Update: The value of the following item is underlined by the interest shown by browsers. 1500 hits in the first two days makes this the second most popular item on the website this year - in third place is the article Medway Test Scores Blunder - Medway fails families yet again, confirming once again the lack of confidence Medway families have in their Council's education operation.
The Council sent a letter to schools last week announcing that it is changing its Test provider from GL Assessment to CEM (Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring) for the forthcoming Medway Test in September. Unfortunately, the two testing providers have different interpretations of the assessment procedure, as explained here. The CEM Verbal Reasoning Test is far more language based than the GL model (which is used by Kent), including vocabulary and normally comprehension, as can be seen by a glance at the above link together with model answers provided by commercial companies. It will account for 20% of the aggregate Test marks which, together with the 40% for the Free Writing Test, will make this a highly language based selection method. It will therefore discriminate against children from socially deprived areas who are often weaker in language skills, children with English as a second Language, boys, and those who don't hear of or appreciate the change being made. The Council’s letter to schools gives no rationale for this change of approach or warning of the effects of the change, so presumably it is not for educational reasons, but simply a cost cutting exercise.
Neither does it do anything whatever to address the other serious problems I have previously identified in the Medway Test process, missing a golden opportunity in its recent review of the procedure, which appears to have reached no conclusions. It also comes close on after last year's debacle of the 2016 Test.
In addition, the Council has suddenly dispensed with the services of its highly experienced Free Writing Test setter, and at the time of writing does not appear to have re-employed any of its trained markers, although there is no change in the processes. It is not yet clear who is going to provide these essential skills this year.
The highly respected NFER research centre describes VR Tests as 'generally designed to provide an overall measure of scholastic ability without having a specific curriculum content, principally assessing inferential and deductive skills. The tests have high reliability and are relatively good predictors of subsequent academic attainment (good predictive validity). These tests consist of a variety of item types, typically including similes, antonyms, analogies, codes and anagrams’.
I am fairly familiar with the situation in Buckinghamshire, where parents don't appear to have noticed the above strictures, and the tutoring industry thrives and operates extensively. Indeed, the admission that CEM ‘aims to reduce any disadvantage’ surely acknowledges the reality that there is one, and parents would be wise to ignore the foolish ‘belief’.
Whereas GL publishes examples of the type of questions they set in their 11 plus tests, CEM does not, in the forlorn hope there will be no leakage. Hence their unsubstantiated claim that they are less tutorable! However, there are a number of commercial companies that publish CEM type materials who will no doubt have a boom in the Medway towns. From my experience of both systems I strongly recommend that children are made familiar with the new testing process, although state schools are banned from explicit teaching in class time.
My own position remains unchanged. I dislike the principle of tutoring intensely, but given that selection by Test exists, so will tutoring by individuals, agencies and in private schools. I therefore still recommend a certain amount of familiarisation, perhaps by tutoring or alternative family support for all children, to ensure all candidates are comfortable with the main types of question examples and any unfairness is minimised. I also recommend a decent preparation run in time from around Easter of Year Five, although many tutoring agencies will and private schools have been in full operation since before the start of Year Four.
By its very nature, the Extended Writing Test is an unreliable assessment of ability. Children are set one lengthy task from one of the Key Stage Two Writing Genres, which is awarded two fifths of the aggregate marks in the Medway Test. Outcomes show the assessment highly favours girls and older children, although it is claimed to be age standardised. As the pass standard requires an aggregate score only, a candidate with ability in English who is fortunate with the choice of subject or genre can score exceptionally highly and have no need to show ability in either maths or verbal reasoning. Conversely, I have seen too many candidates who have misunderstood the assessment, fail badly in spite of respectable scores on the other two papers and lose their chance of the grammar school of their choice. We now have an even higher proportion of marks being awarded for literacy.
None of this is the fault of the highly experienced question setter, a retired headteacher who was also the trainer and leader of an experienced team of markers, although their services appear to have been suddenly dispensed with, but without explanation or thanks. It will be interesting to see how new high quality replacement markers are recruited, but what a waste of expertise from an organisation that is sadly very deficient in it!