Shock as many Year 6s penalised with zero score for writing on selective school entry exam

Multiple Year 6 students have been penalised with scores of zero for one-quarter of the highly-competitive entry exam for WA selective public schools, in an apparent Education Department crackdown on tutoring providers. Devastated parents have described their shock at opening the email with their child’s results to discover they had received a score of zero for creative writing — one of the exam’s four sections. It is believed to be the first year that zero has been the lowest score for writing. Parents who rang the department to query the results said they were told one reason for docking marks was to crack down on commercial tutoring colleges. Children marked zero got a note saying answers had to be “spontaneous and original pieces of writing clearly inspired by the prompt”. Zero scores were assigned to responses that were “off-topic” or “identified as pre-prepared”. The department would not reveal how many students were affected, but The West is aware of at least 15. Several parents have appealed for their child’s results to be reviewed and an online petition calling for clearer marking criteria has attracted 189 signatures. One mother said she was concerned about the effect on her 11-year-old son’s mental health. “The lady on the phone clearly said ‘we gave a zero because we want to stop people going to tutoring classes’,” she said. “I said ‘it’s not fair, because we didn’t go to tutoring classes’.” Another parent said that even with a low score in writing, her son would have qualified for a gifted and talented program. She said school reports showed her son had always received A-grades for writing. “So I could accept a low score, but not zero,” she said. “That’s very unfair to punish him, assume he was cheating or pre-prepared something.” Competition for selective schools is fierce, with more than 5000 students applying for around 1200 Year 7 places — including 225 spots at Perth Modern School — fuelling demand for test preparation courses run by tutoring providers. The Academic Selective Entrance Test takes nearly three hours, with just 25 minutes allocated to writing based on a prompt which could be an image, a phrase or both. This year, students had to write about a melting ice-cream or a red umbrella. The other three sections of the test — reading comprehension, quantitative reasoning and abstract reasoning — were all multiple choice. Australian Tutoring Association chief executive Mohan Dhall warned selective schools were driving rapid growth in tutoring colleges taking thousands of dollars from “vulnerable” parents for test preparation courses. He called for better regulation of the tutoring industry, with all providers forced to join the ATA. Mr Dhall surmised that markers had detected template responses, indicating they were not students’ original work. “In some coaching facilities, tutors may be tempted to say ‘use this wording, or put an adjective here’, and they think it’s smarter, sophisticated use of language, but it’s quite predictable, boring and eminently seeable,” he said. “I would side with the markers in this instance rather than the commercial tutoring facilities.” But Loyola Tutoring owner Melvin Tom, who had around 500 students sitting the test, said docking all marks for writing was “extremely unfair” for such young kids. Mr Tom — who advises children against reproducing pre-prepared stories — said seven of his students given zero scores had done “exceptionally well” in the other three sections. “We had one student who, if he had just got 10 marks in writing, he could have gone to Perth Modern,” he said. “What they’re doing is playing with the futures of many of these children.” The department’s executive director for strategy and policy, Raechelle Lee, said while students could write in any style, their work had to be impromptu and markers had to be able to clearly identify the relationship with the prompt in their work. “It is very important the testing is fair for all students to protect the integrity of the test and ensure consistency for all applicants,” she said. “Each year a very small proportion of candidates will request a review of their ASET scores. “The results check process provides a formal avenue of appeal through which families can have their child’s scores reviewed. This process is currently underway and not yet finalised.” First-round offers for selective school places were sent out in the last week of June, with second-round offers due in late July.