Urgent please share children sitting the Slough consortium 11+ on Saturday can cheat

[Lindy123]

This has been raised with Kendrick and Reading schools and so far the response has been "Raise a formal complaint" and "we can look at this next year"

Please share urgently!

The morning exam at Reading Boys will finish at around 11.00AM, the morning exam at Kendrick finishes at 11.30AM. The afternoon exam at Kendrick does not start until 13.00 hours with registration half an hour before at 12.30PM. This leaves a possible one and a half hours in which exam content could be distributed to friends and family and content becomes viral.
With this lack of safeguarding a boy could sit the morning exam and his twin sister could sit the afternoon exam and they would be able to have lunch together in between and share the content of the morning paper which is quite feasible as they would not be competing for the same school.

Er - what have Reading and Kendrick got to do with Slough?!?

How much do you think 10 year olds will recall of an exam, most of them can hardly remember what day it is, let alone the contents of an hour long exam!

As of this year, for the purposes of this exam, they are now a consortium and all lumped together. Kids can sit in Reading and go to school in Slough and vice versa. This is brand new to this year. 3000 kids sitting the same exam on the same day but all at different times. Questions on the paper will be viral within minutes meaning the afternoon kids can see and have a huge advantage as the morning kids are allowed out before the afternoon kids go in. It's an oversight and it's being fudged.

How much do you think the children who take it in the morning will actually remember about the exam such that they could give accurate information to children sitting it in the afternoon.

Presumably if someone's child is sitting it in the morning they won't want other children to get an advantage over them and so won't let them tell others?

Surely no one would have even considered the logistics of doing that - until you posted it all over the net just now.

@spanieleyes...it's not right but some of those kids will have been cramming for hours at night and during the summer holidays, I'm talking hours per day...as I say it's not right but it is what it is...a lot of those kids will remember most of the paper and could repeat it to you afterwards...believe me I know...mine couldn't but some could. some people people would sell a kidney to get into these schools so the possibility of sharing info due to an oversight is pretty tempting.

I would've thought that the children wouldn't divulge any content, after all they could do themselves out of a place! The twin scenario you talk about would be a drop in the ocean

Thanks for the heads up

What format does the test take?

Is it NVR/VR or a more SATS-like test.

Dd sat tests last year and having seen the format I am absolutely certain that she could not have passed on information on the NVR/VR/maths papers that would have meant anything at all to others sitting the test. The tests were fast paced with short sections of 30 or so questions. Lots of sections. It really wouldn't have been possible to pass on info.

If the tests are more SATS like in format, traditional exam papers with written responses rather than a lottery-style checkbox multiple choice, then it may be possible to say "the writing paper asked you to write a letter about your happiest time" or " make sure you know know about the nth term" or whatever. But the likelihood of any parent of a child taking the test actually wanting to pass advantage to an afternoon tested child would be very slim.

The point here is that they are NOT sitting for the same school places. A boy sitting for Reading Boys will finish at 11.00AM at Reading boys. His parents could then send a text of crucial vocabulary content to his female friend or cousin who is sitting the test for the girls school two hours later......or any of the other schools in Slough in the consortium. Of course they won't share with rivals at the same school but this is NOT the same school but the same exam. It's almost impossible to believe isn't it? I couldn't believe it but it's true. The press are now involved so check out local papers tomorrow. Please see my other post about kids remembering the content..they only have to remember for as long as it takes to send a text.

If I had a boy who was sitting the exam in the morning for Reading and his twin was sitting the exam in the afternoon for Kendrick, there would actually be enough time to sit and have lunch whilst we discussed the content of the morning’s paper. Then the twin sister could sit the afternoon paper with a competitive advantage. Absurd isn't it?

The school are fudging as it would be logistical nightmare at this late stage. The issue was only raised this week when a few parents realised. This is why we have gone to the press who are running with the story.

@Feenie, what triggered my concern was somebody approached me and suggested that I text over info for their child.....I hadn't thought of it until then but they had. Then I realised that if they had then others had and would actually do it, so I raised the concern. I hadn't given it a thought until Monday until somebody suggest I do it. I suspect that like me most people assumed that the children would be held back until they'd finished but no. At least now all of us may know rather than the unsuspecting few.

Well it wouldn't take much to keep the morning contingent in isolation until the afternoon lot had all registered I suppose.

The press are now involved so check out local papers tomorrow.

Well, at least it's fairer now that everyone's going to know how to cheat.

@Kimaroo....that's the point, they are NOT competing for the same place but different schools....as I say it's so absurd I couldn't believe it at first but it's true. Of course no one would share info that's going to put them out of a place. There are 6 different schools all doing the same exam with a gap in between. They can share across schools. The twins scenario is simply to clarify the point but it could be a cousin or your best mate's kid. After all they are NOT competing for the same place. Could be Reading Boys, could be Kendrick, could be one of the 4 slough schools. I know it's so daft it's unbelievable.

@kimaroo, you would not believe the correspondence I have had with Kendrick school. I have been told it's too late now but they'll look at it next year. I have been told that the content of the paper is not transferable? There is a verbal reasoning paper where the knowledge of vocab is crucial. How difficult is it to text that to a friend. A list of five words. 2000 kids sit for 200 places. 1% point will separate these kids. Tempting to cheat if you can don't you think? There should be zero margin for error and at the moment there's nearly two hours.

This is serious stuff. I wouldn't post this without having given it a lot of thought and there are more than one of us.

I have asked a thousand time to segregate. Truth is, that would mean admitting a monumental cock up and they're not going to do that easily. Hence the press.

@pooka brand new format. All changed this year to make it harder apparently, unless you can cheat of course. You cannot pass over the old stuff but new papers are Maths, English (verbal reasoning) and the none transferable NVR. Very transferable information now unless the verbal reasoning paper is in Russian!

Ladies, I posted this in the primary talk too and I'm going to add all of the conversations going on here. I think you should read the entire thread before you judge. Apologies for not being able to pick up the thread here earlier. Once you've read all of the posts it may be a bit clearer. You can read it all at this link and I'll post here too.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2182000-Urgent-please-share-children-sitting-the-11-exam-Slough-Consortium-Kendrick-on-Saturday-can-cheat

There is another thread discussing this ladies please take a look

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2182000-Urgent-please-share-children-sitting-the-11-exam-Slough-Consortium-Kendrick-on-Saturday-can-cheat?msgid=49437445#49437445

@Rafaisthekingofclay

I couldn't agree more!

If you're interested, there is a discussion continuing on this topic here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/a2182000-Urgent-please-share-children-sitting-the-11-exam-Slough-Consortium-Kendrick-on-Saturday-can-cheat

www.getreading.co.uk/news/mums-fears-over-11-exam-7758748

Article in today's press. another parent talking about their concerns. I think it summarises mine very well.

I would like to reassure you all- last year in Slough there was a considerable time gap between the morning and the afternoon sessions (it had to be done in 2 sessions as there were just so many children sitting). I run a large tuition centre in Slough-there was very little, if any difference between the average score for the morning test and the afternnoon one: if anything, the morning scores were higher. the format of the test is such that it would be very dfficult for children to remember many questions. the comprehension relies a great deal on inferrence, and the long numerical reasoning questions have a lot of data and several parts to each question. Possibly the only thing which could be passed on are some of the vocabulary questions, if they require understanding of single words.-this might make a difference of a couple of marks, but overall it probably makes no difference to whether a child will pas or fail. Most children don't remember much about the specific questions on the paper.

WENDYEG57

There is another thread going on here which has many more posts, if you're interested that is. I think you might be interested in my last and final post on this so maybe take look? If you are it's just gone up and the link is below.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2182000-Urgent-please-share-children-sitting-the-11-exam-Slough-Consortium-Kendrick-on-Saturday-can-cheat?msgid=49475266#49475266