Is it worth trying for Tiffin School?

[Nushi21]

My DC is at an Independant primary school in SW London. we just received his CAT4 scores for this term. They are as follows
VR - 112
NVR - 124

I don’t understand this but his last set of CAT4 tests results last academic year was
VR -113
NVR -138

We don’t have any recent scores but his previous scores for attainment were
English - 123
Maths - 108

My question is should we even bother applying for Tiffin School? What are your thoughts on his scores?

I’m quite pissed with the NVR scores in all honesty! Especially for the money we are paying school for this school.

My son has 100% attendance, reads minimum 20 mins a day and has done since he was 6. Always finishes his homework in advance. What are we doing wrong? I’m always encouraging him and he enjoys school. What more can we do?

You can’t buy better results than your child is capable of

You can’t buy better results than your child is capable of

disagree

Wow. Poor kid.

I don't know what Tiffin test (we moved away from Surrey to Kent before I had to drill into this) but I have had four go through superselective grammars here.

I would be more concerned that the maths and English scores don't look high enough, but it's always worth a go, as long as you aren't putting huge undue pressure on your child/ren.

(Slightly off topic, but a friend of mine who was deputy head of a large well known public school, who was also pastoral lead, said that the top fear of children at her school was "letting down their parents because they were paying for their education". 😢That came ahead of worrying about their parents getting ill or divorcing - which anecdatally amongst my children's peers was what they were most worried about)

Wandsworth 11 plus test VR & NVR but your combined score would be too low for a Graveney selective place. The VR score needs to be higher.

I hope your child is TOTALLY unaware of your angst for their sake as you will likely f*ck them up otherwise.
Your child can only do what they can do, and that already seems pretty good to me. Have a back up plan and keep your feelings on the subject completely hidden from them.

If Tiffin is the goal then concentrate on bringing the maths score up.

We also live in SW London and 2 of mine are at independent school. I don't pay for them to get better test scores, that would be a waste of money. There are fantastic primaries in SW London and paying for a tutor twice a week is far cheaper and just as effective imo.

Lot of pressure to be piling on a 10 year old there

CAT scores shouldn't move much beyond a small movement based on familiarity with the questions and test.

They are designed to measure raw ability and intelligence which is mainly down to genetics and not teaching.

You are asking for the impossible.

I am not familiar with the specific tests used, but my assumption is that (given they are both CAT4 tests) they are both age and cohort normed.

So his raw score in NVR may be exactly the same - or even a bit higher - but as he is now older, the normed score is lower.

Equally, start of Y5 (when the previous year’s 11+ candidates take their tests) is a very common time to start intensive tutoring in selective or partially selective areas. This means that the cohort at your DS’s age are now ‘better trained’ on average, particularly at the higher end of ability.

In my experience, for super-selective 11+ areas, even private school candidates are normally coached / tutored (at home by parents with the support of printed and online materials; in groups or 1:1). If you have focused on the private school as ‘the main way to get scores up’, you may need more intensive coaching at home too.

Others have commented on the specific school tests and Maths / English. I don’t think there’s a downside in ‘having a go’ if you keep your own and his expectations low and unstressed. If you are fixed on test scores and ‘we’re paying for high scores’, then this may not be the right atmosphere in which to enter a test in a spirit of ‘let’s have a go at this adventure; you never know’.

Remember that the CAT score you get today is in the middle of a range of scores that you might get on any given day. It is normal to get fluctuations. The range is called a confidence interval so a CAT score of say 116 today might be 106 on a day when a child is feeling tired/unwell/upset/distracted and the same child on another day might score 126 when fully focused and feeling on top of their game.
A score of 100 is the middle average score. The average range is 85 to 115.

Well actually the reason for the Independant primary school was for the scores, so yes we are paying for the scores. Isn’t everyone paying for scores that pays sky high prices for primary school? It’s surely not for a decorated classroom.

How many dc go to Tiffin each year?

We've just finished the whole 11+ malarkey. My view now is that these CAT4 and other GL tests are all well and good and yes, give an idea but children are people. So they change, have good days/bad days, luck of the draw etc.
DS did a CAT4 in y4 = mid 110s. Did another one at the beginning of y6. We had been told repeatedly that these scores, particularly CAT4, wouldn't change much, 5 points either way tops. DS' score went up by 8 points. That was very helpful in the end as it then opened the door to schools looking at CAT4 of 120+. Phew (as in we could now apply to a few more schools and maximise our chances of securing a place somewhere).
I'm not saying you should try all manner of schools just because your child's CAT4 could change but I'd take all these scores with a pinch of salt. Maybe Tiffin will be the very aspirational school. I think you need to wait until the beginning of y6 to finalise your entries. Good luck!

NB I know you need to register now for Tiffin. Do it. Register. If in September you think it's no longer a good choice, email the council/school and withdraw from the process. 🙂

To take a step back from CAT scores and innate ability, at the end of the day, the kids who do well in GCSEs and A levels and beyond that, are the very hard workers, with good social skills, great attitude to learning etc.

So scoring upper average is probably a massive advantage, when tailored with really good attitude to revision and learning.

The geniuses - that is actually usually a challenge, not necessarily an advantage, long term.

@Araminta1003 Totally agree. Plus, as far as I know, CAT4 are used to predict academic (not life skills as you say) achievement for the next educational phase so GCSE, if work/progress is sustained. These scores are a snapshot on one day when you're 10 years old. Those who talk like they've won the Euromillions because their child did well that day need to get a life I think.

I know what you could do OP. To help you make a decision (personally I'd decide in September/as late as possible), you could ask your school to tell you what CAT4 score/range of scores the children who got Tiffin in previous years was. And see how it compares with your child. Again, nothing's set in stone but it's one more piece of information before deciding.

They also don't take into account any SEN.

My DD has CAT scores that would suggest that she could walk into the selective secondary school of her choice.

She also has severe SEN and has had to work extremely hard to hopefully get a half decent set of GCSE grades as she falls apart in exams. They're an interesting snapshot of certain things, but by no means the full picture.

It is safe if CAT scores stay above consistent 130 in both subjects. however It's always worth a go.

Just so you know, Atom is not like the Tiffin exam at all....best for you to look at the examples Tiffin has on their website for their exam and find similar. Always worth it to give it a go....if you did not try for anything in life, you would get no where. And if dc does not get in, that is also a valuable lesson in life, dealing with the outcome and being resilient.

I’m not sure what the angst is - register him for the exam and give it a go. Unlike the indies it won’t cost anything.

I don’t know anything about Tiffin. But am currently torn between keeping my child at prep school or moving them to state for reception onwards. The features favouring the prep are the sports and music facilities plus after school care and clubs. If I’m honest, the attitude that you’re paying for exam results is what is swaying me towards state! It’s can’t be right to put young children under so much academic pressure.

CAT testing may give an indication of intelligence but it says nothing about likelihood of getting a place at Tiffin. The Tiffin test favours kids who are really good at writing (creative writing, SPAG and vocab etc), but who are also strong at maths.

Then go to a state school. Don’t use me as your deciding factor.

Most of these comments don’t help me or answer my question. It’s the usual here on mumsnet- no matter the query you get a collective group of people that will send negative vibes and attitude.
I’ve seen it many times here. Good job it didn’t bother me.

You really are delightful.