Year 7 testing help please

[Macey78]

Look for some advice - our eldest started the local secondary school and have sent a letter home saying that as sats were cancelled last year ( they weren't our primary still did testing) that the local authority has paid for all maintained schools to undertake cat4 testing to establish baseline data and establish planning. These tests will be done on chrome books over 3 sittings u dear exam conditions. This is the bit that gets me, the letter goes in to say that the package the Local Authority has purchased unfortunately is limited and does not include an option to report results meaning we will not get the results.

I feel really taken aback by this. Firstly I thought most secondary's did baseline Cat testing as standard practice! Also I'm not adverse to the tests as I know my dd isn't phased by them. But I definitely want to know the results. Surely someone will know the results hence allowing for the planning!

How should I best approach this with the school?

Any suggestions welcome. Thank you.

Why do you need to know the results? Genuine question.

Why pay for tests if the results aren't reported? We have had a letter regarding CAT tests and it says we will be given the results. I would contact the school to ask what they been by they haven't paid for reporting?

@tiredanddangerous because she's our dd and if she's doing any tests under exam conditions we would like to know how well she did. And that someone will surely know the results. So therefore we would like to know.

@Hellocatshome the exact working is this from the letter

The
package that the local authority has purchased is limited, and unfortunately
does not include an option to report results. This means that we will not be
able to send you the outcome of the assessments.

Wording even.

The school should know the results otherwise what's the point. The results come in an odd format so it may be that schools don't share because to most parents the scores are meaningless. Alternatively the school may not get student level results, just cohort level.

We do baseline CATs every year. This year, we're not paying; the LA is.
We will get results as normal. As normal, we won't report them to parents. We use them for all sorts of things but we don't send them home.

@Macey78 when my son started year 7 they did baseline assessment even though he'd done SATs ,you never get the results of any of their assessment we get a tracker 3 times a year to tell us how they are doing and what they are currently tracking at

Just ask the school for them. You're entitled to, under GDPR

Ok - I hadn't realised it's not standard practice to share the results. From what I could tell these will be used for streaming so will email the school and see what they say.

Our secondary does cats and we don’t to see the result. It does part determine their set (ds moved down afterwards), so you’ll be able to work out how well they done.

@WaterBottle123 - great hadn't thought of this. Thank you.

You will be able to tell by target grades set. Set high then she scored in the hundreds. Middling then average. Low then low or below average.

You really want quite low ones then the only way is up. Target grade setting is daft so target grade of a 8 in Art because they scored well in English Cats.

Our year 7s do CATs every year and we never ‘report’ their results time. We use it to plan lessons, interventions and monitor progress. We do however; report back on progress and inform of any interventions in place