AQE Exam Results

A question about : AQE Exam Results

Anyone else in the same boat getting these this morning?

I am at a loss as to what the result actually means???

Can anyone help a confused dad...

Best answers:

• I know a little about it. You should have been given a mark and a quintile. You can roughly guess where these line up with the old A - D grades. The grammar schools have all published their new criteria for entrance and these will obviously involve the mark. You can see from the SEELB transfer book which grades your chosen schools took last year but remember that you need to check the intake for about 3 years to get a better picture.
• This may give you some info:
  https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ne...-14668756.html
  AQE website is not much use !
  I would check some of the grammar school websites that you are interested in for further details on how they are going to use the results.
• Its all clear as mud.
  My child got 104 quintile 3. To be honest we, he and the school thought he would have a higher score due to the results he was getting on the practice tests.
  However we now find all his mates have around this score or in the 90s. We know of one child with 115 and he is the school brainchild - excels at everything and was expected to get higher.
  The media are saying
  Quintile 1 - Grade A
  Quintile 2 - Grade A and top B1
  Quintile 3 - B1 and B2
  Not sure about the others. Where we are no-one has a clue what their mark means. No-one knows what score is needed for a grammar school.
• I agree, it has been very confusing.
  My 10yr old got 121 today. Her friends have got 119, 117, 115, 110. Our local grammar school head on (Radio Ulster recently) said he expected to be taking only kids from upper quintile as they turned away 10 A's last year.
  Fingers crossed for May 28th for confirmation of school choice.
• some commentary here
  https://paceni.wordpress.com/2010/02/...ce-to-parents/
  suggests trying to apply a/b1/b2 categories to AQE scores is a waste of time, but its hard trying to rationalise what a score of e.g 106 means in relation of my childs chances of getting into the local grammar schools based on their previous intake, one school takes almost all A's and and handful of b1's so I am assuming that as 106, my daughters score, is at the lower level of band 2 that means this school will probably not be interested in her, our other grammar takes in a wider range ... previous years they have taken some b2's so we are thinking she will be ok for the second school, which has been our first choice all along
  our backup plan is a third school which used the GL test, our child got A grade in that .... but will the fact that it will be second on the form be held against us???
• So far the highest mark in my son's class is 124 and the lowest 86. I think anyone in the top quintile should be sure of a first choice place. Anything lower and it'll be a long waiting game.
• I do not have a child who sat the aqe test this year, but I do have one next year so have an interest into how this works. Assuming that when they (aqe) use the term quintile they are sticking by the dictionary definition of a whole being split into 5 equal shares, then each quintile equates to 20% of the pupils sitting the test. If you look at the old system it used these percentage groupings:
  Grade A To 25% of all pupils in that year group who get the highest marks
  Grade B1 To the next 5% of pupils
  Grade B2 To the next 5% of pupils
  Grade C1 To the next 5% of pupils
  Grade C2 To the next 5% of pupils
  Grade D To the remainder of pupils who sat the examination
  ( from here https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/11-...rn-ireland.php )
  If you do a direct mapping of the above onto the quintiles then:
  The top quintile (>= 113) would map onto the old A and no other grades
  The next quintile (106-112) would map onto A, B1, B2 and C1
  The next quintile (98-105) would map onto C2 and the top 15% of the old D grade.
  The next 2 quintiles 88-97 and I have no idea if the above is correct or even roughly correct, but it would seem quite logical. Any ideas anyone ?
• No idea at all Willyk but an interesting take on things nonetheless.
  Not wanting to scaremonger you at this stage but I read on another thread that your child is at Orangefield. Mine is too. Please don't be expecting much support from the school in relation to the AQE tests. This year was a shambles - they washed their hands off it and left us parents and kids to deal with it ourselves. They did do a few practice papers towards the end but too little too late in comparison to other schools in the area.
• Whether we, as parents, like it or not, it isn't the school's job to prepare children for private exams. The transfer tests have been abolished.
  Anyone feeling fear about where their child gets in should have a look at the post primary guide and see the wide range of grades that most grammars now take. Most grammar schools are de facto mixed ability and yet they still retain their ethos and standards of behaviour. I was in one recently which takes more Cs than As and I thought it was fantastic and it took away all of my fears of the future for my children.
  Good luck to you all. If your child did the AQE/CL then the odds are heavily in your favour that they will get into a grammar school.
• blfastboy, Thanks for the input. As you say what I am trying to do is rather pointless. Just have to wait and see what happens. Rgds.
• Ok, so start position is last year there were about 23,000 P7 kids, of these about 15,000 sat the 11+. An A grade was awarded to the top 25% aff all P7s (NOT 25% of those that sat the test). So about 37% of those sitting the tests got an A grade and about another 7.5% of those sitting the tests got a B1.
  Now this year about 7,000 sat AQE and about 6,700 sat the GL tests (some will have sat both but probably not many), so roughly 13,700 sat tests this year compared to 15,000 last year which sounds reasonable.
  If P7 population is roughly the same as last year then 25% of 23,000
  is 5,750, so to have the equivalent of an A you would need to be in the top 5,750 (across AQE &GL tests) this is equivalent to the top 42% of those sitting the tests. The next 8% is equivalent to a B1. So A & B1 takes up the top 50%.
  This all stacks up with the fact that there are 4,600 places at the grammar schools which are using AQE equivalent to 65% of the number of kids who sat the test. There are lots of grammar schools taking B2s & Cs which expalins the gap between 65% and 50% redferred to above.
• Bangor-Dad , this is best post I have seen. We have been scratching our head all day. Our daughter got 101 in AQE and BBC report last week suggested this was in B1-~B2 range???
  As just above average I was very concerned that this was correct as our local grammars rarely go below B2.
  Your information has helped us to feel a bit more positive , as she is within top 50%!
  am I understanding you correctly?
• Lisburn dad, all very confusing, we started yesterday morning with a daughter in tears with score of 105. Have spent time trying to make sense of it all. Basically my gut feeling is that those schools which took As and B1s the cut off is going to be around 100. If your school takes some if not all B2s then cut off more likely to be about 98/99 but there is going to be large number of kids in this range.
  Hope that's of use to you & good luck.
• Your daughter did really well , hope she is feeling more reassured now.
  Thank you again and good luck to you as well