Transfer Test* Support* AQE 2016-2017

neveranymoney

We've done the same, Bambi1980. Someone on FB, who's child sat the AQE last year did the same and her child's score of 105 =80% raw score and the child's friend with a different birthday got 100 with a raw score of 79%, outrageous!

RikM

That's because of the way the standardisation works(?)...

I believe it's based on comparing kids within a time period (2 weeks?), not strictly by age. So two kids with close birthdays should be grouped together, but another kid just a little older would be compared to a completely different set of kids. That could be an advantage or disadvantage, depending in the calibre of kids within that timeslice.

I think it's a flawed approach because it produces anomalies like the one described.

May100

Had meeting with head. sat
Choices Friends, Wallace, Banbridge, Dromore.
Now we are going to forget about it until May.


Last year I looked at all the scores / averages etc until I was blue in the face. I have learnt for next time. Going to just do the school set work / a little extra / some over holidays and play it down. We got too into the scores/ percentages and listened to school gate chat. My DS got obsessed with test scores v % and was stressed out by time of the real paper and he dropped at least 5 points from where he was.

neveranymoney

We've had our meeting to fill in the forms as well and right off the bat, the head teacher said that going by sons previous scores and what others got that were achieving the same marks as him, he should have scored higher but we are where we are. Very frustrating for me as the parent but son is happy and that's all that matters.

The scores have been exceptionally high at our primary school and I was given ' a 95% chance at 1st choice' with us having a sibling already at the school and coming from a feeder primary etc.

I didn't have to fill anything in in the section C box as all of the above fits criteria so it's a waiting game now for us.

Carebear82

Hi all! Daughter got 102 and we are happy enough but was hoping over 107 to secure first preference as last year the lowest score they took was 102 and that might have been a prep pupil so im hoping less applications with lower scores apply this year to get her in!!! But if not we are happy with the second place grammar school just be nicer if she could go with her friends to first preference school. We have has meeting with principal and placed our schools so now a waiting game till May!!

Mumof3boysNI

Form in and we have put down Friends' and Wallace. So glad the whole thing is over. Time to move on and look forward to expensive uniforms and pe kits!

Bambi1980

Regarding scoring - I don't believe it's as simple as saying 80% average = aqe score of x but 79% average is an unfair lower Aqe score by a few points. My understanding is each test is marked and your child is judged against everyone from that month per test and given a score plus or minus 100 per test and then the best two + or - scores are averaged for your final AQE score. Ie - a paper where your child scored 80% may not have actually been his or her best paper as the average may have been high and you may just be on the average - ie 100 for that paper whereas if your child scored 75% in a paper and once it was worked out as + or - 100 he could have been well above the average for that paper, ie 105 and so on. I think this is how they do it and it makes sense for standardisation - not just as simple as higher scores = higher aqe score - much more complex. Does that make sense lol - I know what I mean

neveranymoney

I know where you are coming from and agree that it is standardised against peers of same month age but a score of 80% is still a raw score of 80% and if you were the parent of the child that scored 1% lower in raw terms but lost a grammar place due to a drop in the AQE score of 5 marks, you would be spitting feathers.
Add to that the borderline scores are at the mercy of schools popularity that particular year and it is a very strange system indeed.

Bambi1980

Totally hear what you are saying re the fairness of it - in the 2015 practice papers, my dd got 66%, 77% and 83% but, the way it works, if she had done it that year, you never know, it could have been the 66% that was actually her better score in her month. Bizarre!! The raw scores won't tell us much more really other than give a guide for future kids as to the scoring their kids need to achieve. We have one who'll go through it in two years' time and i will know if he is hitting around my daughter's actual scores, he'll be ok. When i looked at what my daughter would have got from raw scores others posted in 2015 and 2014, i knew she had potential to get between 103-109 in those years and she was in this zone this year (104) so I found it useful and reflective. Plus someone also said on the forum if you take their PIE and PIM average and take away about 10 marks their AQE score should be around that as only the more able children sit it and again we were in the correct zone for that so I, dare I say it, think the system has, in our experience, actually been reflective enough. Bizarre though...

Suzuki1

I've been following this thread for quite a while but haven't posted.


My daughter scored 109 and whilst we were happy she was devastated. She had been getting over 90% in all the practice papers and other children who were getting the same as her in practice papers were in all in the 115 minimum bracket. Tutor thought she was set for 120! I realise she is a lot better off than some but she still cried her wee eyes out despite our best efforts as she is so hard on herself.


She is a July birthday and other children we know with July birthdays also haven't faired as well as you would have expected. Wondering if this is anyone else's experience? Be interesting to see the raw scores.


My son is doing the AQE next year so still interested at how fair it is.


One query I do have is the robustness of the sample size for standardisation. If less than 8,000 do the test, you are talking around 666 children per month. I'm not a statistician but from what I know this would never be considered a statistically robust sample size. What do they do if one month presents an anomaly?? For example March average randomly happens to be higher than every other month?