Can someone explain ISEB to me?

[Stircrazyschoolmum]

Just that really.. a number of the indies are using ISEB this year due to Covid. I understand it’s online, multiple choice and covers English /maths/VR/NVR. But how in practice does this actually work? Is there paper to work out the maths on? Is it intuitive how to click on answers? What does adaptive mean in this context?!

We are at a state primary so it’s all gibberish.. it seems a good way to keep kids safe and reduce stress from multiple exams but if your DC has a bad day then all eggs in one basket?!?

Sadly, that is the lay of the land this year. Many selective schools opting for ISEB tests are starting late November’s. A December or January test date would be idyllic and allows for a traditional period of time for study prep.

Suggest you line up your schools with ISEB and figure the latest possible date you can take the test to qualify for your school.

Thanks for your help @Dailyjunglegrind - at least I'm aware from this thread this is a possibility now!

The schools haven't mentioned that this is something that needs to be thought about either - just that they can use the results if we sit at another school.

That is how we (a few others at our school) have interpteted the drip feed nature of this years 11+ info.
If school A needs the exam period end by 28 November; I am not sure you can delay school A criteria to satisfy wanting to sit the ISEB at school C in January, if that makes sense.

my understanding is that you can't

You have to take the earliest date for the schools you are choosing

Guildford High School and Tormead School have both announced November/December entrance examinations today, also. It seems the switch to the tests at an earlier, pre-xmas date, is becoming widespread. I think most schools want there to be a level playing field and are probably concerned about the deteriorating national picture / winter lockdowns in the new year that might disrupt the traditional entrance exam season? The good thing is, in Guildford for example, that all the kids are in the same boat (I think Priors field are doing December too). Good luck all, its been a tough 12 months!

I think Atom scores are about 10 lower just as a previous poster said, just gauging using my son's scores last year. He was scoring about 126 - 130 in the Atom mocks, with the highest score in Maths (129, 130 ish), his Kent test however was full standardised score 141. He did get a scholarship from the independent sch we sat the iseb for.

Thanks a lot for your insight @iamthankful , this is very useful information and confirms what a PP said.

Thanks, all, we have started with Atom Learning this week and it's quite heavy on the grammar questions!

Hello can I ask someone who is familiar with atom. I see people here seem very knowledgeable.

My son has the following percentages:

maths 76 percent

English 74.4 percent

VR 77.3 percent

NVR 63.7 percent

His marks show they are in the 1st group of percentiles on the atom dial thing.

He has been doing atom since May so 5 months.

In that time he has answer 5590 questions.

He has spent 3 days in time accumulation but has only done 56 percent of the atom syllabus. Maybe he is repeating questions?

He has done about 32 mocks (so that would be equal to 8 full 11 plus tests if you include the four topics) results have ranged from 107 to 142 - he did bomb badly with the first mocks he took so I am not including them.

He is from a state school so all of this is new.

Would you let him sit for state grammars or private schools given the above?

I think the 4 percentages are the "mastery metric" so he is the top ability quartile based upon their data.

I may start my own thread on this topic. It is helpful to go through the responses.

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@noughtmare the mastery numbers are driven by the questions your DS has repeatdly answered correctly. Think of it as a probability of getting those type of questions correct. The more answers attempted, stronger the correlation with how he may perform in the real test.

Thank you so in reality there is still a great deal more work to do and he probably is not at the standard required. I will ask atom too.

Your DS has worked tirelessly hard - well done to stay that motivated & dedicated. Atoms FAQ suggests however since the tests are adaptive, it is probably impossible to ever achieve 100%. keep us updated.

Thank you yes he has worked hard.

I had not really realised as I always felt he did not do that much so that is a good thing about atom I suppose in capturing the time and effort!

on the ATOM website it says that anything above 120 in SAS is high if that helps ?
Please can I ask how many ALP he has accumulated ?
otherwise where do you see the % ? I can only see the SAS and stanine and decile.

Thanks Montileu he has got over 20,000 ALPs.

Yes I can see the statins and sas.

The percentage I was quoting is different and relates to the overall progress - so as someone explained that was the percentage that my son would get a question correct ?

Stainines I mean .. ofcourse I may well need statins after this 11 plus process.

Recently marks are above 120

More often than not they are between 108 and 118

He had some really poor results when he first used the mock test area and it caused him to feel demotivated.

He has worked very hard. I’m not sure if needing to work to hard is a good thing (even though it is a great quality). Selective schools will complete work at a fast pace and it will be difficult for him if he needs to work v hard to keep up...

So he did a at olaves test and got 100 percent - And in record time?

I know with atom that there is an element of chance?

It was maths so I am going to see if he can sit the other elements of the paper.

He chose to do the test - I did not push him.

I felt he had to cover a great deal of ground work because the primary school experience has not been great. So a great deal of key stage 2 curriculum has been new.

Any way the work done must end up being useful for secondary.

I would be interested in others experience of atom learning.

Is 5000 questions enough for atom to sit the grammar tests?

He obviously prefers what he excels at - Maths. So maybe English and non verbal have been neglected.