What is the MidYis test like?

[AChickenCalledKorma]

We have just made our application for secondary. The school which is our first preference uses the MidYis test for all year 7s, in the first half term. DD1 has picked up on this (during the Head's tour of the school) and has already got it into her head that this is going to be a terribly stressful and unpleasant experience.

I can see from their website that it looks like a fairly standard mixture of verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning etc - but they don't publish sample questions (for reasons I understand). Just wondering if anyone can tell me anything more about it ... like, is it computer based, how long does it take etc.

Would just like to be able to reassure DD, who is a big one for being terrified of the unknown (although has every chance of doing extremely well in any such test if she doesn't descend into blind panic!!!)

At our school they do this , to be honest the children don't seem bothered, they all go to the sports hall , I think it lasts about an hour (may be wrong about that) ds just thought it was a good excuse to miss a couple of lessons .

I am sure others know more but I would really tell her not to worry

If you google it you will find practice tests

There is NO need to do practise tests. It is like an IQ type test and finds out what sort of thing you are good at (verbal or non-verbal reasoning) I suppose you could practise mental maths but really, that isn't necessary either.
Tell your child not to stress about the test at all. In my experience children are not given "results" from these tests. The teachers use the profile from the MidYis tests to set their targets - so a child who scores very highly on MidYis in year 7 would be expected to achieve levels 6+ in year 9 if they have been taught well and made good progress. The tests allows teachers to measure how much value they have added between year 7 and year 9.

Most secondary schools use some test like this for year 7 as many feel it is a better indicator of how the pupils will do than their year 6 SATS (which they would have been heavily coached for and involve a high level of Teacher Assessment anyway).

So, in short, tell her not to worry, it won't be stressful, it will be a session on a computer and nothing bad will happen if she finds it difficult.

Thanks all. That's really useful.

The school she is (probably) going to uses it to identify children in the top 10% nationally, who are then identified as gifted and talented. I really wish the Head had not been so explicit about that fact while the children were listening, because DD1 has, not unnaturally, decided that something bad will happen if she doesn't do well in the test!

I'm certainly not going to spend months doing practice tests. Might get her to do a bit more computer-based stuff, though, because she's pretty fast with a pen and paper but tends to glaze over a bit when confronted by a computer screen!!

DD1 did these last year, and the results were absolutely bang on for her strengths, and centiles. Her school did play down the tests though, and I get the impression we were the only family who actually asked to know the results!

We got given the results at a meet the teacher evening and they predicted my DD2 getting C's at the end of Y11. But they did tell us as their KS3 only lasted two years and not three like most schools these were likely to change.

I took the view that predicting C's meant there was room for improvement so she would possible get a few B's but could also get some D's [hsmile]

She didn't say much about it when she came out from her link day but one of the teachers I knew said to tell her not to worry if she didn't finish it as it is designed not to be finished (iyswim)

This is all useful! Telling DD1 that (a) it's geared to what she can do and (b) there isn't a finish line will be very helpful. She's a bit of a perfectionist and struggling at the moment with learning to work fast enough to finish a test paper. They have started practising SATs papers, which IMO is a good thing if it shocks her into paying attention to how slowly she works.