05 July 2017
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If parents want to appeal, they should look at the raw marks and profile relative to other students to decide. Appeal is only on school marks and must have support from the school principal. The SSU will only recalculate the profile by dropping the school marks out of the calculation. There is no such thing as getting extra school marks or changing the profile. The SSU only explores an alternative profile to improve the position on the waiting list(s) while leaving the official results as they are.
Parents who already decided to take up scholaships at private schools should do others a favour by declining the selective school offers so other kids on the reserve list will get the offers quickly. Often some parents would still accept the offers then wait until Nov-Dec to decline! That's a long wait for other kids/parents on the reserve list.
Here is the reserve list
https://education.nsw.gov.au/selective-high-schools-and-opportunity-classes/year-7/outcome/year-7-reserves
01 July 2017
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27 June 2017
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If parents want to appeal, they should look at the raw marks and profile relative to other students to decide. Appeal is only on school marks and must have support from the school principal. The SSU will only recalculate the profile by dropping the school marks out of the calculation. There is no such thing as getting extra school marks or changing the profile. The SSU only explores an alternative profile to improve the position on the waiting list(s) while leaving the official results as they are.
Parents who already decided to take up scholaships at private schools should do others a favour by declining the selective school offers so other kids on the reserve list will get the offers quickly. Often some parents would still accept the offers then wait until Nov-Dec to decline! That's a long wait for other kids/parents on the reserve list.
Here is the reserve list
https://education.nsw.gov.au/selective-high-schools-and-opportunity-classes/year-7/outcome/year-7-reserves
01 July 2017
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The selective result came early for a change! It was
released on last day of Jun. We have got a set of fantastic results coming
back. Early picture shows 7 students getting over 250 and most kids exceed
expectations. And as expected, GA is powerful and maths does not matter that
much. Our students consistently do well in GA and in many cases this covers for
weak English and maths.
Looking at the raw marks, it is clear that strong OC classes in Sydney have enjoyed wonderful scaling (going down less) of school marks while other schools have poor scaling (going down more). One student from overseas had no schoolmarks and the profile is great based only on raw test marks. This is why the SSU generally does not allow parents to apply for school marks exemption (not to use them). While school marks always drag the profile down, the scaling ensure that strong schools get dragged down less than normal schools (dragged down). There is no pushing-up like parents often misunderstand in this game. There is only going down less than expected.
This selective test is easier than previous tests. But it is clear that English is again extremely hard causing many kids to score under 50%. Maths is now like last year so the maths scores are extremely high. GA also looks easier than before. Our students are strong in GA and this helps cover the weak English.
27 June 2017
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Less than a week before the 2017 selective test results come
back!
Parents should be aware of the important dates for making an
appeal if you think the result is lower than expected due to some unfair
reasons. This could be due to unusually low school marks or family
circumstances.
- Early July 2017, placement outcome advice sent for entry
in 2018
- 24 July 2017, appeals due to primary school principals for
entry in 2018
The dates above mean that as soon as the result comes back,
parents should use the hyper link provided on the email to request the marks
immediately. It takes 1-3 days for the marks to come back. This allows an
assessment of why the selective profile is not expected. If the school marks
are low, parents could appeal but the whole thing must go through the school
principal! The school principal must first have a look to see why the school
marks are low and agree to support it before it can be sent to the SSU for
further processing. The time will be so limited. Often they delay the result so
there will be even less time to fill the application, see the principal, wait
for the principal to meet with the teacher to discuss and meet back with parent
discuss further...
In short, one must be quick in this whole thing and prepare
a good case for appealing. One cannot simply appeal without very good reasons
why the SSU should help find ways to bring the profile up and jump the reserve
lists. Remember that they will never admit mistakes and change the profile!
They will only help to figure out what the profile should have been, and help
jump the reserve positions.
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The 2017 selective school test result will be released during
1st week of July. It's a nervous time for parents. This year have a strong
group of students and the scholarship test results with 9 scholarship offers
have proven this. So the selective school test results are likely to be good.
When the results start to roll in the first week of July,
this web blog page will be updated. The raw marks and ranking table will tell
us a lot about how the students performed.
This is the 2016 and 2015 results for those who reported.
Hopefully 2017 will be better.
