How is progress measured at prep schools?

[sallythesheep73]

DS has just moved to a prep school. Boys stay til 13 and can prepare for the CE or specific school exams and girls move at 11 to the high school.
I am new to this having just moved from the state sector where there are SATS at the end of KS1 and KS2.
What do prep schools use to measure the progress of their students? We can see which schools the boys progress to at 13+ and most of the girls go on to the high school and there they sit GCSEs and A levels. But in the meantime how do we know how our children are doing? Other than the teacher telling us?
We may want our DD to try for a public school when she gets to 13, the school will not prepare her like they do the boys for CE so she would have to do the school entry exam. How will we know in advance what level she is at?
Many thanks for any insight from those with experience of prep school!

DCs' prep school use the current KS1 and KS2 SATs papers and mark them internally - they must purchase them direct. The tests are sat a few weeks after the official ones though. They also set quite formal end of year tests/exams in a full range of subjects: maths, English, history, sciences, geography, RS, mfls (written, speaking and listening tests in 2 languages), latin etc. from Year 3 or 4. Year average scores for each exam are given with end of year reports, together with top and bottom scores. That's just one prep school though.

Plenty of prep schools do prepare girls for 13 plus CE. You would need to change schools if you want 13 plus entry. Where my DD went, they had an array of top girls' schools in their destinations list. However, there are great senior schools that do their own assessment so I would stgart looking and making a short list. It seems odd to me that a co-ed prep school does not treat the girls and boys equally. I would not be happy about this. Are there so few girls in Y7 and Y8 that they take the money but do not deliver the goods?

Our school did not do SATS but it put the children in for the local 11 plus and obviously had internal assessment of progress. Few left to go to the local grammars, but it was an additional tool regarding future choice of schools and potential.

They are setting work year on year and they measure it against the standards needed for the CE. They could also include old SATS papers or it could be mock 11 plus tests. I would expect them to have an internal assessment scheme. In my view they must have the latter, but you never know! I would definitely ask why the girls do not have the same destinations as the boys!

The school is a merger between a boys prep school (age 4-13) and a girls school (age 4-18). So it is co-ed til 11 and then the boys peel off for 2 years CE preparation whilst the girls move to the high school. So the girls already have a destination. Hope this makes sense.

I'd have asked this before my ds started there!

What do you mean by public school? Going to a girl's school but two years late, or to one of the former boy's public schools, now mixed, like Marlborough or Wellington? You need to check whether for either path girls entering at the point are required to sit CE in year 8. If so, you need to move her. If not, you will need to prepare her for exams in english, maths and science mimimum, possibly French. Again, you need to check by school. You will probably also have to prepare her for pre selection computer tests in year 7 for some of these schools.

In my experience prep schools don't do any externaly moderated progress testing of the kind you mean - you are reliant on school reports. This can have the risk that if the school isn't particularly testing, parents can get a rather unrealistic view of the child's relative ablilites. Most though do do CAT tests of NFERS for their own internal purposes, generally not even telling parents about them. If you ask for these results they can be very useful for moves to other schools as they give a recognised expression of potential.
But if you definitely want her to go to a range of specific 13+ only schools you might want to think about moving her to a prep school that caters for that.

How old is she? Be aware that some schools require registration for 13+ entry by the end of year 5

You cannot expect a prep attached to a 1-18 school to prepare them for anywhere else! Why would they? You are a captive parent. If you want a girls school for y7, you need a prep that actually does the job. They will assume you want to stay put. Technically, this isn’t a prep at all. Its a junior dept of the senior school. If you want a proper senior school like CLC, Wycombe Abbey at 11, you need a school that does the job. If you want 13 CE, then again you need a prep that does this job. Your junior school won’t help with any of this and it’s difficult to see how your aims will be met unless you do 11 plus tests at girls schools. The second tier are less competitive and doable. A name Co-ed at 13 will be difficult.

11-18.

Thanks for the input.

We are not in London / SE but very rural so logistics are a major input to school choice. Our 'local' (40 min drive) prep school is co-ed but does not send pupils to the nearby highly selective international school we are interested in but sends them to Rugby, Eton etc and we are not interested in our children boarding and cannot afford the fees!

DS1 will have the choice of co-ed school to which he can move at 11 or 13 or highly selective co-ed at 13 which has its own exam. DD1 will be able to stay where she is (single sex 11-18) or move to the either of the schools.

I was interested in people's experience of the CE to see how much work the children do between 11-13. For the highly selective school we know a number of children who have gone there direct from the state sector without any tutoring so we know it is not impossible (if tough!).

Re the measurement of progress apparently the children are tested every term and compared to a standard score for their age so that teachers can assess their attainment and progress.

Dc prep school did pip tests and cats in alternate years from age 7(end year2) and internal assessments. Some private schools may do Sats but they can opt out. Many 13+ entry schools now offer pretests in year 6/7 and deferred entry if they also intake at 11+.

The same school has dropped CE for years 7 & 8.

Bubbles.. makes a good point. Independent preps attached to an 11-18 school do have issues around preparing kids for the wider range of entrance exams. We ran into this when it became clear that while the junior department was a good fit for our kids, the senior school was not by a large margin. But they failed to provide any tuition for indie exams elsewhere, didn't do SATs, and recently have decided to become a complete pain by running their own senior entrance procedure several weeks ahead of state and other Indies. We got out before Y5 rather than let this crap confound our decision-making.