Displaying items by tag: Kent Test

Tuesday, 16 June 2020 20:04

Kent and Medway Tests 2020: Delay to October Likely. Pupil Premium Children Betrayed

17th June: A flurry of media interviews, including KMTV here, focusing on the Medway Test.

Updated with Reference to Medway Test

Kent primary school headteachers are now being consulted by KCC on the nature of assessment for grammar school selection this year. Whilst there are various options, the key element of the consultation is whether to delay the Kent Test until mid-October, with consequent changes to the admission process as outlined in a previous article.

Medway Council has also announced its decision to delay the Medway Test until October 13th and 14th. See below.

Sadly there is no consideration or mention of the position of disadvantaged and Pupil Premium children, who currently make up 10% of the Kent Year Seven grammar school cohort, and 11% in Medway. It is clear that the nature of any decisions in line with this consultation and the Medway decision to delay will not only strongly disadvantage the chances of these disadvantaged children in the selection process, at the expense of those who have been intensively coached or from private schools. In a previous article I wrote:

There is therefore a huge responsibility on Local Authorities, whatever selection method is finally agreed on, to ensure that these percentages are at least maintained.

Under the Kent proposal and Medway decision the reverse would be true. Grammar schools would inevitably see a considerable increase in numbers of children from private schools and those heavily tutored, at the expense of those who have suffered from a limited education since March 23^rd through no fault of their own. In Medway this will certainly be the case.

Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education has said: "We’re going to be looking at working with local authorities who have grammar school systems in their area as to how best we can ensure that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are not disadvantaged as they look at taking the 11-plus in the future.” There is no sign whatever of any intervention or even awareness of this pledge in the Kent consultation or Medway decision. This is an abject failure by both Authorities to honour this pledge.

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Monday, 15 June 2020 11:12

Proposal for the Kent Test 2020 (Personal)

REMEMBER TO REGISTER FOR THE KENT TEST BY 1ST JULY

Updated several times, most recently here.

Kent County Education Officers have still not yet released details of the Kent Test arrangements for 2020, but I have a proposal that appears to cover the key issues. Quite simply:

1) The Kent Test goes ahead as normal on September 10^th for Kent Primary School Pupils and September 12^th for those attending Out of County schools. I am confident that even if there is a second wave of Coronavirus, a high proportion of those registered for the Kent Test will wish and be able to take part under the prevailing safety regulations with schools making every effort to facilitate this. However, instead of the pass scores set to select the normal 20% of pupils in the cohort, my proposal is to reduce this possibly to as low as 12.5%.

2) Expand the procedure for Headteacher Assessment to identify a further 12.5% of the cohort, who registered for the test, whether or not they took it, bringing the selective pass rate back to its normal 25%. Place greater responsibility on primary school headteachers. For example, as I have suggested previously, give them an indicative figure for their school, based on the average number of pupils found selective by both routes over the previous three years. The HTA Panel should then rely strongly on these recommendations in the light of the limited evidence that will be available in most cases to support a case. It is possible that they could simply be contained in a ranking order.

This procedure has the strong advantage that it broadly follows the current regulations and so could be introduced without too much difficulty. It also caters for the up to 5,000 out of county children who usually take the Kent Test. They can qualify via the direct route, or else, and less likely, also use the HTA procedure with the support of their headteachers.

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Tuesday, 19 May 2020 18:55

The Kent 11 Plus and Coronavirus: Part Two

Aspects of the current situation with regard to the Kent Test are that:

The date for the Kent Test is still currently set for September. To change it would require government approval. KCC is in discussion with government about an aspect of the Kent Test, presumably about a possible postponement.
There is no guarantee that any change of date would see the county free of Coronavirus, or schools operating normally.
There are no arrangements in place for children who are: unable to take the Kent Test because their schools are not open, or cannot provide facilities; or whose parents or schools judge it is unsafe to participate; or who are ill in large numbers.
The School Admissions Code of Practice requires Admission Authorities to ‘take all reasonable steps to inform parents of the outcome of selection tests before the closing date for secondary applications on 2^nd November so as to allow parents time to make an informed choice of school’.
The five thousand out of county children who normally take the Kent Test each year still need somewhere to sit it where it can be independently invigilated. In the past this has taken place in obliging Kent schools.

As of today (19th May), Kent County County Council has provided no further information about the date of Testing. This is not a criticism as I don't see how they can with the current uncertainties. Registration for the Kent Test remains for a month from 1^st June.

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Monday, 24 February 2020 07:05

Kent Test for Entry in September 2020: Further Analysis

You will find the parallel Medway Test article here.

This article follows on from my previous: Kent Test 2019; Initial Results and Comment, published in October. The main change since last year is that that the marks required for a pass in the Test have been raised, requiring candidates to score 110 marks on each of the three sections - English, mathematics, and reasoning – along with an aggregate score across the three sections of at least 330 . Please note that the change remains as always to simply aim for 21% of the age cohort in Kent schools to be successful. In no way does it suggest the Test was more difficult so any attempt to argue this at an appeal for a grammar school place will be unsuccessful.

Headlines are:

The proportion of passes for Kent school children has risen from 25.7% to 26.6%, made up of 20.1% automatic passes with a further 6.5% Head Teacher Assessment (almost a quarter of the total).
Boys are well ahead on automatic test passes for the first time since the Test was changed in 2014, at 21.3% passes for boys to 18.9% for girls, and also in total.
Girls are well ahead in Head Teacher Assessments, (HTA)s, with 7.3% of all girls being found selective by this route, as against 5.8% of boys.
Unsurprisingly, Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks have the highest proportion of passes, followed this year by Dartford and then Canterbury.
As in previous years, the highest proportion of HTA success is in Canterbury, with 10% of the cohort for both boys and girls bring found selective, along with girls in Swale. but going on last year’s pattern, only around 15% of whom will apply and be offered places in Kent grammars.
For the first time in many years there is a fall in the number of out of county Children taking the Kent Test, and a parallel fall of 8.5% in the number being found selective, to 2,768.:

For more detail on each of these items, see below.

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Thursday, 21 November 2019 20:22

Kent Catholic Academies Banned from Hosting Kent Test

Update: In a public admonishment, the Archbishop of Southwark has overturned the ban, describing the decision as one 'that does not have universal validity, is not supported Canonically from the Bishops’ Conference and has clearly been inoperable for many years'.

Following on from this article Schoolsweek has explored the situation including a reply from the KCSP which contains some very strange ideas, see below.

The Kent Catholic Schools Partnership, an Academy Trust which runs 19 Roman Catholic primary schools, has instructed all these schools not to provide facilities for their children to sit the Kent Test in their own school. This means that those children will be disadvantaged by not taking the Test in familiar surroundings like other Kent children, and will have to travel to another venue arranged by KCC which could be miles away from their homes. This move to sectarianism would appear to be just bloody-minded to many. For the Catholic Church as a whole is clearly not opposed to academic selection, supporting three Catholic grammar schools in other parts of the country and providing many private Catholic academically selective schools for those Catholics and others who are wealthy enough to pay, both in Kent and elsewhere in the country. These two categories are also operating in clear contradiction of ‘the church’s social teachings’ as set out below.

However, as the following analysis shows, the only children this decision will actually affect are those frightened off from taking the test because of social disadvantage or lacking the confidence to take on the church, or else who fail the Kent Test solely because they have been disadvantaged by taking it in unfamiliar surroundings. How proud the Catholic Church must be.

This story was first aired by Radio Kent and I was happy to contribute.

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Thursday, 17 October 2019 06:00

Kent Test 2019; Initial Results and Comment

You will find a more detailed analysis of the Kent Test for entry in 2020, here.

Kent Test results have been published with the pass mark somewhat higher than last year. This is no reflection on the difficulty of the Test as the pass marks will have been set as always to identify 21% of Kent children to be automatically selected. This year an automatic pass has been awarded to candidates scoring 110 on each of the three sections - English, mathematics, and reasoning – along with an aggregate score across the three sections of at least 330. Further details will follow as I receive them, but you will find for reference a full analysis of the 2018 Kent Test here. An additional number of children will have been found to be of grammar school standard through what is called the Headteacher Assessment, targeted to be 5% of the total cohort. You will find full details of the whole Kent Selection process here. Overall, these two processes last year yielded passes for 25.2% of Kent children in the age cohort.

Although there is an overall fall in then number of children taking the Kent Test, this will certainly be down to a sharp fall in Out of County (OOC) candidates. For, whilst there is a rise of exactly 300 in the number of Kent children being assessed as suitable for grammar school for 2020 over last year, there has been a fall in the number of OOC children passing for the first time in many years . I explore this further below, along with sections on Sources of Information and Advice on admissions and appeals, Out of County Children, and Pressure Points. In a second article below, I look at implications of the change of pass mark, especially any impact on super selective schools.

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Thursday, 17 October 2019 05:00

Change of Pass Scores in the Kent Test for entry to Grammar School in 2020

The scores for achieving success in the Kent Test have risen substantially this year, the biggest shift since the new Test was introduced in 2014.

To be awarded an automatic pass, candidates will have had to have achieved a score of 110 on each of the three sections - English, mathematics, and reasoning – along with an aggregate score across the three sections of the Test. The change of scores will make NO difference to the number of children passing, as the pass mark is set to achieve a target of awarding 21% of children an automatic place and there will be no difference this year, as I will be able to confirm later when further details are available.

For children applying to those schools that select some or all of their pupils by high scores, the effect of the change is unpredictable (so please don’t ask) although I explore this further below.

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Monday, 22 July 2019 05:02

Further Analysis of Kent Test Results for Admission in September 2019

I apologise to the many browsers who have asked over the past six months when this annual article was to be published. There have been a multitude of delays and I have only recently received the authorised data from KCC.

The table below shows that almost exactly 25% of Kent children were found selective by the Kent procedure, with the pass mark presumably set to fit in with the expected 6% of children found selective (nearly a quarter of the total) through the Head Teacher Assessment procedure.

Possibly the main news headline should be that for the best chance of success at the Kent Test from a state school, you should be a girl living in Canterbury or a boy living in Sevenoaks. 7 schools saw over half of the cohort found selective, the highest proportions being at St Thomas' Catholic Primary, Sevenoaks (68%), followed by Gateway Primary Academy, Dartford (61%), Ethelbert Road, Faversham (60%); Blean, Canterbury (57%) and Selling CofE, Faversham (56%).

For the first time in many years the proportions of boys and girls being found selective are almost identical, 25.3% and 25.0% respectively, girls being on top for several years previously.

Canterbury has by some way the highest proportion of successful HTAs at 11% of the whole cohort, driven by 14% of all girls being found selective in this way, almost half of the total grammar assessments in Canterbury at 30% of the cohort.

There is a further increase in the proportion of children on Pupil Premium being found selective to 10.3% of the total. 40% of these are via HTA, as against 25% for all pupils showing that the system is supportive of those children, contrary to some views expressed elsewhere. Further details on PP below.

40% of the 427 children with Pupil Premium were selected through Headteacher Assessment, having not reached the automatic pass mark. Government policies to improve the PP rate of grammar school selection by lowering the pass mark are therefore irrelevant in Kent (but not Medway)

The number of Out of County children tested and the number of passes continue to rise inexorably, by 330 this year to 3065, but with a number of Kent grammar schools reprioritising to give preference to Kent children, the number eventually being offered places for 2019 admission fell to 399, down from 454 in 2018.

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Kent Test

Thursday, 23 August 2018 06:43

Kent Test: Cost of Out of County Applications

Data provided by Kent County Council shows that direct expenditure to provide facilities for out of county candidates for the Kent Test was approximately £100,000 for admission in September 2018. This works out at approximately £200 for each pupil offered a place.

In addition, there was a large but unquantifiable sum for KCC officer time at an extremely busy time as they oversee the Kent Test process across the county. The additional demands include managing the process of organising the 4832 out of county applicants across the 38 additional centres set up for testing these candidates, and responding to the issues and queries many of these applicants inevitably incur.

All this to produce 465 offers of places, less than one in ten of those who applied. Some of these would not in any case have been taken up as some families received more favourable offers, perhaps closer to their homes.

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Tuesday, 15 November 2016 07:14

Further analysis of Kent test results for Admission September 2017

I have now had further opportunity to look at data relating to the recent Kent Test outcomes for Admission in September 2017, with a summary of the statistics below. This article expands my initial lookat the 2016 Kent Test results, written in October, which should be read in conjunction with the article. The figures do not match exactly, as adjustments and late tests have produced changes.

Headlines are:

A fall in the proportion of Kent children taking the Kent Test from 64% to 60%, and a 9% fall in the number of children put forward for Headteacher Assessments (HTA).
Girls are still ahead on both automatic test passes since the Test was changed in 2014, and also in HTAs, but the gaps have narrowed.
As in previous years, the highest proportion of HTA success is in East Kent, the lowest in West Kent.
The fall in HTA successes has resulted in an overall fall in success from 26.1% to 25.7%, nearer the target of 25%.
There is an increase in the proportion of children on Pupil Premium found selective to 9.1% of the Kent state school total passes,brought about through headteachers recognising ability in the HTA, where coaching is irrelevant.

amherst Ethelbert Road

Schools with the highest proportion of Kent successes are split between East and West: Amherst Junior (Sevenoaks); Ethelbert Road (Faversham); Ramsgate Holy Trinity CofE; and Claremont (Tunbridge Wells).
Another leap in Out of County Passes, around 80% of whom will not take up places.

For more details see below:

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