Kent County Council ‘has been contingency planning ever since schools were forced to close on March 20th, to see what adjustments might be needed to the Kent Test process in different situations as the coronavirus pandemic unfolded’. As a result of all this planning it has decided simply to postpone the test by five weeks, subject to approval by the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills after 20th July. If matters develop then KCC will think of something else.
Unfortunately, the current plan will heavily penalise all those children whose families cannot afford or otherwise arrange for extensive private tuition to make up for the absence of school curriculum time over the second half of this school year, and bar those who miss the Test in the case of a second wave of the pandemic, or for other connected reasons, such as being placed in quarantine or simply through fear. Private schools with a focus on securing places at grammar school for their pupils will now be able to concentrate on preparing their pupils for the Kent Test over the five or six weeks of the autumn term preceding it. Kent state schools are forbidden to do this.
This all makes a mockery of the statement by the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson, that: "We’re going to be looking at working with local authorities who have grammar school systems in their area as to how best we can ensure that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are not disadvantaged as they look at taking the 11-plus in the future.”
I have written several previous articles on the 2020 Kent Test most recently here (with links to others) and some of the information in this one covers the same ground but is now specific to the KCC decision. There are two published documents providing the relevant information. These are: The formal proposal that goes to Mr Long for approval; and the press release which is mainly a summary of this. All of the quotes in italics below come from one of these two documents, or from the Headteacher survey (below). The Kent Test identifies approximately three quarters of those children found suitable for grammar schools through three elements, each carrying the same weight: English, maths and reasoning. The remaining quarter of successful candidates comes from a process known as Head Teacher Assessment (HTA) which is not mentioned in either document, although it is unworkable in its present form this year. This is considered further below.
The government’s £1bn catch-up tutoring fund for England's pupils is very welcome, but the clue is in the term ‘catch-up’, i.e. nothing for the more recent and advanced curriculum work needed on which two thirds of the marks in the Kent Test will be based.
Meanwhile, many of those children whose parents can afford it will be put through extended and in some cases excessive coaching to maximise their chances in what is now a loaded competition for places. I have no criticism of the large majority of these. There has been no effective sanction applied to private schools who coach for the Kent Test, although it is officially banned, so these will go into overdrive to secure grammar school places for their children.
The only sop provided is the statement: ‘The proposed delay will also provide an opportunity for all students to take part in school-based learning before undertaking the Kent Test’ , However, schools will clearly focus the five extra weeks on firstly the settling into school life and then some elements of the now missing five months.
If there are no changes to the nature of the Kent selective assessment process, then ‘ordinary families’ will lose out big time, although the numbers selected will still fit the required pattern. The first public measure of this will only be seen when the data emerges relating to Pupil Premium children taking up places in grammar schools for 2021. Currently 9% of Kent grammar school places go to PP children, in my view a fairly healthy proportion, and above the national average. Sadly, I believe that with no changes to the KCC policy the proportion of PP children will plummet, along with those in the east of the county. These children will have been replaced by the academically marginal overcoached children in the wealthier parts of the county which will see numbers soar. The second measure will be in grammar school performance at GCSE in five years time, as too many children inappropriately placed in grammar schools work their way through. This should be a great concern for grammar school leaders.
Whilst there is no mention of the inequity outlined above, ‘The proposed delay will allow KCC to take appropriate steps to ensure that the Kent Test can be delivered in the safest way possible, with sufficient social distancing controls in place, but also accounting for the unexpected educational environment that Year 5 pupils will have experienced in the lead up to taking part in the Kent Test’. Unfortunately, there is no indication of how this unexpected educational environment will be accounted for.
I have previously explored the relevant issues in some detail here, in an article exploring my own suggestion which addresses these concerns, but there are of course other alternatives. That article also shows that the current form of Headteacher Assessment, which normally selects around a further 6% of the Kent Year 6 cohort on top of the 19% identified through the Kent Test, is unworkable in its current form, as the additional evidence of academic ability will no longer be available.