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NFER testing - teachers - what is this?

5 replies

Solo2 · 19/10/2010 18:56

Something called NFER testing goes on each yr at DCs school. Parents are never given the results and we're told that these are purely a basline test to see where the children are at at the start of each year. However, from what I now glena, these are some kind of IQ test in English and Maths and possibly verbal reasoning skills. The results also seem to form the basis of opinions about the children, although the staff insist that they don't.

Can anyone tell me what these tests are and what they mean? Are they really an indication of underlying ability or simply a snapshot of at what level that child is currently performing.

In the course of a meeting at school today, I found out that DS1 didn't do well at all in those tests last yr nor this and yet the school 'line' on this is that they don't mean anything and not to worry.

OP posts:
janpa · 19/10/2010 21:08

A very odd thing and many schools use them because they always have and no-one has ever questioned them. Usually they use the results just to check progress, so if the child is in a certain band one year, have they made expected progress, better or worse than since the previous year. Hope this helps.

childrenofthecornsilk · 19/10/2010 21:08

They aren't very reliable.

Milliways · 20/10/2010 16:44

Our local Grammar school tests are NFER, and CAT tests in Yr7 are like these I believe.

inkyfingers · 20/10/2010 22:09

Why on earth can't you have the results - have you asked for them?

BelligerentGhoul · 20/10/2010 22:11

They are not very reliable and are positively useless for children of lower ability. But afaik they are not an IQ test. The English ones are diabolical.

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