Entrance exam marks weighted according to age of pupil

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Our local selective secondary is very popular. 800 people sit the test for 120 places. It was originally a boys only school but went co-ed a few years ago. This is a bit of a bummer as there is plenty of choice for good girls' schools round here anyway, so to my mind this has simply resulted in less places for the boys at the selective. Decent boys schools tend to be faith-based so ds hasn't got a chance with them as we don't have a faith. The nearest mixed comp is not great. So I feel boys are already disadvantaged round here.

Then I attend the selective's open evening only to hear that the test scores are weighted according to age. Ds has an autumn term birthday so I assume has to do much better in the entrance test than someone with a birthday at the end of the school year, in order to get a place.

Is this really absolutely fair? Are summer-borns really still "behind" years after they have been born?

Am not really whingeing about it if it is proven that summer-borns need the extra help of a higher weighting. But just worried for my son getting into a good school when it seems so much is up against him.

I don't think the autumn boys have to do much better exactly, but there is an allowance for the summer borns and it is not much. Just evens the playing field a bit.

I can understand your frustration though, it you are all fighting over very few places at a decent school.

Summer norms do tend to still be behind. Not all of them, but enough that there is still am impact of bring late born when they take gcses.

*borns

Standardisation doesn't work by adding or subtracting marks. It means that the results of all children of the same age are compared; so all 11 yo results are compared against other 11 yo results, those who are 10yrs 11 months are compared with other 10yo 11mths. These results are compared along a normal distribution. It is therefore theoretically possible for a child aged 10 to need a higher mark than an 11yo if the August born children of that cohort are particularly bright (though that is unusual).

I'm not sure this is true of all selective schools; boys that got through the first round of the Sutton Grammar School for boys tests last year but didn't get a place were given a breakdown of their scores and part of the breakdown was what the school described as an 'Age Adjustment' score - 0 marks for boys born Sept to Nov, 1 mark for Dec to Feb, 2 marks for March to May and 4 marks for June to August. The overall marks (for all 3 elements of the tests) were then 'rounded' to the nearest 4 marks which could in theory give an advantage to some boys at least.

They are probably using NVR and/or VR tests. These are similar to the tests used for IQ testing and are very sensitive to the age of the child being tested. Test scores improve rapidly at this age. If the school does not adjust for age they are being unfair to younger children in the cohort. Of course, if the adjustment is too crude they may still end up being unfair to someone.

The first stage test at Sutton last year comprised 'reasoning', some maths and 'literacy' (literacy similar to SPAG test), the second round tests were maths and English. Their initial literature stated, 'three standardised, age-adjusted scores'. The test is different this year though.

Thanks for explaining how standardisation works. I hadn't really thought about HOW they might arrange the weighting before.

Prh: They do English, Maths and NVR. Now i think about it I seem to recall they actually also put more weighting on the NVR test results (just forgetting age for a minute) as a percebtage of the overall mark. I assume this is because they are trying to get round those who have been tutored for the maths and English - do they see a flair for NVR as more of an indication that a child has more of an innate intellect perhaps? I can see from your reasoning then that it would make sense to age-adjust if this is the case, then.

Oh, he can only try his best, can't he? He is a bright boy and flies at NVR. (Sometimes he has to explain the answers to me!). So hopefully that will stand him in good stead.

They didn't age-weight when mine took the 11+ - started just after DS was 12. He was 10y 3m when he sat the exam so would have really benefited - however I accepted that no allowance would be made once he was in Yr7. We noticed the biggest difference maturity wise up to about Yr3.

When my DD did her 11+ in Bucks , 5 children in her class obtained the highest possible mark of 141. All were summer born and all were, and had been throughout their school careers, the brightest. Summer born is not always a disadvantage, especially if you are a bright child. Having said that, the scores were adjusted for them being summer born but this does not really disadvantage anyone else. Interestingly only one was a boy.

CurlyhairedAssassin - NVR is seen as a more reliable indicator of ability than English and Maths. In theory a good NVR test is immune to tutoring and practise effects so tells you a lot about the child's intelligence. English and Maths tests on the other hand are affected by how well the child has been taught along with tutoring and practise effects, making them far less reliable if your goal is to find the brightest applicants.

NVR is rubbish for dyspraxic kids. So. Not really a reliable indicator of ability at all, then. Since high intelligence is one of the more widespread if the many features of dyspraxia.

Age standardisation exists for a good reason.

My dd1 is one of the oldest in her year; dd2 the youngest (end of Aug baby). In practice, that meant that when dd2 started year 6 she was just a few days over 10. By contrast, dd1 was almost 11 at the start of year 6, and dd2 ended year 6 younger than dd1 was when she started it! dd2 often shared birthday parties with a girl in her year who was a whole year minus 3 days older! So whilst dd2 is bright, it would clearly be unfair to compare two kids in what is equivalent to two different school years, without some acknowledgement of the age gap.

My dd2 got a sibling place at her semi-selective for which I was very relieved as she did not need to sit an entrance exam. She would not have been as mature at the start of year 6 as she was at the end. Unlike dd1, who was basically 'ready' to do her 11+ (it was in Nov then - exams have been brought earlier since rule changes last year), dd2 could not have done herself justice in Sept of year 6. By the end of year 6, she had had the chance to mature and got level 5s and 6s in her SATs (which aren't age standardised, by the way).

So yes, that year does still make a difference at the start of year 6.

The point I was making is that it is seen as more reliable than the kind of test where quality of teaching, tutoring and practise can have a major effect on the results. But yes, there are some children of high ability who perform poorly in NVR tests.

It doesn't make a difference for everyone though. My DD2 has just 'passed' the 11+ (by which I mean achieved the qualifying mark (which is being in the top 120) in each of the 3 papers, which puts her in the top category, which has fewer kids in it than there are places available) and she is a late August birthday - but she was level 6 maths and reading and level 5 everything else at the end of Y5, and she is in many ways (though not all) more mature than her older sister (who is early summer born) who also took and 'passed' the 11+ when she was 10.

Obviously this is just another anecdote - but then, so is your story. The year CAN make a difference, and because of this they do the standardisation - but it doesn't always make a difference and it can be counter productive to claim or imply that it does (some schools - including DD2's - use it as justification for splitting years by age not ability - which can mean that able August born kids are at a disadvantage all the way through primary school in terms of the expectations applied to them; it can also disadvantage less able autumn born kids, again in terms of expectations).

Be interesting to see how much difference re.summer / autumn births now that all children start school in September.

Mine is not an anecdote. It is scientifically established that scores in NVR tests improve rapidly at this age. In general a child at age 11 will score significantly better than the same child at age 10. This is why IQ tests (which are essentially NVR tests) adjust for age.

Prh - I was replying to bread. Luckily the grammar schools where I live appreciate the fatal flaw of NVR and don't use them, they use VR and English and maths papers. Which still have their issues for kids with SEN conditions but are capable of being less blatantly discriminatory. There is no perfect solution though.