Mental Secondary School Entrance Exams

[dshl]

I just found out from a talk by a senior authority on school submissions that the schools around me have a banding test and they take a cross-section of ability, meaning they take students from each band according to spaces in each band.

Please someone correct my thinking because this keeps going over and over again in my mind.

The way I see it is a child taking the test has no objective at all as the better or worse they do has no bearing as to whether they get into the school.

For instance if there were more room in the second band would you tell a more smart/academic child to only do 50% of the questions so they can get into the second band and ensure their place in the school? Then once in they can move up?

Sorry this just sounds fucking mental to me. But hey..

 

[Winot]

I just found out from a talk by a senior authority on school submissions that the schools around me have a banding test and they take a cross-section of ability, meaning they take students from each band according to spaces in each band.

Please someone correct my thinking because this keeps going over and over again in my mind.

The way I see it is a child taking the test has no objective at all as the better or worse they do has no bearing as to whether they get into the school.

For instance if there were more room in the second band would you tell a more smart/academic child to only do 50% of the questions so they can get into the second band and ensure their place in the school? Then once in they can move up?

Sorry this just sounds fucking mental to me. But hey..

It’s a way of ensuring a comprehensive intake. You’re overthinking it. I’m assuming you have a child who is about to take the test - just tell them to do the best they can.

 

[dshl]

It’s a way of ensuring a comprehensive intake. You’re overthinking it. I’m assuming you have a child who is about to take the test - just tell them to do the best they can.

It's true that it stuck in my mind since I heard it. But the facts are the facts right.

Sorry to say but it sounds like not 'overthinking' it just means ignore that it's basically insane.

All parents are trying to get their kids into the schools they want especially if they are decent and local. The idea that a child can score higher and their next door neighbour gets in for scoring lower sounds crazy to me.

It's not simply the desire to have a cross-section of ability that constitutes the insanity. It's more that those taking the test have no objective really, if scoring higher can mean they don't get a place.

 

[Winot]

It's true that it stuck in my mind since I heard it. But the facts are the facts right.

Sorry to say but it sounds like not 'overthinking' it just means ignore that it's basically insane.

All parents are trying to get their kids into the schools they want especially if they are decent and local. The idea that a child can score higher and their next door neighbour gets in for scoring lower sounds crazy to me.

It's not simply the desire to have a cross-section of ability that constitutes the insanity. It's more that those taking the test have no objective really, if scoring higher can mean they don't get a place.

Is the school over-subscribed?

 

[dshl]

Maybe I'm being a bit over the top about it but there are grammar schools around here that are really tough to get into. The kids have got to do well on 11 plus which is very difficult.

And then in direct contrast you have schools doing almost the opposite of this and deliberately setting things up so they don't take the best pupils. And, as I've said, testing for this is very strange given that the child's chances may decrease the better they do.

For parents the the school of choice is a pretty hefty thing in their lives. They want what's best for their child, what's suitable for them, what's local, etc. A test where the worst you do could mean an increase in chance of you getting into the school of your choice creates weird and confusing obstacles for parents on top of an already difficult quest of trying to get the best school for their child.

And where is the incentive for a school to take children of less ability when their academic outcomes are such a major compass as to how good the school is. Seems as though something is interfering with logical incentives.

Everybody and everything from universities to companies, children, teenagers and adults all compete in exams and in the job market based on skills and ability. I don't know how you can suspend that.

Your statement, 'It’s a way of ensuring a comprehensive intake,' seems like an overly casual term to explain something that is a fundamentally flawed and illogical. It's a bit like saying the shop down the road should stop people buying their products if they make too much money and send them to the opposition shops, and then saying something like 'oh it's just to ensure the distribution of profits'.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

I remember doing this as a child.
I don't remember it playing much of a factor in school choice.
Mind you in London so lots of choices.

I think I got the upper mark. Kinda crazy given my dyslexia.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

hmm

i'd never heard of this (although i'm not a parent and it's a long time since i went to school) and i'm not entirely convinced it's that good an idea.

i'm aware of selective / grammar schools and the '11+' (which still exists in some areas) - which i see as highly flawed, as for a start i don't think it's right to declare 75% of kids as 'failures' at the age of 10/11, and also it tends just to entrench middle class privilege, as kids that have been brought up by parents who aren't literate / numerate, or who don't speak english as first language, or who through choice or finance haven't sent their kids for extra tuition, will be the ones who 'fail' as whatever their potential, they will still (generally) be behind at age 10 and a bit.

and that's before you get on to the schools that apply 'economic selection' by insisting on expensive uniform / PE kit and so on.

yes, different kids are good / not so good at different things, but i'm not sure that the tory 'league tables' agenda, setting schools up in competition with each other and the consumerist approach to it all does anybody any good in the long run.

i'm not at all convinced that turning every school in to 'selective' by the back door is the right answer - and then what are you going to do with the kids that fail this test?

 

[maomao]

Banding is bollocks that only benefits the top band (except possibly in maths). Stay clear of any school that stresses the importance of similar ability classes because they haven't got a clue what they're on about.

 

[dshl]

Sorry if I'm being a little too general but I would say most people want fair and equal opportunities for both children and adults, but if in trying to achieve this you damage natural and logical incentives to do well then you undermine everybody and everything.

A test where how well you do has no bearing on what you achieve is fucking ridiculous.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Banding is bollocks that only benefits the top band (except possibly in maths). Stay clear of any school that stresses the importance of similar ability classes because they haven't got a clue what they're on about.

again, from the concept of someone who's not a parent or teacher, i do wonder about that.

if kids haven't got the hang of the basics of arithmetic and reading / writing by a certain age, they are just going to get further and further behind as pretty much every other (academic) subject builds on that.

there needs to be a way of dealing with that without creating an apartheid system.

i don't pretend to know the answers.

different kids develop at different ages, the start they have at home is a big part in that (i started primary school able to read and write, many didn't), and different kids / adults have different talents, be that academic, technical, artistic or sporting. i don't think that aiming at a uniform level of mediocrity in all things is the right answer, but gearing everything to a small elite in some fields, and writing the majority off, doesn't seem to be the right answer either.

although the primary school i went to did it fairly subtly - there were occasional 'groups' for some subjects, and in hindsight i realise these were by ability, but i don't remember there being any stigma / piss taking aimed either at the group that was 'remedial' (i don't know if that's the current term for that) or at the 'advanced' group. (there weren't any terms used that we knew of, it was just 'miss A's group' or 'mr B's group')

 

[muscovyduck]

My memory of banding at school was that the school sent the good teachers into the top band to get more A*s and into whatever band was the C/D grade cut off. ie they were using the banding system to game the GCSE result league tables. Also sometimes they'd pretend the classes weren't in bands even though they obvs were.

The maths bands at my school worked because they wanted everyone to do equally well, and they'd bump you all up or down if you were falling behind or getting ahead.

 

[maomao]

again, from the concept of someone who's not a parent or teacher, i do wonder about that.

if kids haven't got the hang of the basics of arithmetic and reading / writing by a certain age, they are just going to get further and further behind as pretty much every other (academic) subject builds on that.

there needs to be a way of dealing with that without creating an apartheid system.

i don't pretend to know the answers.

different kids develop at different ages, the start they have at home is a big part in that (i started primary school able to read and write, many didn't), and different kids / adults have different talents, be that academic, technical, artistic or sporting. i don't think that aiming at a uniform level of mediocrity in all things is the right answer, but gearing everything to a small elite in some fields, and writing the majority off, doesn't seem to be the right answer either.

although the primary school i went to did it fairly subtly - there were occasional 'groups' for some subjects, and in hindsight i realise these were by ability, but i don't remember there being any stigma / piss taking aimed either at the group that was 'remedial' (i don't know if that's the current term for that) or at the 'advanced' group. (there weren't any terms used that we knew of, it was just 'miss A's group' or 'mr B's group')

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/setting-and-streaming#:~:text=The%20evidence%20suggests%20that%20setting,with%20some%20variation%20between%20studies.

There's plenty of evidence that it has a very small positive effect on higher ability pupils and a negative effect on lower ability pupils. Subjects like maths may need nurture groups for kids who are well behind but when it comes to English, history etc. removing all the able kids from a class lowers the standard in the class and exacerbates existing difficulties.

It is also, as that article points out, invariably based on attainment not ability.

 

[Spandex]

There seems to be two things being discussed here:

1. Banding kids of different abilities into different classes at the same school. I agree with maomao on this: if you put kids who struggle with a subject together in a 'shit kids' class, they'll give up, while if they're in a mixed ability class they can be pulled up by more able kids. Maths seems to be an exception to this.

2. Banding tests for school admissions. This is what dshl is asking about. It's only used in some local authorities, so people who haven't experienced it may not know about it. The idea, as Winot says, it to create a comprehensive education. What did happen in some places was a 'good' school would attract all the 'academic' (often middle class) kids, attracting money that middle class parents can lavish on the school, leaving another school in the area to mop up the 'less academic' (often working class) kids, with parents who can't afford to give the school money, leading to worse outcomes for the kids who go there. It entrenches a good school for the middle class/shit school for the working class dynamic. By testing and mixing up abilities amongst schools it aims to avoid this happening. I don't live in an area that does this, so don't have experience of how it works. I'd guess better in some places than others.

 

[wtfftw]

I remember doing this as a child.
I don't remember it playing much of a factor in school choice.
Mind you in London so lots of choices.

I think I got the upper mark. Kinda crazy given my dyslexia.

Yep. Same age as you I think.


It came into play when my sister was appealing which secondary school she was given (opposite end of the borough) as a different school had space in her band so she got in. Iirc.

 

[existentialist]

TBH, the answer should be not to regulate admission to schools quite so rigidly, but operate some kind of streaming system within, on the basis that students needing a bit more help are in classes where that can happen.

But when you create a top-down system, it's a feature of human nature that people will adapt to that system, and potentially game it. Build incentives into the system, and you guarantee that's what will happen, so the original intention goes out of the window.

 

[maomao]

There seems to be two things being discussed here:

1. Banding kids of different abilities into different classes at the same school. I agree with maomao on this: if you put kids who struggle with a subject together in a 'shit kids' class, they'll give up, while if they're in a mixed ability class they can be pulled up by more able kids. Maths seems to be an exception to this.

2. Banding tests for school admissions. This is what dshl is asking about. It's only used in some local authorities, so people who haven't experienced it may not know about it. The idea, as Winot says, it to create a comprehensive education. What did happen in some places was a 'good' school would attract all the 'academic' (often middle class) kids, attracting money that middle class parents can lavish on the school, leaving another school in the area to mop up the 'less academic' (often working class) kids, with parents who can't afford to give the school money, leading to worse outcomes for the kids who go there. It entrenches a good school for the middle class/shit school for the working class dynamic. By testing and mixing up abilities amongst schools it aims to avoid this happening. I don't live in an area that does this, so don't have experience of how it works. I'd guess better in some places than others.

You're right, I hadn't completely understood and was raging against inequities in my own working life. In essence it sounds like quite a good idea but it relies on the quality and accuracy of assessment which at that age is often more a measure of engagement and motivation than 'ability'.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/setting-and-streaming#:~:text=The%20evidence%20suggests%20that%20setting,with%20some%20variation%20between%20studies.

There's plenty of evidence that it has a very small positive effect on higher ability pupils and a negative effect on lower ability pupils. Subjects like maths may need nurture groups for kids who are well behind but when it comes to English, history etc. removing all the able kids from a class lowers the standard in the class and exacerbates existing difficulties.

It is also, as that article points out, invariably based on attainment not ability.

thanks. i'll give that a read another time.

and yes, the school system is only really set up to assess attainment, which (as i said previously) will partly reflect home / parents' circumstances in the earlier years at least. assessing ability / potential must be more difficult, and doesn't fit the bean counting / testing / league tables approach to it all.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Banding is bollocks that only benefits the top band (except possibly in maths). Stay clear of any school that stresses the importance of similar ability classes because they haven't got a clue what they're on about.

We're getting rid of ability-based sets for years 7, 8 and 9 as of September. I'm all in favour of this change.

Other departments do the opposite, and warehouse all the SEN kids in one or two 'sink' classes where expectations for achievement and behaviour are basically nil. And yes, they do call them sink classes.

 

[Winot]

There seems to be two things being discussed here:

1. Banding kids of different abilities into different classes at the same school. I agree with maomao on this: if you put kids who struggle with a subject together in a 'shit kids' class, they'll give up, while if they're in a mixed ability class they can be pulled up by more able kids. Maths seems to be an exception to this.

2. Banding tests for school admissions. This is what dshl is asking about. It's only used in some local authorities, so people who haven't experienced it may not know about it. The idea, as Winot says, it to create a comprehensive education. What did happen in some places was a 'good' school would attract all the 'academic' (often middle class) kids, attracting money that middle class parents can lavish on the school, leaving another school in the area to mop up the 'less academic' (often working class) kids, with parents who can't afford to give the school money, leading to worse outcomes for the kids who go there. It entrenches a good school for the middle class/shit school for the working class dynamic. By testing and mixing up abilities amongst schools it aims to avoid this happening. I don't live in an area that does this, so don't have experience of how it works. I'd guess better in some places than others.

Exactly. The OP is talking about 2 not 1.

Lanbeth (where we are) uses 2 for admissions. It seems to work fine (provided you're in favour of comprehensive education).

 

[dshl]

I think with the conservative mindset, competition - the sink or swim mentallity - is baked in the cake. However, I believe most still believe in striving for at least roughly equal opportunities for children BUT- to my mind - you're not going to get them or most people on board if the policies are jaw-droppingly nonsensical and delegitimising of basic motivations to strive.

So for instance, my school was hounded by parents wanting homework for their children - some basically just wanted relevant material so that they could go over stuff with their kids at home. The school's statement was: We do not give homework as some children do not have the support at home and therefore it's unequal.

I have to say, to hear this sounds mental and I am very pro supporting children lagging behind. So basically, you're going to take away children and parents' opportunities and possibilities to work harder and strive for better so as to help plug the gap. Really? FFS!