CAT testing and progress Y5

[1mum2boys]

My son is in Y5 in a prep school. He was assessed in Sep using the CAT and he scored just below 100 on each of the tests.
He took the PT in English and Maths recently and most of his results were below national average.
Yet, the headteacher told me that given his CAT results in September he progresses just as expected.
Was his reply reasonable? I personally feel that not only that he tried to wash his hands for not providing any support but I also think that he was academically incorrect. Abilities are innate but between the age 7-11 they can be improved through training. The school should have used the CAT scores in order to improve DS results. I just feel that the school did not do enough this year for my son although they know we were planning to take 11 plus exams. AIBU?

This makes sense from my perspective. Why do you think your done is at grammar school standard? A child with that sort of score would struggle at grammar school - if he was actually accepted in the first place.
Your school is not there to improve CAT scores but to provide him with an education.
So yes - I think you are being unreasonable.

With CAT scores under 100, there is no point putting your DS through 11+. Even if you tutor him intensively he will struggle to keep up with the work. There is a CAT score that signifies innate ability, if that is below 100 then you really need to rethink.

His work probably reflects his CAT score is what the school are stating. You need to ask them about future schools at this age.

Do you mean 11+ exams for state grammar schools or 11+ screening exams for a less selective independent school? Does his current school go on to 13 or 18? In which case there is less incentive for the school to push at this stage. I agree though he might struggle at grammar school (if that is your plan) unless there is a clear explanation.

Has he been tested for any SEN? Does he seem to you to be verbally more able than his scores reflect? Remember 100 is 'average' so if he seems like an average boy, maybe he is and maybe a highly selective school won't suit him.

If he seems more articulate than the scores suggest then perhaps there is some reason. Does he have any other symptoms. How is he when he reads to you? How are his spellings? Writing? What sort of errors does he make in maths - is it that he doesn't understand it or he understands the theory but it falls apart when he gets a written question?

My dd has just been diagnosed with something that affects her work and yes it would affect her CAT score, but is also treatable (to an extent) and so although her scores might be low, with some acceleration she might manage in a selective environment with appropriate glasses.

If you don't suspect any specific issues and it is just 'who he is' then maybe a less selective school and maybe he is a late developer. Some children suit secondary school more than primary and maybe he will come into his own with a greater emphasis on humanities and sciences.

Unfortunately in all schools as parents you have to do the pushing and find out for your dc what the issues are. We were told for many years that 'she is meeting expectations and is where she needs to be' because basically their view is average in average out. Unless a child starts slipping back in targets - achieving less than expected progress or is substantially behind it doesn't trigger any intervention. We have pushed really hard and have been lucky to have a great teacher this year who has seen her potential and has seen that dd on paper is quite different to dd in person.

If you describe here some of his issues you might get some answers or describe his work on primary board. People will probably focus on the fact that you are trying to get him into a selective school and on paper his scores won't justify that. If there are specific issues though someone on here (teacher/parent) will probably have already seen them and have got the t-shirt!!

I know you said prep but some preps mainly prepare for 13+ and others might have a linked secondary school so there is less incentive to push in yr 5 than there would be for a school which finishes at 11 even if that is your intended jumping off position.

Thanks to all of you for your replies.
The main reason why I feel frustrated is because I just feel the school did not do enough this year.I have another DS currently in Y7 in a super selective school and ideally we would like DS2 to get in there , too. I should add some more details to my original post.
He struggles with verbal reasoning and complex inference in comprehension. In Maths with problems solving and spatial awareness.
I personally suspect some 'special' issues although the school dismissed me when I asked them to test him for dislexia / dispraxia.
I can see he has moments when he sparks but then quickly drops .
He lacks concentration and focus.
I can see this even in the papers he does, he starts well and then he makes silly mistakes, then he picks and it he pattern is up and down.
I am trying to be pushy but he is a sensitive soul and I cannot get very far by being hard on him.
As one of you mentioned here, he might be a late achiever . I was one of them.
The prep school does not have a clear vision which way they go 11/13 and therefore the decision is left in the parents hands and not much support given for 11.

Please do not try & subject your son to entry to a super selective. He simply will not cope. My son got excellent Incas & Midyis scores (what some independent schools use instead of cars) but still he cannot cope with the environment of a pressured selective school (we are moving him at the end of Year 8).

You run the risk of your son being put off learning altogether. He clearly needs a supportive, less pressurised environment where he can realise his potential. From what you describe that is not a super selective. He will crumble & having seen my ds crumble it's not nice.

It might be worth you contacting an educational psychologist & getting him tested for things like speed of information processing, working memory etc as he could be entitled to extra time in exams if he has specific issues.

2 separate issues here.
Firstly the school educating your child. This means teaching him and helping him to progress from where he is starting and in a way which is appropriate for him and his abilities. They should be doing this and if you think they are not you need to raise it.
Second, advice for secondary school - they should be advising about which schools and types are appropriate for him to apply to given his ability and personality. This might include if to go at 11 or 13, but here they will be advising and it will have to be your choice. They should give this advice and if they don't you should push for it. You need to be prepared to listen - it maybe that they advise that super selective is inappropriate for him. Are you willing to listen to their advice, even if it's not what you want to hear? This is one of the things you pay for - most Preps have a great track record of getting kids into schools they apply to.....if the parents listen to their advice about what is appropriate. It is when parents totally ignore the advice that disappointment often comes.

It is true that children should make progress and in terms of CATs or other similar tests for NVR and VR 11+ type tests, some familiarisation can improve scores. However, they also measure imate ability and not all children can be super selective material. Schools using CATs in Yr 5 often use them deliberately before exam prep begins because it gives a real indication of a child's ability and helps them to advise. The school will usually then do some form of exam prep which will help the children get ready to do exams for schools at their kind of level and to make progress....but schools and parents need some kind of starting point and that is often what CATs are. Sometimes they are sent to secondary schools too (independents) because they are a good indicator of ability and taken together with entrance exams and any other data the school has, form a bigger picture.

These results have clearly disappointed you. That's understandable. Now it's not really about blame, but working with the school so your boy makes progress learning and can get into the right school for him. Do you feel you can/have open channels of communication and work together on this?

I very much doubt he would qualify for extra time if he is within the average range.
My ds had high CATs in 120+ but came out slightly below average on one part of Wrat test and was initially given extra time. But week before his a levels it was taken away because they had changed the criteria.
This was a child that was clearly very intelligent with good comprehension skills, but clearly struggled with writing.

That's not necessarily true bruffin. My son has extra time because his speed of information processing is on the 24th percentile & speed of writing on 11th percentile. This is something not usually measured by cats & usually has to be administered by an ed Psych or similar. A child has to have been tested within 2 years.

My son's midyis (very similar to cats scores) were all higher than 100 & averaged 123 but it's a specific learning difficulty he has.

If they go through to 13 they are less likely therefore to encourage at 11+ because they want another two years fees!! Have you looked at Irlen syndrome, either with or without dyslexia? Poor spatial ability can go along with it. Is he 'clumsy', does he react to bright lights, do words move on the page? Unfortunately with mid achievers you need to do a lot of the pushing and paying for diagnosis. The school might screen him for dyslexia but a student who is average might not flag too much on a teacher screen, yet an in depth assessment can show more substantial difficulties. I am not sure that I would put a child who struggles in a super selective - selective maybe but super selective I think that there is the potential to drop too far behind.

Thats the point im making. Ops son has lower average cats and performing at lower average level. Not everyone who are average or below have sen
My ds and your son had well above average for cats and midyis and have obvious difficulties.
My ds could cope with a level maths/physics but use the wrong setting on the calculator or bring the wrong figure forward etc.

Very valuable advice.Thank you so much. SISSIG you seem to know so much. I dare give you some more details in case you can see even more behind my concerns.

I have managed got the exact CAT scores from the school. His age at the time of testing was 9.04.
Verbal 103
Quantitative 88
NVR 111
Spatial 92
Overall 98

In his last week NVR he got 86 % and came second in the class.
In Maths he got 63 and English 69% (third in the class, 2 girls ahead of him).

Sorry shouldwegoorshouldwestay for abreviating your name incorrectly.

AH and Bruffin I really appreciate your posts. I did ask the school if he could be assessed by the SEN teacher. Have not heard anything yet but I am prepared go privately.
Good luck to your boys.

I have seen the comment if there is 10+ difference between VR and NVR, a child may have SEN. I don't know if it's true or not, and your dc have only 8 difference. But I think it's worth having private Ed psych assessment if you can afford it, imo. Seems it looks spiky enough for me to think there might be something.

maybe he is a nice kind boy who is not academic

Yes, it may be worth having him assessed by ed psych whatever school say, for your own peace of mind and to remove any doubts you have. It's normally around £350 irrc.

Good luck in getting an accurate assessment of his abilities, in him moving forward from wherever he is starting from and in finding the right next school.

I think that you know your son best and you know where his strengths and weaknesses fall. We have so far paid for full Dyslexia testing plus Irlen testing and glasses irlen.com/ so far it has been over 1k, but at least we have a good idea of what we are dealing with, and what we are not. I think it is important to see it as a long term view. If there is an issue it might not be identified before the 11+ and the super selective might still not be the best place. Although the glasses should correct dd's vision (or more accurately perception) going forward, she has lost years of primary school through not being able to see properly. Not sure if there is time between now and the 11plus to catch up with that.

I think that unfortunately you do need to push to get anywhere. I would try to get the SENCO to do a dyslexia screen and try him with coloured overlays (irlens). If the overlays make a difference or if he has other Irlen symptoms (checklist in link above) then you might consider glasses, but generally they like them to be using and benefiting from the overlays for a few months before investing in glasses. If you are in Scotland then you might get them free on NHS. In England it is all self funded. Bear in mind this is just my daughter's experience, your son might have different issues and needs.

what you are saying is a child of average ability is performing adequately at school, in line with his average abilities.

I don't understand what you are asking, or expecting from the school

There's a bit of a difference between his scores but none of them are particularly high so it is worth having him tested but realistically if his scores are the level they are and the school say that they are in line with what they see in his classwork then you need to adjust your expectations of where he goes for secondary. He's not superselective standard and will struggle there and I think you would be wrong to push him in that direction. Your job now is to finding somewhere which is right for him. He's not his brother!

So there is a gap between how he is performing in school exams and the Cat scores? From the looks of it he is almost over performing versus his "inate" ability. This could be because of teaching, because of the work you are doing with him or because of his motivation to do well in exams. Either way you can't really blame the school as he is doing better than he should. Or he is not focusing enough during the Cats assessments - are they on computer and the school exams on paper?
If so you might just want to think about whether he is processing things differently visually.

I would absolutely not rely on a school to do an assessment - it's a private school so you will need to pay for the Ed Psych yourself. However it is very untrue to say that a child who is performing well will not get extra time. My DS is on the 99.9th percentile for verbal reasoning and perceptual reasoning but gets extra time because his processing speed is on the 12th.

Average means 50% below and 50% above. If he's below it does not mean he has SEN. I feel sorry that his future will be all about being pushed to be something he's not and be the same as his brother. I have a very bright DD and one less bright DD. Does it matter? I would rather they were happy! There are loads of schools that will happily educate the "average" child.

Average doesnt mean that at all Bubbles. There are different types of average. Mean, median and range, some are broader than others.

what you are saying is a child of average ability is performing adequately at school, in line with his average abilities.

This may well be the case, or it could be that he has a specific learning disability which impacts on test scores and which could have been diagnosed but until someone tests him then we will not know. Dd has just such a disability. She is in my mind as clever verbally as her siblings without the disability - her current teacher has agreed that there is a mismatch.

We don't yet have CAT scores but they were done on the computer - which will have particularly disadvantaged dd as the use of screens is very problematic due to this visual disorder. It will be interesting to compare to an ed psych assessment which placed her in the top 10-20%.

Teachers (before this one) have generally either said she is bright but lazy/ could try harder or she is average and making average progress. I know that they were busy managing large classes and all the time she was an obedient member of the class making average progress there was little incentive for them to do anything. It doesn't mean that she shouldn't have the same opportunities as her siblings without the disability.

Happily for her, although we can't get rid of the disability - which she will have for life and it will take a while for her to catch up, we can 'correct' her disability with glasses. I don't think she should be denied the equivalent education because she needed glasses and no one realised. At no point has a teacher suggested this, it is all due to us as parents researching and paying for it.

I don't know OP's son, he might be 'of average ability ... performing adequately at school, in line with his average abilities'. Or it could be that no teacher has ever questioned his achievements on paper and assumed he is average rather than disadvantaged. With a school which continues until 13 there is little incentive in yr5 to focus on preparing for the 11+ as if he passed then they will lose a pupil. Also if he is clever and adapting to his disability then he is unlikely to attract the attention of the SENCO.