You will find my latest article on the crisis, entitled Coronavirus Ramblings on the Blog pages. The enclosure here contains excerpts from Instructions to Schools relating to the Kent Test, relevant Minutes from the July KCC Cabinet Committee Meeting and a Report to the meeting of the Cabinet Committee responsible for education on 22nd September. A previous article looks at government expectations for those organising grammar school selection tests, including some picked up by KCC .
Children who are taken ill during testing should be withdrawn from the exam room. If they recover rapidly (eg: from brief temporary distress or nausea) they can take any tests they have not already begun away from the rest of the group. If Covid-19 is suspected, they can be tested after the quarantine period.
Children who are ill or unavoidably absent on the test day may take the tests on their return if the school can accommodate this. Arrangements will not be made to test children on a different day if their families have booked a term-time holiday.
Children who are self-isolating will need to take the test when they return to school. Schools are asked to allow pupils at least one full school day to settle back into the learning environment before testing takes place, but to avoid significant further delay.
Where all registered pupils in a class are required to self isolate due to a confirmed Covid-19 case within their school bubble you may retain the necessary test materials for pupils. Schools are asked to allow pupils at least one full school day to settle back into the learning environment before testing takes place, but to avoid significant further delay.
Where all registered pupils in a Year Group are required to self isolate due to a confirmed Covid-19 case within their school bubble Schools are asked to allow pupils at least one full school day to settle back into the learning environment before testing takes place, but to avoid significant further delay. Schools may wish to consider whether local arrangements could be made for pupils to be tested during half term, to reduce overall disruption. If you want an absentee to take the tests and to have access to a Head Teacher Assessment should their scores fall short of the threshold, you will need to test them no later than 29 October.
Apart from the extensive security issues with large numbers of pupils inevitably taking the Test late, there is no mention of or empathy towards the potential effect on ten year olds in an important event in their lives of taking the test almost immediately after disruption caused by illness or self-isolation. There will also those who feel ill, and are sent straight back into the test as soon as they feel better; how will they respond? I feel especially sorry for those parents who missed registering for the Test because of the stresses of the pandemic back in June, and others I am sure who feel unable to face the risk of sending their children in to take the Kent Test on the 15th October. Sadly, there are no concessions for these children, and they will have to make late entries to individual schools as explained here.
Further, as I have argued previously, assuming the automatic pass rate of 19/20% of the cohort is maintained as implied, there will be no additional places. The only primary schools with evidence to support the allocation of the remaining 6% are likely to be from the private sector, so panellists will be struggling to prioritise. They could give the majority of places to PP children as a principle, but because of the limited number of places available, other children with strong potential but no evidence will lose out. KCC has not yet indicated how the process will work, but there needs to be a radical change from the current arrangements that lay stress on recent work submitted, standardised test results over the previous year and performance measures, none of which are likely to be available for most students. Instead, the Minutes of the July Meeting record that; 'Mr Long stated that if scores in the Kent Test were lower overall, the Kent Test’s pass mark could be set slightly lower than usual to achieve roughly the same number of children who were assessed suitable for grammar through the test'. i.e. there will be no change in the automatic pass rate which is the key figure, rather than the pass mark. In answer to a question about the Kent Test ‘Mr Long also referred to the system of headteacher assessments in Kent as well as the Kent Test to award places in grammar schools to children who headteachers assessed as suitable, even if they may not have scored highly in the test, this was another tool that schools could use to address inequality or unfairness’ but, as explained above and in previous articles, with no clues as to how the tool could work by excluding pupils with stronger academic evidence where it exists.
Also, in the Minutes of the KCC Cabinet Committee Meeting of 13th July, the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, Mr Long, in a specific reference to the Kent Test ‘referred to the delayed Kent Test assessment until 15th October (17th October for out-county applicants), allowing children additional time to settle once they returned to school and stated that whilst a month’s delay would not entirely remedy the loss of education during the lockdown period, it was considered to be the most effective change which could be made’. In other words, nothing else is being considered. The Minutes give a long and unconvincing explanation as to why these deferred Test dates are still earlier than the government’s advice proposes (see previous article).
In answer to a question about the Kent Test he ‘acknowledged the significant need to address disadvantages and educational inequalities and reassured Committee Members that Kent County Council would do all that was practical and possible to address all forms of disadvantage’. It is currently unclear what if anything has been done to address these acknowledged disadvantages.
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Some protective measures in the guidance principally intended for test centres are reproduced below in case they are helpful to larger schools. These include:
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The first of these items is clearly a matter for school management. The second and third will indeed be challenges for headteachers and test centre managers, the latter facing large numbers of families unknown to them and over whom they have no authority. Some parents can and will stand back from the crowd but others will quite reasonably be anxious and keen to get their children settled. Presumably, KCC will have to pay all the additional bills for testing OOC children, including those for deep cleaning. Good luck to all involved! See comment below.
4.27.Kent Test: In July the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills took the decision to delay the Kent Test by one month and extend parental preferences from four to six. That was it, although there may and should have been questions from Committee members yet to be reported.
As I have argued many times before, sadly Kent County Council has betrayed ordinary families and those on Pupil Premium whose children are educated in Kent primary schools, by its total failure to deliver on its commitment 'to do all that was practical and possible to address all forms of disadvantage’.
