Rumour has it that if your child sat the Epsom College computer test this is the test that will be used by St Johns Leatherhead in their evaluation and not the one sat on site at St Johns.
This has become a talking point as those children who did not sit the Epsom College test and only St John's feel they may be disadvantaged as the questions were the same as those seen by others at Epsom previously.
On the other hand the test situation at Epsom and that at St John's were completely different. Epsom it was a stressful evironment whereby children were shuttled off to rooms on arrival and sat infront of a pc to carry out the test with unknown people around them. In St Johns the children had spent the day with those around them, were feeling hopefully more confident before the test after experiencing a written maths and english paper, had lunch and got used to their surroundings etc.
To be a "fair" test the conditions need to be the same for each candidate.
It is true that those children who sat Epsom before St Johns had seen the questions previously. It is also however true that the test environment at Epsom was completely different to that of St Johns.
It is not appropriate (or I would imagine legal) for Epsom College or the company they used to carry out their test, to share that information with another organisation without the permission of the parent's involved. Written consent should have been asked for.
It is not professional that neither school communicated the intention of using the first sat test of a child (if this is in fact the truth).
It is ridiculous that both schools put forward the same test in the first place.
If it is true that the test sat at St Johns if it was already been undertaken at Epsom College was not going to count - why did the children have to go through the exercise again?? Rumour has it that results are all uploaded to the organisation who composed the test - the only result St Johns will see back from them is the first one that was sat at Epsom.
I understand there has been discussions for future years for pupils to sit the computer based test in their own school and the results go back to the organisation who compose it and feed schools with the results. Logical. The arrangement for this year's children is shambolic if the rumour's are true.
Right now many are sitting back and waiting to see if the DS or DD get offered their place at St Johns - should people not get the news they hope for.................
Any thoughts?
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St Johns Leatherhead and Epsom College 2013 Computer Entrance Test
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Lucy1234567 · 31/01/2013 12:44
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