Google has failed us - can Mumsnet help?

[bibbityisaporker]

I have a letter in front of me from one of the secondaries that my Y6 dd didn't get a place at.

The final sentence of the letter says "xxxx (dd's name) was placed in Band 6 which was based on a non-verbal reasoning score of 115".

Does anyone have any idea what that means?

isn't it one of those tests with symbols and pictures that they have to put in the right order or work out what comes next? I'm sure my DD had one last year (only Y1 mind you) and I remember seeing a set of pictures showing a place setting with plate, then plate and fork, then plate fork and knife etc and she had to put them in the right order to build up the complete picture.

I take it if you have googled then you have looked at the school's own website?

Could they have a policy like this one where they say "All applicants will take a standardised Non-Verbal Reasoning Test. Children will be placed into one of nine ability bands based on the results of this test. Pupils will be allocated proportionately as indicated below." and have a table.

Banding
?Banding? means putting children into clusters of classes with the same ability level across each cluster. So ? there might be two top sets, two middle sets and two lower sets. Banding could be described as a halfway house between mixed ability and setting. If a school doesn?t have enough staff to teach all the children in a year at the same time, banding also helps with timetabling by enabling the school to split the year.

look at this document - yourchildatschool.com/abilitygroupings.html

The school's website is unforthcoming! I am just kind of curious to know the context. She went for a test there, but it is a comprehensive school so I assumed a banding test only. She has never done any of the non-verbal reasoning tests so beloved of the grammar schools, either at school or with a tutor.

We live in an entirely comprehensive area so I am bemused as much as anything by this throwaway line at the bottom of the letter which means nothing to me!

If its a NVR score and she's got 115, that's actually an above average score. 100 is the average, 70 being very low and 130 being very high.

NVR tests spatial awareness, problem-solving, lateral thinking.

Oh, sorry, xposted with you mamakiso - thanks for that.

SS'scheerio - that is the sort of info I was after. I didn't realise that's how banding tests were done at comprehensives, I thought they were a grammar/private school thing. I suppose she did alright then as she's never seen one before in her life!

Yes, the IQ type things with picture puzzles. Your DD has quite probably done a CATs test at primary school. (They don't tell you or release the marks without a fight)

DD1s secondary do them, verbal reasoning, non verbal reasoning and a quantative (sp) one.
They use them to verify SATs marks in Y7 and predict GCSE grades in Y9 for option choices. Senior school are much more reasonable and will discuss the results.

IQ style marking centred around 100.
You can try google, but schools are paranoid about people practicing them so there isn't much info.

I would guess comprehensives are expected to take an even spread of abilities and that's what the bands mean.

Startail has the right idea.

This school clearly uses "fair banding". This is designed to make sure the school population reflects the general population. What happens is that the children take a test and are then divided into bands based on the test results. The school then takes an equal number of children from each band.

What this sentence is telling you is that your daughter's result placed her in band 6. She was therefore competing with other children in band 6 for a place. She was not competing with children in any other band. You may, therefore, find that a child who was placed in another band got a place even though they live further from the school than you.

This should be explained in the school's admission criteria.

I guess I've never come across this because I've always lived in rural areas where secondary schools get very mixed intakes automatically because their catchments are so big.

Not so I guess in towns, where distance alone might get you most of a leafy new builds or a dodgy estate. This happened at primary level in the medium sizes town I did brownies in (Brownies went to the nice school. I lived over looking the other one and chased it's pupils off my garage roof!).

However, they all ended up at the same senior school.

Thank you for the further messages. I do know about banding tests and how they work - I just didn't know they did them by NVR testing (at that particular school). I didn't know what Band 6 meant, and I didn't know what 115 meant as the school hasn't given us any context (ie. how many bands, what is a good or bad score).

It is all immaterial anyway as we knew we didn't have a hope of getting in to that school (due to catchment) we just put it on the list to fill the space up! We do not have a choice of six local schools - no idea why we have to pretend that we do!

Cynically lol at the term "fair banding".

An academy in an economically/socially challenging area of my town uses this system. Trouble is, there are far more kids in the lower bands and therefore not all of them will now be able to go to their local school which has had literally millions of £ pumped into it. Facilities are second to none now, but many of the local kids will be forced to get buses to under-subscribed schools now as they are suffering at the hands of a system that is essentially selection by the back door.

Sounds like your dd will be fine, op. But this system of admission is anything but 'fair'.

bibbityisaporker - They should have explained those things.

oneofsuesylvesterscheerios - For most schools were fair banding is used it is a way of ensuring admissions are not dominated by middle class parents who can afford to move close to the school. Their children tend to fall into the upper bands. I obviously can't comment on the situation in your town - I don't even know which town that is!

prh I understand the concept; it's just there are very few middle class families in this school's geographical catchment and so the system is being used very cynically to push out the very lowest achievers. I doubt they're the only school manipulating 'fair banding' in this way, tbh.

my old school used to band the results like that (can't remember the details exactly). However it was a very oversubscribed but in part of its admissions criteria it had to take a certain proportion from each band. Due to the type of child that normally applied, the lowest bands tended to have the least applications so it was easier to get in the school if you weren't so bright!