Common Entrance CE 13+ Exams Independent Prep Schools 2017

[platinum3]

Pupils at our Prep school recently sat their CEs and results have been coming through. Some pupils were given the chance to improve their finished papers on the same day as the exam and given advice to neaten them up, where they could pick up extra marks and so on before papers were sent off to senior schools. This has made some pupils, parents and staff uneasy for all sorts of reasons. My question is, is this normal practice at Prep schools and do the exam board and senior schools know it goes on? Is this how schools such as ours can boast a 100% pass rate and subsequent acceptance into senior schools?

Platinum3.
Is this school in the North Midlands?

BadgerB and Platinum3 I think we should all wear a red rose in our hair in the school car park today!

That is disgraceful.... Definitely not usual

Hello Fertleby - I managed to read your message before you withdrew it. I understand your caution fully. I don't think it identified you in any way, as there will be many similar-sounding families in Preps across the country. Without me going into detail, I think you just need to possibly remove one or two words only about your situation. I do hope you post your message again because it adds something important to the thread.

Hello BadgerB - When I thought through my concerns before first posting this thread, I decided I needed to be careful not to identify the school. I have touched on some of the reasons for this in my previous messages. I won't answer your question therefore with a confirmation or a denial, which I feel sure you will understand. I will say it's not one of the London Preps, and it's definitely 'North of Watford', as they say. I would be very interested to hear your experiences and thoughts on this thread BadgerB, and I'm sure others here would be too.

Looking back through all the messages, we have directly relevant opinions and experiences from 14 different people. Ten seem to be saying it doesn't happen to their knowledge, 4 saying it does happen to their knowledge (3 current, one past), and all 14 saying it shouldn't happen. Not a scientific research survey by any means, but I wonder if this MN snapshot is a fair reflection of the situation across Preps.

I would suspect that secondaries which these preps regularly send to soon become aware that the papers they mark are not a true reflection of ability. In the longer term it may even cause a backlash against their candidates and do them a disservice.

Hello LIZS - Yes, I agree with you, as it seems do several others here, with Missingthepoint giving an example of that actually happening with one school and seniors. One of my first questions was, do senior schools know this happens at Preps and accept or encourage it, or would they be horrified.

Apologies, timetositdown gives that example, not Missingthepoint.

On a lighter note, any red roses in mums hair spotted in any Prep school car parks this morning?! That did make me smile in the middle of all this serious stuff. Thank you Fertleby.

I have marked CE papers. This is definitely not meant to happen. It could be very misleading if it dramatically altered the results. It is also morally dubious. However, so many schools now give a provisional place based on pre-testing, that there is no longer the same level of competition at CE - it is more of a formality for setting. It is also worth remembering that CE papers are marked by the school the child hopes to go to. This means there is moderation within the school, but not nationally. For humanities subjects there is some room for flexibility in the mark schemes and, in the past when children failed to get their first choice and the paper was sent on to the second choice, the mark would often go up when marked by the less selective school. These schools tend to have a more nuanced and pastoral approach to admissions and would let the child in even if there was a blip in one exam. They simply want to know that the child will cope in that senior school environment. My hunch is that the prep school simply couldn't intervene enough to mask such problems and, if it did, it would get a bad reputation for sending children who can't cope, so would do itself a disservice.

Hello Genevieva - Thank you. That all makes perfect sense and seems to be how things should be. I do not of course know how many marks the children who were called back potentially gained on their papers with their second attempts. As mentioned in previous posts, it was advice to improve presentation, a marking scheme given indicating where extra marks could be picked up. I can check again about pupils being told to fill in any gaps. I hope no child was actually told which answers were wrong or heaven forbid told the right answers, but I can check on this also. In every exam in my years of experience, pens had to be put down at the end of the time, papers were collected in, nothing more was seen or heard from them until the marking had been done, and those marks were final unless a formal appeal was made. If the results were not as needed, it was time to think again about the next chapter in life or sit them again. I doubt if many marks were gained by what happened at our Prep. But it still should not have happened and I and others feel very disappointed in our school. Is the cheating better if it is in a good cause and did not make a great deal of difference to the end results? It is a difficult one when thinking about the futures of some of the children involved, but I think it is wrong to teach children that it is ok to cheat. Is it helping to produce the next generation of corrupt politicians and bankers? Like others above have said, will it trouble the children involved and play on their minds? And as others say, will it damage our Prep's reputation with senior schools and the prospects of future pupils?

Hello BadgerB - Thank you for your PM. I hope that you feel able to put at least some of what you heard in a post on the thread.

That's shocking!! I have heard the school has done this before. It needs looking into.

Hello Newtongirls - Thank you for your message. It would be helpful to hear more information about what happened in the situation you mention if you can give any. I do agree that it is shocking and needs looking into, (wherever it is happening and for however long it has been happening).

Thank you to everyone for your messages, thoughts, opinions and experiences on this thread. One of the saddest aspects of the situation for some of us is that some of the pupils and adults (parents and staff) have really not seemed as relieved and celebratory as one would expect at this point in the children's school lives, the school year and after Common Entrance results. There is an awkwardness and degree of embarrassment present about the exams and moving on to senior schools which is hardly surprising in the circumstances and also a great shame.

I feel sorry for the children. It's a bad lesson to learn and maybe the thought will always be there that they didn't really deserve their place and are on the back foot at school.

DS is just finishing yr6. All I can say is for all the inde senior schools we have looked at, all of them have used either (or both) the ISEB pre-test and/or a school self written admissions test.

I think CE is becoming redundant as an admissions test. More of a keep the kids focused until end yr8 and setting for senior schools.

I think CE 'pass rates' (for individual schools) are used as an academic marker to match child and senior school i.e. 70% compared to 55%

Not sure how it would work out if the child passed the pre test and was offered a place to then bottom out with CE. Surely if you pass the pre test of the school (with whatever mark they require) then you are of their required standard. If the child does poorly in CE, were they having a bad day? Would be interesting to know how many children were rejected because of CE result alone.

I suppose a sudden drop in ability could be due to paper tampering or excessive tutoring??? Both don't bode well for the child coping in senior school.

At least this is how it's all looking to me.

I think in our case it was the headmaster who brought this culture with him rather than it being about the school. No one dares say anything for fear of reprisals.

One of the children said that they had been put in an impossible position. That says it all really.

The inappropriate behaviour from the HM is longstanding. He has taken parents gifts of shooting licences, trips in helicopters, donations to build libraries in exchange for head boy / girl positions. He's bullied staff into early retirement and the list goes on. The CE exams are the tip of the ice berg I'm afraid.

Maybe the children whose papers were 'improved' were the offspring of the helicopter owners?

What strikes me most about the CE situation this year at our school is that little or no attempt was made to hide it. That is partly why I started the thread, because the lack of secrecy made some of us genuinely wonder whether telling CE candidates to go back and improve their exam papers is normal practice in Preps and we had just not been aware of it until this year. The HT first approached the pupils in a whole group setting, freshly completed wad of CE papers in hand, and led some of them off to do their papers again in plain sight. This was repeated by another senior member of staff on another day. The rejected first attempt CE papers were left openly sticking out of bins. Gaps had needed to be filled, extra marks picked up across the papers, presentation improved, whole papers rewritten. The pupils were not told not to talk about it. Involved adults talked about it openly in front of uninvolved adults as if nothing at all was out of the ordinary or wrong about it.

But plenty of stunned, baffled and troubled pupils and staff did talk about it, to each other and to their parents and relatives. The general reaction mirrors that in the reply messages above - that it is wrong on so many levels and it is cheating. An honourable and trustworthy person with a long association with our school was asked about it in strict confidence. Their shocked and instant response of 'But that's corrupt!' was completely telling. Former staff were instantly reeled off who were too decent to ever have been involved in such a thing.

So why is it happening at our school now? Has it happened before this year? Have we all just been missing something? Why was no attempt made to conceal it if it is so wrong? Is it happening equally at other schools? Are we making a fuss over nothing?

OK. So at our school we are being told it is completely normal and healthy, done only to help the children, and happens at every Prep. If you believe that is not the case at your Prep, as most posters seem to do, perhaps you could check with your own HT this week? We would be very interested to know what response everyone gets.

Hi speak out mum. It is likely to just be one school. the Hm did it at his previous school further up north I've heard too. It's down to the individual headmaster to take the responsibility. Do you think he will??