Sutton grammar schools to drop VR/NVR...

[Smartbutdopey]

...for Sep 2015. Entrance tests to be replaced with Standard maths and English tests which will be closer to KS2 National Curriculum material.
Hooray bloody hooray. About time !!!!

The results look very good, the grammar schools are doing a great job.

I don't get the point of all this ethnic minorities and their grasp of English. It may be a second language but you forget they'll all have been through the same education system as everyone else. From this p.o.v I'd have thought VR would be even more difficult for someone who has English as a second language as it's not just about words or composition but about nuance.

The Wallington grammars seemed to have a lower proportion doing Ebacc subjects in 2012 compared to the others, though. Especially seeing that comprehensives are working really hard to do well on that measure. I wonder if that is a reason why they are changing the entry exams? They don't seem to be taking many exams requiring essays (humanities).

The Wallington grammars seemed to have a lower proportion doing Ebacc subjects

LCHammer - where did you get that stats from?

I think writing comprehension in the way expected for 11+ is harder to teach, not harder to learn.
VR van be learned from many available books where rules are very clearly explained.

That wasn't my stats :)

I thought VR/NVR would be more difficult because you can only learn them from books or tutors. I did these with my DS and have started doing some with DD.

I know you were,'t collecting them
I would love to see those stats however I know in Wilsons someone I know in y10 doesn't do geography not history but classics instead, s oI guess he would be bringing down those stats.

Same in Wally boys they weren't forcing ebacc on boys who are in y9 now.

Teaching to write comprehension very well is much harder than teaching VR.

I suppose we could go round in circles concerning English abilities LCHammer but if you look at the Wallington Girls' GCSE results 2012/13 English Language is lagging behind the other other subjects; 51 girls got a B grade and 13 girls a C - arguably not very impressive for a super-selective girls' school.

I'd say those results for Wally Girls are pretty shoddy for English...but it has a much larger intake than the other grammars so arguably a greater academic spread, do you not think?

Perhaps gazzalw - although Wallington Girls' don't test essay writing and comprehension for admission - only maths and VR.

Some English comprehension at 11+ can go far beyond what you might first think though. Ds had to give an answer as to which century a pirate story was set in for example, and many of the vocabulary questions are nuanced as well.

The difficulty for the Sutton grammars is the cost of testing. The individual schools have to have a fair test which can be marked reliably and quickly and they bear the cost of setting and marking the test. Some of the schools can no longer physically fit the number of applicants into their school on a single day. Companies such as GL charge £25-30 per child sitting I order to provide the test, so with 1,500 sitting at a school you can easily spend upwards of £400k on selecting the next intake. Essay papers only really work if you can reduce the number of children sitting hence the 2 part test.

'if you look at the Wallington Girls' GCSE results 2012/13 English Language is lagging behind the other other subjects; 51 girls got a B grade and 13 girls a C'

Clavinova that's interesting. I was wondering about why a third of Wallington Girls hadn't been entered for humanities subjects for 2012 which brought the Ebacc results down. I'm very pro-comprehensive so am of course looking for all signs of weakness but to be fair, 2013 results may be a lot better. As I said, comprehensives are jumping through hoops to look better on that measure even if it costs them grades. The Mayor of London has a criteria for excellence regarding grammars - 85% A/A* plus 90% passing Ebacc subjects. I'm not saying Boris Johnson deserves to be taken seriously but no London grammars achieved that in 2012...

I wonder how Boris arrived at this criteria? Seems a bit random....

Yes, it's not possible to entirely damn a school on the basis of one year's results.....DS's superselective results seem to fluctuate quite a lot too....

I know that when DW and DSILs were at their grammar school there were years regarded as super-bright and not-so-bright.....maybe that particularly Wally Girls year fitted into the latter category....

I don't know how Boris arrived at the criteria but they are differentiated according to intake of different schools which is fair but tough in each category. The list hasn't been well publicised and he's already supported the closing of one primary that made that list, to make way for a free school and new academy sponsored by a private school chain, so I suppose he's put it in the bottom of his pile compared to other vanity projects ..

In fairness a lot of schools had set their GCSE options before the Ebacc "criteria" were published, and Wally girls in particular made their girls do RE and Citizenship GCSEs so I can understand why their History/Geog take up was lower.

I was more shocked that they didn't do DofE to be honest, but I hear that is being introduced this year.

In fairness a lot of schools had set their GCSE options before the Ebacc "criteria" were published
Um No.
EVERY SCHOOL had picked their options before the criteria were known.
Gove came into power in May 2010, the week before the exams started and over two years after the children selected their options in spring 2008.

Ebacc was a nasty piece of politicking designed to make Grammar schools look good that backfired when quite a few comps out performed grammars.

The EBacc makes some of the grammars look very good indeed; the best performing grammar in Sutton achieved 91% EBacc and the worst perfoming comp in Sutton 1% EBacc. Wallington Girls' achieved 63% and the best performing comp (a girls' catholic school) 49%. The new tables will do more to show up those schools who hide behind soft subjects and equivalent qualifications rather than show off the best schools as I presume pupils will only need a grade C in each subject to achieve the EBacc.

Clavinova
The EBacc makes some of the grammars look very good indeed
indeed
but the fact that ANY non selective school was able to beat ANY academically selective school has to be rather an embarrassment to those who say that selection is the answer to life the universe and everything

Clavinova 'Wallington Girls' achieved 63% and the best performing comp (a girls' catholic school) 49%.'

But among 'high attainers' (L5 from Y6) at that Catholic school, 70% achieved the Ebacc compared to Wallington Girls' 66% - whose L5 was probably more like 5A than the full range, so a comparison of point scores is not meaningful. So the grammar did worse than the comp in that comparison.

The Catholic girls' school is a top performing comp and a very selective one at that - weekly mass and all that - 56% high attainers and only 4% low attainers - all the best comps are selective - I haven't come across a named one that isn't. I'm certain Wallington Girls' is paying the price for not testing English on admission which is the original point I was making (whatever the KS2 Sats results on entry) as the other 4 grammars in Sutton do much better on EBacc. As I said before, the EBacc won't really show the best schools as the results are based on A- C grades, a C grade obviously being much easier to obtain than an A. Wallington Girls' has much better A* to A results than the Catholic school (which has its fair share of C and D grades) although I have to say it is an excellent comp.

all the best comps are selective - I haven't come across a named one that isn't
Bohunt School
Kings School Winchester
Cams Hill School
Ringwood School
Romsey School
Perins School
Mountbatten School
Thornden School
Court Moor School
www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/group.pl?qtype=LA&superview=sec&view=aat&set=3&sort=ks4_12.ptebacc&ord=desc&tab=58&no=850
and that's just in my home county

'Wallington Girls' has much better A* to A results than the Catholic school'

Like I said, comparing point scores is difficult if grammars are taking pupils who achieved 5a and above for SATs. If you analysed the same subset of Level 5 the scores may be similar. But I'd be really pissed off if I had a girl there who was only given the chance to enter for GCSE Citizenship rather than History yet could have had that chance at a local comp. As a employer I'd possibly not give it as much weight either and it might restrict A-level choices too.

And there are many many London comps with a better Ebacc rate for top set, none of which are religious - Lea Valley High School, Brampton Manor Academy, Drayton Manor High School, Waldegrave Girls, Mill Hill County High, Woolwich Polytechnic School for Boys, etc.

Top of the league comprehensives are selective (by faith, postcode, dubious banding) and taking the first school on your list; Bohunt for example - low attainers 5%, statemented pupils 0% and fsm 1.6% - how can that not be covert selection? The next schools I looked at; Ringwood and Romsey (because I've been to the towns) haven't actually got great results - in fact not much above the national average with 5 A* to C grades and high attainers don't do well with EBacc. Value added poor for both too, but perhaps these 2 comps are the non-selective schools you're talking about?

Top of the league comprehensives
but I frankly do not care how my DCs school compares in a "league table"
I care how it does for kids like mine
and I know that my kids will do well
and that the school will do its best with the kids from the area

the postcode argument is the last resort of the grammar promoters

Bohunt pretty accurately refelects its area actually - how could it "select" - its a Comp.

The first two that I mentioned have over 70% disadvantaged but of their high attainers they got more than 83% through Ebacc in 2012. They take children on distance or the Newham school from feeder primaries.

Merton as an LA doubled its Ebacc rate overall this year, so I'd imagine most comprehensives have changed their curriculum to meet Ebacc targets, at least for the top sets. The 2013 results are due soon so it will be possible to check how individual schools compare.