Urgent please share! children sitting the 11+ exam Slough Consortium (Kendrick) 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.

[RustyDalek]

"READING BOYS WERE HELD BACK ALSO AND FOR MUCH LONGER THEY WERE ALSO TOLD THAT THEY WERE RUNNING LATE.
Do you think it might be something to do with the fact that four parents campaigned without stopping for a moment this last week? "

Given that exactly the same happened when DS took the exam in 1998, actually, no. More to do with the logistics of hundreds of boys taking the exam in lots of different rooms...

[stonecircle]

This is a wind up right?

[poisonedbypen]

??????

[braveandcrazy]

My DD did the afternoon test at Kendrick and was kept back just under half an hour too.

They all had bags because they were allowed to take a drink and snacks, which is fair enough.

[sunnyrosegarden]

We had a similar situation in west herts today. First sitting finished at 11.15am, second started at 12.15pm. Don't think anyone gave any answers away, though, as both lots were fighting to get in and out of the car parks...

[Junb]

Is it true that the word 'feu' was in the antonyms section of the test on Saturday? Had to find the opposite meaning from 5 possible aswers.

[PumpkinPie9]

Have people who were ill on the day still got this same test to come?

[DoctorDonnaNoble]

We start registering afternoon session while morning are finishing off. The morning session are held for a while and taken to a different place to be collected. There's no chance for question sharing as that would be an appeals nightmare.
Someone asked if they'd have access to mobiles. Um...no. It's an invigilated exam. Doing that would get you disqualified. No phones allowed.

[chameleon43]

OP there really is no issue here at all. All grammar school areas have the same exam that is sat by candidates over a few days. There is zero interest in posting exam content on line - and there is no evidence I can see of it ever having gone 'viral'.

If your dc has just sat the exam, why on earth would you be interested about posting the content online so that other kids can do well?

Please correct me if I'm wrong and send a link to any thread where the content of this weekend's exams has been discussed in detail.

[PumpkinPie9]

Zombie thread

[namechangedtoday15]

OP Having been through the entrance exam ordeal last year, I can understand how difficult it is for you.

But I do think you are making a mountain out of a molehill.

Does the boy who gave you the information know that you have passed it on - as the boy's parent, I'd be very worried he would get into serious trouble for doing that (even if it was reliable)?

In the scenario you describe, I think you are over-estimating the ability of someone to remember the exact question (i.e. the word and all the various options you'd need to choose from as the matching / opposite meaning etc) and completing under estimating the impact sitting in a car would have saying to little Johnny minutes before he goes into the test "this is the poem that will come up - lets go through every word to make sure you understand it etc". What if he doesn't know the words you're trying to drill into him (and he panics)? What if he gets into the test and its not the poem that you found on your phone just using the title (and he panics)? What happens if (even if he knows the words and the poem is correct) he just feels under enormous pressure because its so important to you that you cheated?

That would be massively unsettling for 99% of children about to sit the exam - and you know what, even if he did get those extra 5 marks that knowing 5 words would generate, he'd probably be so stressed he'd lose 5 marks elsewhere.

And FWIW, I have boy/girl twins who sat last year - don't have the scenario that you describe here, but agree with everyone else that the information I got out of them after the exam would not have been helpful to anyone else sitting.

[namechangedtoday15]

Whoops, hadn't realised it was a zombie thread! Doh!

[Junb]

The thread remains relevant to this year's Slough Consortium tests...including the AM and PM sittings.

[PettsWoodParadise]

In Kent they have two separate days. One on a Thursday and one on the Saturday. It is in no-ones interest to share the test content. Even if they were to waste time taking notes which would be silly to waste time helping someone else when it might jeopardise your spot.

[DibbySound]

DD sat the Berks exam Saturday morning and she couldn't recall a single question from it. I think it's so fast paced and there's so many questions it's all they can do to answer them in the time given, let alone memorise them so someone else in the afternoon session can cheat!

[MumTryingHerBest]

DibbySound Fri 16-Sep-16 17:50:48 DD sat the Berks exam Saturday morning and she couldn't recall a single question from it.

My DC remembered a fair few but everyone we know sat at the same time.

[helenwilson]

My daughter sat the 11+ at Kendrick on Sat and could remember a lot of it, I do think she would've been able to pass on vocab information if asked. Vocab is the area where people are most likely to gain an advantage, it's hard to pass on maths and NVR. So actually, despite people moaning, I do have some sympathy for the op (albeit a zombie thread) because it would be reasonably straightforward to share. The children were released from Kendrick between 11:45-12:00 and the afternoon sitting were just around the corner - it did cross my mind how easy it would be. However nothing is perfect, we live right on the edge of catchment and didn't know anybody else sitting as most children from dds primary are well out of catchment.

Please note that no content should be discussed online, you are definitely shooting yourself in the foot in terms of late sitters.....

[nicp123]

You sound very paranoid!
Firstly, I believe that an 11 years old child will need to have a very good photographic memory to remember exactly pages and pages of content.
Secondly, candidates are not allowed in the exam room with electronic devices. They need clear pencil cases and only a bottle of water allow next to them and invigilators are keeping their eyes on each other and the candidates!
Exam papers are electronically numbered and collected in order, then checked by the Chief Invigilator; therefore, papers cannot be nicked by anybody. Candidates won't be able to leave unless all papers are accounted for.
After the exam, fatigue kicks in and the candidates will hardly remember the questions!
Invigilators or staff members are not allowed to go leisurely over the exam papers, take photos or share any content!
Every spare exam paper will be shredded before the exam and papers of the absentees will be officially labelled during the exam, registered & taken away to the Chief Marker by the Invigilators in charge.
In my opinion you are over reacting!
11+ exams have been taking place for decades; therefore, procedures are in place to safeguard content confidentiality.
In our area the afternoon's sessions content of papers is different than the morning one.
I believe if you have trust issues you can ask for clarifications from those in charge of the centre in question.

[nicp123]

Ops! Zombie thread!