Will DD ever shake off her CAT scores?

[Finallyfinally]

We lived abroad during DD’s primary years and returned to the UK for her start at secondary. I knew her CAT testing was likely to be weaker than her ability - it may be cognitive ability, but she was taught in a very different way with different (US-style) methods of teaching. A lot of her transition was working out what people were actually asking.

Anyway - I was right, and her initial basebands after her CATs were low average. Y7 was a transition year but by Y8 she had returned to where she always was in primary - in the top bit of the class, repeatedly getting top grades for homework, for most unit assessments and crushing her end of year assessments with the top grade. She ended the year with two academic awards.

So we’ve started Y9 and rather than using their usual assessments, we are told what grade DD is working towards. We’re told it’s based on their Y7 CATs. And for DD, it’s a 4.

This is bonkers, right? What does she have to do? Is there anything I’m missing from this process?

Schools can get a student to resit CAT tests at any time.
So you could request that the school do that to update the target grades.
It does cost the school money though and they could object on those grounds.

We separate SATS/CATs predicted grade and target grade and only tell students their target grade which teachers have input into raising if needed.

But then again, we also set based on internal testing, and only query sets if a child is seen to be underachieving.

We are used to having students who have EAL enter the UK system late in primary or early in Secondary and achieve way above the potential originally assigned by their tests.

My elder child (now year 13) was predicted 5 for everything. She got one 6 and everything else was 7 or 8 - mostly 8 to be fair. We knew that the targets were way off even by year 8 but they didn't really adjust them apart from one or two up to a 6, just kept giving her T+ on the reports, saying that they didn't want to increase pressure on her. They did reassure us that they don't teach to the target and continue to stretch everyone to achieve the best they can, which did turn out to be the case. She's now predicted 3As at A level, which you would think was impossible for someone predicted Cs at GCSE. Younger child is in year 8 now and was predicted 5 for everything...

Just make sure that she's not automatically entered for the foundation/lower tiered papers if she's capable of the higher ones.

The school are going to love your DD as their value add score for her will be through the roof!
At the school my DC are at, they get a termly report which, for Yrs 7-11, shows their Target Grade which is based on CATs and so is the same in every single report and then their Projected Grade which is based on how they are actually getting on that term. Now that DC1 is in 6th Form, the Projected Grade is based on GCSE results rather than CAT scores. I basically looked at the Projected Grades once in Yr7 to see how they “should” be doing and have essentially ignored them ever since!

No value added/progress 8 as the child did not sit SATS.