present a particular issue, as the number of high achieving applicants isn't limited by geography.

Admissions Policy - s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/sh-kingsdalefoundationschool-org-uk/media/downloads/Kingsdale%20Foundation%20School%20Admission%20Policy%202019%2020.pdf

Extract from policy:

Waiting Lists
Kingsdale Foundation School will operate separate waiting lists for each ability band. Where in any year Kingsdale Foundation School receives more applications for places than there are places available, waiting lists will be maintained indefinitely by Kingsdale Foundation School from 1st September of the year to which the application applied in accordance with Local Authority guidelines (see Note 10).

I was told my where my daughter was on the waiting list and what band she was in. it moved a lot

I don't think Kingsdale does this

Their admissions policy strongly suggests they don't. The fact they tell people their position on the list confirms that.

how do waiting lists work with fair banding? presumably when a child refuses their place, they are replaced with another child from the waiting list in their band?

Correct. So, even if they weren't using random allocation, you wouldn't actually have a place on the waiting list as such. You would have a place on the waiting list for your band.

requires them to hold a fresh draw whenever a place becomes available.

I don't think Kingsdale does this. I know children who have sat on the Kingsdale waiting list between March and Sept and parents have regularly called in to find out their position and been told they've inched up from 80 or whatever to 40 to 20 and then they've eventually been offered a place. If they were doing a fresh draw each time then surely this kind of incremental moving up the list wouldn't be possible - there'd just be a flat list with every child on it having the same chance of being awarded the new place?

Also - how do waiting lists work with fair banding? presumably when a child refuses their place, they are replaced with another child from the waiting list in their band?

The means that the school does a fresh draw when the add a child to the waiting list... not when a place becomes available

This should be reported to the Schools Adjudicator. If it means what it appears to say it does not to comply with the Admissions Code. Paragraph 1.35 (quoted by MarchingFrogs) requires them to hold a fresh draw whenever a place becomes available. Simply holding a draw whenever a child is added to the waiting list is not enough.

Venus

This is from Kingsdale’s admissions policy:

An applicant’s position on the waiting list(s) will be determined in accordance with our oversubscription criteria, taking into account late applicants, in accordance with the school Admissions Code. Any prospective parent may ask for an applicant’s name to be placed on a waiting list for Kingsdale Foundation School. The addition of an applicant to a waiting list will require the waiting list to be ranked again in line with the published oversubscription criteria.

The means that the school does a fresh draw when the add a child to the waiting list... not when a place becomes available.

So, the school can tell you your child’s position on the list in that day - but that does not mean it will not change.

So in fact a school that admits by Lottery shouldn’t ever be in a position to tell a parent a numbered position on waiting list

Correct.

Should schools publish, as part of their admissions policy, who the independent body overseeing the lottery is

There is no requirement for them to do so in the Admissions Code. If there is a question about the random allocation process it can be raised during appeals.

Thank you, MarchingFrogs.

So in fact a school that admits by
Lottery shouldn’t ever be in a position to tell a parent a numbered position on waiting list because the position is ‘you will be placed in the lottery next time a place comes up’.

Should schools publish, as part of their admissions policy, who the independent body overseeing the lottery is?

It has been known for some Academies to achieve their results and reputation by deft use of smoke and mirrors, after all....

I thought I read somewhere that schools that allocate places by Lottery should do a fresh draw every time a place climes up, which would mean they can never actually tell you where you are on the waiting list. However, those seems not to be the case.

On the subject of lotteries (officially Random allocation), the School Admissions Code states:

Random allocation
1.34 Local authorities must not use random allocation as the principal oversubscription criterion for allocating places at all the schools in the area for which they are the admission authority. Admission authorities that decide to
use random allocation when schools are oversubscribed must set out clearlyhow this will operate, ensuring that arrangements are transparent, and thatlooked after children and previously looked after children are prioritised.
1.35 The random allocation process must be supervised by someone independent of the school, and a fresh round of random allocation must beused each time a child is to be offered a place from a waiting list.

(Bolding in the Code means that the action is mandatory).

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389388/School_Admissions_Code_2014_-_19_Dec.pdf

“So everyone entering the lottery has to take the banding test, but it has no impact on the lottery? “

It had an impact insofar as there are essentially 3 lotteries, one for each band.

They take an equal number of children within each band. Within each ability band they first allocate those who meet the top priorities: Looked After / siblings / scholarships. Then any remaining places are allocated by lottery.

I thought I read somewhere that schools that allocate places by Lottery should do a fresh draw every time a place climes up, which would mean they can never actually tell you where you are on the waiting list. However, those seems not to be the case.

Yes if you name Kingsdale anywhere on the form then your child will be invited to sit the test and given a date, you don’t have to ask for it or book it in. (We went through this 2 years ago).
It does also seem like a big waste of time to me! Surely the school have better things to do than test over 2,000 children....along with all the sport and music scholarship tests surely it must be a big drain on resources.

Other schools do banding tests too, the Harris Academies I think?

Kingsdale is by no means the only school that uses fair banding as part of its admission arrangements so its criteria are not as unusual as some people on this thread seem to think.

I would question the use of local authority resources

The tests are run by the school. No local authority resources involved.

And what if you don't take the test

This is covered in their Admissions Policy. If you don't take the test you are ranked at the bottom of the list of applicants after the lottery has taken place (i.e. you don't go into the lottery and are ranked after all the candidates that do go into the lottery). In simple terms, that means you have no chance of getting a place.

Ok I get it but I would question the use of local authority resources. And what if you don't take the test? Nothing says you're kept out of the lottery. (as far as I can see)

It might not make sense, but I know they do test before a place is offered.

The same way that they assess everyone who applies for a sports and/or music scholarship. The school doesn’t know which position they will be listed on each children’s CAF form - or if they even are listed at all. But they still perform numerous sport and music assessments anyway.

I see that 2,800 children applied last year for 300 spots. How it makes sense to test 2,800 applicants with a 9% chance of getting in is beyond me.

Everyone that applies to the school has to take the banding test - the school sent a letter confirming the date (in December) of the test.

The banding test doesn’t have anything to do with the lottery - as stated in the admissions criteria, The test is only used to determine each child’s ability band.

All students are seen as equal when being selected during the lottery - when selected, they will be assigned a position on the admission list no matter which band they are in.

For example, a child in the highest band could be position 25 on the admission list, but a child in the lowest band could be position 3.

The school sets in Maths, English & Science from the first day in year 7, and they use the results from the banding test and each child’s SATS results to determine the set they will go into.