Support thread for parents of chilldren sitting the transfer test in 2011

beccasmum

My DS got average of 96% with November birthday which got him 117 so 4% more than a Feb birthday still got him 1 AQE mark less??

RikM

beccasmum wrote: »

My DS got average of 96% with November birthday which got him 117 so 4% more than a Feb birthday still got him 1 AQE mark less??

I have problems with the standardisation method that's been used in the AQE.
I suspect they could have used a method which raised the scores of the younger children rather than the bodge that was used.
After all, I would think that the performance difference due to age is fairly well understood, so it ought to be just a matter of applying a sliding scale, by age, to anyone younger than the oldest child in the year.

As most of the admission schemes seem to involve taking strict descending order of score, there is surely no need to try and standardize to a 100 average (except that it hides differences in the standard of the test from year to year).

flymetothemoon_2

beccasmum wrote: »

My DS got average of 96% with November birthday which got him 117 so 4% more than a Feb birthday still got him 1 AQE mark less??

Hey Beccasmum

Your DS did brilliantly but I am shocked that with 96% he only just made it into Quintile 1 (ie: 113+). How on earth can this be right????? Surely he should have been awarded a higher AQE score. My mind is boggled cos I know that 2 of my DS's classmates (who were always high flyers) got AQE scores of 121 and 122 in 2010 and at the time, when parents thought this was out of 145, we all wondered why they hadn't scored higher. I know one of them has an August birthday. Another girl in the class who's practice tests were always in the high 90s and with a November birthday got 116 (just into Quintile 1) and again parents were expecting her to do better????? It looks as though only the younger children with a very high 90s score will actually get the 123+ AQE marks???

beccasmum

I don't really understand standardisation but it does seem that my DS would have had to score 99 o/o to get over 120. Ah well at least I know he did well and should cope with grammar school.

Third_Time_Mum

This is our first (and last) time going through AQE, our two elder children having been through the CCEA transfer procedure. I too have problems getting my head round the age standardisation. Under the old CCEA transfer procedure there was a quarter of a mark added on for every month a child was born after July so that a child born in June would have three marks more than one with a July birthday. At least it was transparent and everyone knew where they were. But this AQE system of putting children into categories according to their age in months at the time they sat the test (see Mumsicle's post on p19) could potentially be very unfair. I am particularly concerned that it has disadvantaged my son who has a 3 July birthday. His score this year was 104, which was lower than expected, though hopefully enough to get him into his first or second choice of school. He would have been one of the few children who were 136 months old at the time of the first test on 12 November (those born between 2 and 12 July). By the second test on 26 November there would have been more children in this category but by the third test on 4 December he would have been one of the very few children who had reached 137 months (those born between 2 and 4 July). According to the information we received from AQE back in October an age adjustment is made for each individual assessment before the overall score is calculated. Does this mean he was only competing against the children born on those 3 days in July? I'm not sure if I've understood all this correctly but it would seem to me that a bright child would have more chance of achieving a higher score if he or she is competing against more people with a broad range of ability. I am concerned that in my son's case the range may have been too narrow and this may have skewed the results.
The same might possibly be the case for children born later in June who don't have many children born after them in the same way as those born early in July don't have many born before them. But having said all this, there was the remark from the head of AQE quoted in an earlier post that the scores had to be standardised differently this year. If this were the case, surely parents should be told how this was done just as we should have been told that there was to be no information given on quintiles this year.
If we continue to have selection I would like to see a return to a government regulated system with one form of assessment for all children as at least this was transparent and accountable. I wonder how many of the grammar schools understand how the AQE standardisation works and that they could be turning away children with higher raw scores than those they have admitted. Certainly the primary schools seem to understand very little about it. At the very least we as parents should be given the information rather than having to request it from AQE.

Pmum

beccasmum wrote: »

My DS got average of 96% with November birthday which got him 117 so 4% more than a Feb birthday still got him 1 AQE mark less??

Did your DS do the test the same year as Rik's?

Could that explain the discrepency?

Also, I'm not at all sure that the age standardisation in the old Transfer Test was quite as simple as adding a quarter of a mark per month.

I think they compared the age profile of each question to see if older kids were more likely to get it right than younger kids and then adjusted the mark so that age was nullified.

Third_Time_Mum

No he did it in November/December 2011. The quarter extra mark for every month was certainly the way it was always explained to us - maybe it was an oversimplification?

Kola

I received my DS raw scores a few weeks ago. His birthday is 18 July and he had 6 marks deducted from is best two scores. I know it wont change the standardised score but I was curious to know his raw score.

flymetothemoon_2

Kola wrote: »

I received my DS raw scores a few weeks ago. His birthday is 18 July and he had 6 marks deducted from is best two scores. I know it wont change the standardised score but I was curious to know his raw score.

Hey Kola

If you don't mind me askin, could you tell us what your DS's AQE score was?

Ta

aqeworrier

Kola wrote: »

AQE sent me his 3 scores Test 1 (46) Test 2 (44) Test 3 (43)

This gave him a standardised score of 84.

My child will be sitting the test this November and I'm really shocked and worried at how high they have to aim - my calculations tell me that your child scored over 77% when the two highest scores are used - to me this is a good score for a 10/11 year old - this really worries me as I was of the impression that a score in the 70 percentages plus would give an AQE score over 100. Do they need to aim for percentages in the 90's? Talk about pressure for the poor kids! :eek: