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?!?

as any DD or DS achieved top score on an ATom mock?

@EnolanotAlone

My DS's last four maths mock tests results were 137, 138, 140 and 142. 138 and 142 were on ISEB Pre-test (adaptive), the other two were on Atom's Kent and Bucks tests.

Maths's his strongest subject, which he very much enjoys. English is in low 120s, VR is around 130 mark, NVR is 117-118 (he has a couple of areas of difficulty due to the way his brain works [he has HFA, i.e. not neuro-typical]).

We only had Atom for a couple of weeks (he's been off sick, so had time to do mocks during this time).

We started preparing for 11+ in the earnest at home in May. Mostly using past papers from a variety of schools across the country. Before that, he's been attending a weekly group tutoring session locally for about year.

ATOM are doing a free webinar on ISEB Pre-test on 15th Oct 5.30pm..

Sign up to take part zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qccdcuScQvuuxkXdnkuCjw

@GrammarHopeful @Oceane11plus your children are excelling on Atom, outstanding scores and consistency. My DS will sit iseb mocks this weekend, just trying to understand if the top scores are achieveable.

@EnolanotAlone Just to be clear DD is not excelling on Atom, far from that! She got two full scores in her two better subjects but these were a one off and part of me thinks it might have been caused by a bug in the system. She’s still getting good scores in English and VR but maths is much more volatile; she rushes as she is worried to be short of time and seems to be making so many careless mistakes as a result, I despair I wonder if the screen makes it worse (on paper she can highlight the important words and make sure she doesn’t miss anything in the question). We still have one month before the exam but this doesn’t make me very hopeful.

@Oceane11plus I understand your concerns about the speed at which the children click the answers, and the consequences of a wrong answer, as the children cannot go back. Your DS scores look promising, which is a good sign, its still early days with a new system to wrap our heads around and gain faith in.

She’s still getting good scores in English and VR but maths is much more volatile; she rushes as she is worried to be short of time and seems to be making so many careless mistakes as a result, I despair

Careless mistakes and answering not quite the same question as was asked (because it's similar, but different from a problem he's aced before) is the bane of my life. I feel for you and all of our children!

@GrammarHopeful What I find very frustrating with this format change is that we did work on some strategies with written maths papers such as not wasting time on a question and come back to it later, re-read everything at the end if she has spare time, and we had managed to iron out most careless mistakes.
I feel like we're back to square one now. She rushes through the questions in the online mocks as she is worried about time but always ends up with 10-15mn spare time that is totally useless! When we go through her mistakes together, I hide the answers and explanations and make make her re-do the questions and 9 times out of 10 she finds the right answer. The maths is not that difficult, it is the format which is causing an issue for her.

@Oceane11Plus

Yes, I understand. DS isn't in huge favour of computer-based testing either. I am though, as this allows me to finally stop having to do "race the test" with him, which I am quite tired off by now . This was a good motivational tool for him earlier on and it stuck. Silver linings of this dreadful pandemic, I guess, that I have the opportunity to do so...

We are going to try for a few of the independents here in SW London, who now switched over to ISEB Pre-test, so whether he likes it or not, he needs to get used it.

He hasn't quite mastered moving on from the time-consuming questions yet He likes to do things sequentially and is a bit of perfectionist, so often panicks when he realises that he wasted too much time. I am just hoping he'll wing it on the day of the paper tests; the first is this Friday! (xx).

Best of luck for tomorrow grammar I wish they could all go to the schools they wanted without having to put them through this!

stircrazy I do too, I wish this process was either easier or did not exist!

grammarhopeful the very best of luck!

My son is sitting for Kent on Saturday, very early.

He couldn't eat this morning and didn't want to go to school. I may keep him off tomorrow to try calm the nerves.

Just going to try reassure him and I may take him out of school tomorrow.

Thank you, @Stircrazyschoolmum. That would be a dream!

@goodymoody Thank you, and best of luck to your DS as well! It's reassuring to know we are not the only ones suffering from the nerves and the worry... even if I wish he didn't have to.

Thank you Happysummer for the tip off about the ATOM webinar!

Hope the Kent exam wasn’t too onerous for those who sat it yesterday, and wishing all those doing it next Saturday all the best, to your DC

warm glad to get it over and done with.
Is your child sitting soon?

We came from SE London and there were lots of other children. So it was an extremely early start (too early for us all) and some people who could afford to got hotels.

Someone in the line had to get up for 4.15am to make it to the centre. I also heard from this person that some people were lining up since 6.45 am.

Congratulations to all children going through this process.

We did hear some people are doing it next week and at the end of October due to covid.

I am quite astounded that DCs are scoring in the high 130s/140s in the Atom tests. Our school did mock tests before half term and there were very few scores in any of the modules over 125.....and this is at a selective prep which will typically send a third of the cohort to London super selective. I am hoping we don’t just have a really underperforming year group! .... or perhaps people will spend the entire half term practicing the tests every day and we all go up 10 points..... Funnily enough when I had DCs do ISEB previously, there was no ATOM learning so they all went in blissfully unaware of how bad they were doing but as no one had any advantages they all scored the same relatively - which was the whole point of it being a tutor proof system. Now we have something like ATOM the test is no longer “tutor proof” and we are all getting sucked into doing more preparation to stay with the pack. It’s really quite exhausting...

Absolute nonsense, I agree @mycat. The whole thing only goes up to 142 anyway re “in the 140s”, but even the 30s is unlikely and unusual. I was told by atom that 115 and above in atom is super selective. While, say, Charterhouse 108.

@Doobiedooo

Absolute nonsense, I agree *@mycat*. The whole thing only goes up to 142 anyway re “in the 140s”, but even the 30s is unlikely and unusual. I was told by atom that 115 and above in atom is super selective. While, say, Charterhouse 108.

Not that I think it's something special, but I am pretty confident in saying most of London's grammars applicants are able to do this across all four domains (which my DS cannot). See attached my parent's dashboard screenshot from Atom.

@grammarhopeful Are those the ISEB mock test results or the CEM ones....the only reason I ask is that it’s very easy to get full marks (142) in the 15 question CEM tests as they aren’t adaptive (and if you are sitting for a grammar these are the tests that you would be practicing) It’s the ISEB setting that is very tricky. ATOM doesn’t differentiate when it lists the results on the screen.

@gozonilla, yes DD sitting Kent this Saturday
Thankfully, it won’t be too early rise for us ( a bit earlier than we like, but not too bad).

Wishing your DC the very best

Are those the ISEB mock test results or the CEM ones...

@Mycatslovedreamies Annoyingly, there is no easy way to see it on Atom after the event, as you say, but these results are a mixture of ISEB (definitely, the 129 yesterday) plus Tiffin and Kent Mocks (the two 11+ tests he did last week). I can't quite tell which one is which, because he has the tendency to not finish all questions (and Atom only shows the correct/incorrect answers for those questions that had been attempted). Luckily, he is entitled to extra time in the real thing (apart from Kent Test, who chose to ignore the EP's recommendation).

Yes wondering about this

@grammarhopeful you can click on “more” and then get a report on all the tests including all the questions...

[quote Mycatslovedreamies]@grammarhopeful you can click on “more” and then get a report on all the tests including all the questions...[/quote]
Sorry, I am not seeing it. Where is this "More" button? I am looking at the "Mock tests" subsection of the parental dashboard. For clarity, we have Atom Nucleus Premium sub (i.e. it's not a school version).

So all the practise with paper tests is not as relevant?

We are Alleyn’s too. Have replied to their email. So the only test is ISEB?

I thought it a pre-test but it was only an assumption