AQE Exam Results

Ex-Spendaholic

I emailed asking what the quintiles etc meant, how they equated etc. I also asked if they could give me a breakdown of scores/quintiles achieved by kids in our top choice school and also for the whole of East Belfast. The response is below:

We estimate that the top two quintiles are the equivalent to the old A grade (the 25% who got an A was based on the total P7 population: this however equated to the top 40% of those who sat the test). The third quintile would equate to B1 and B2s, however B2s would also appear at the top of quintile 4.

There are approximately 1400 candidates in each quintile, the top mark was 128. To get 145 a candidate for a start, would need to have achieved full marks in two assessments. Your son’s score is a very credible one and would be around a B1. Obviously schools are not using grades for admissions and generally are admitting in rank order. I would need to see the criteria of all the schools in which you are interested but I would have though that there is a good chance of a place in most grammar schools.

ni-mum

4,600 places at AQE schools. 7,000 sat the tests. In theory there should be places for the top 65%, ie the first three quintiles and top of the fourth quintile. I know it's not quite that straight forward as in some areas grammars are undersubscribed and take lower grades and in others they're oversubscribed and take only the top marks but I thought the 65% figure was reassuring.

v._interested

also, there will be a slight overlap of children who sat both tests, GL and AQE. This should increase percentages Any views on this?

sallyanny

v._interested wrote: »

also, there will be a slight overlap of children who sat both tests, GL and AQE. This should increase percentages Any views on this?

In Ballymena, there are 2 state grammar schools, one in the AQE group and one in the GL group. Around 470 children sat the tests in each of these schools, and the vast majority of them sat both tests. So we could take at least 400, maybe as many as 450, off the total of 13,700 sitting tests. Are there any other areas in NI where competing schools didn't use the same test? It could add up to quite a significant number

Ardara1

From BBC

The overall results of one of the two post-primary transfer tests in Northern Ireland have been released.
The Post-Primary Transfer Consortium, which mainly consists of Catholic schools, said that out of 6,500 entrants, 3,000 were awarded A grades.
Six hundred got a B1 grade, 658 a B2, 513 a C1, 567 a C2 and 1,164 got a D.
The other exam was organised by the Association for Quality Education, mainly comprised of state schools, which has not yet released its marks.

Lewiss

I have just phoned the AQE office - and they tell me that the top results actually achieved was 128. Hope this helps some of you.

sniffy_2

AKA3 wrote: »

This mirrors my experience. March onwards and particularly June/May children have outperformed very able older children. A concern if you have 2 children with raw scores of 112 and one has been awarded a disproportionately high adjustment. Grades have probably hidden this before. I'm not questioning the issue of adjustment but question the validity if this is a new test without a population norm to adjust against but rather only a group who decided to take the test. I would be interested in the range of additional marks other children received and the statistical validity of applying this adjustment in this circumstance. In traditionally oversubscribed schools this maybe very relevant for the 112 example. If there is no issue with the methods this would be reassuring.To date in real life practices raw scores ranked pupils and therefore it is understandable that many including teachers are a little surprised with the newer rank orders - I acknowledge this maynot be common to all.

My son scored 112, November birthday. I was expecting higher as he always did well in his practice papers. However, primary principal at interview told me that he had got a good solid A. He was 99.9% sure he would get into his school of choice. Until I see the letter on the 29th May I am not taking anything for granted.

bangormum_2

my son got 113 went to c his headmaster yesterday he said that he thinks the cut off point for grammar will start @103 with the rest going down 2 [EMAIL="brothers@the"]brothers@the[/EMAIL] school or distance or free school meals also kids from prep schools . total nightmare for every1 i wish evryone all the best and fingers crossed xx

P.7._teacher

bangor_dad wrote: »

I really worry if you are a P7 teacher as you are clearly sending out a misleading message. Need to get your basic maths books out are revise what quintiles actually mean.

I can assure Bangor Dad that my Maths is fine. :rotfl:(wee anger management course needed!!) I've been at cluster meetings with local primary schools this week and on a board course and the general view is that few kids are in the top two quintiles. My school always scored well in the old 11+ and we found we had relatively few in quintile 1. If the scores are in quintiles then an awful lot of kids must have been in quintile 1 in the NE of the province because they're not down here.

In comparison the GL tests were much more straight forward with a score and a grade. These tests showed the importance of the age differential, similar raw scores were poles apart after the age differential was taken into account.

My advice is to focus on the score and forget about quintiles.

goingnuts1

P.7._teacher wrote: »

I can assure Bangor Dad that my Maths is fine. :rotfl:(wee anger management course needed!!) I've been at cluster meetings with local primary schools this week and on a board course and the general view is that few kids are in the top two quintiles. My school always scored well in the old 11+ and we found we had relatively few in quintile 1. If the scores are in quintiles then an awful lot of kids must have been in quintile 1 in the NE of the province because they're not down here.

In comparison the GL tests were much more straight forward with a score and a grade. These tests showed the importance of the age differential, similar raw scores were poles apart after the age differential was taken into account.

My advice is to focus on the score and forget about quintiles.

P 7 teacher - dare I ask which county your school is in? I only wonder as I have heard of very few scores over 100 in our area - and most of those have been achieved by girls. Since my son did not do anywhere near as well as expected, it would reassuring to hear that scores locally are lower.