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?!?

@LittleBlackBear and @montlieu

Atom may well market themselves as a tool to get ready for Y7- after all it extends the number of months people sign up for- but they should, in my view, take the trouble to limit what goes into the mocks so that they are reflective of the exam. Not to do so not only creates unnecessary anxiety but can also be deleterious to exam preparation as it can skew prep towards areas of the curriculum that will not actually be covered in the exam- at the expense of revising areas that will definitely be in the exam- or having more free time.

We have actually eased off the Atom mocks now as they create stress for no little benefit and they can certainly forget us paying the subscription after this month.

@LittleBlackBear

Many thanks for all the replies. Really helpful. It makes sense that ATOM covers a more extensive curriculum, but it’s frustrating that their mocks aren’t a true representative of the actual ISEB pre test!

I think Atom is very similar to the ISEB test as my son used Atom briefly last year and I remember very well after the test, he said to me that he saw some exact Maths questions. I know it probably won't have been exact, but maybe close enough for him to have thought so.

The Maths content however is way past year 5, some of the questions are so hard even for a high achieving year 5 (at the time could do year 7 & 8 Maths), I know this because my DS is very good at Maths and his 11+ was full standardised scores in Maths, however, he did find some of the questions quite hard, Atom is adaptive though, so I understand. My son's Atom mock scores were about 129/130 and he did go on to secure a scholarship at the independent school where we applied to, so do not be disheartened if the mock scores aren't too high, I think Atom is about 10 marks less.

Thanks @iamthankful That’s very interesting and reassuring re Atom scores vs actual scores.
I am also quite confused which is why I asked a question earlier re algebra as my DS (particularly strong in maths) sat the ISEB pre test a few years ago and I remember him telling me about some of the maths questions (I still remember them!) which in hindsight were WAY above the Y5 curriculum (more like Y7-8 questions). At the time I did not think much of it as we walked into the process very naively and I didn’t do much research about ISEB pre test so I had no idea it was supposed to be based on the Y5 curriculum. Maybe it has changed, I don’t know, but in any case it’s better to prep for more than less.

The ISEB website clearly says the maths and English are based on the year 5 curriculum.
I have emailed them myself to check and they just repeated the same thing.

@montlieu

The ISEB website clearly says the maths and English are based on the year 5 curriculum. I have emailed them myself to check and they just repeated the same thing.

I can guarantee you that it's not. I tutor 11+ and Maths up to GCSE level and I know what secondary school content is . As I said in my earlier post, my son used it last year and even when reviewing some of the answers with him last year, I was surprised at the difficulty of some of the questions. Saying that, because it is adaptive, not all students will get to see the very hard questions.

Just to clarify that my comment above is about Atom Learning and not the ISEB pre-test.

@iamthankful and @montlieu Could it be that mastering the Year 5 curriculum would be equivalent to a certain standardized score (say average or probably above that actually) but to get close to a full score, a solid grasp of the Y6 curriculum would be needed (or at least a solid grasp of up-to-year-5 concepts but applied to situations usually not seen until Y6 or even later)? I obviously don't know, just speculating!

@Oceane11plus @iamthankful @montlieu thanks for your thoughts. Good to hear that others agree that ATOM maths mocks do go beyond Y5.
My theory is that ISEB pre test used to have some Y6 maths. There is a video on the ISEB website that says it includes first term of Y6. When I asked ISEB about this, they said the video was old, and as you said @montlieu, they restated what it says on their website ie up to end of Year 5. So it sounds like it’s changed, maybe to reflect lockdown/home schooling?
If the pre test did used to include some Y6 maths, it would explain why ATOM mocks do too as they are drawing on previous experience of the pre test.
Does this makes sense?!

aww interesting @LittleBlackBear, that would explain everything!

yes it does. I wonder if the same applies to the English, grammar etc ...
most people think that the maths and English for 11+ applies to the curriculum to the end of year 6, maybe it is not the case anymore !
is there tutor or maths teacher here who could clarify ? also it is possible possible that the year 6 curriculum is mostly a consolidation/ recap at a slightly higher level of the year 5 curriculum so the harder questions are really an extension of year 5.
who knows? we are now running out of time to cover chunks of the curriculum as the test is coming up very soon !!

DD has spent up to 8 mins on a single VR question then galloped to finish in the required time. I keep telling her a question unanswered is 0 marks but one guessed is 50/50 she doesn’t listen!

Hi blocksmum, great info here and kind of you to share but there will be kids sitting the ISEB into the new year so I don’t think it’s a great idea to share so much information at this stage.

@blocksmum Very kind of you to share feedback but as PP says many DCs have yet to sit the test so if I were you I'd ask for the post to be deleted.
I have two remarks following your message:

1. My DD like most DCs has also been practicing on Atom and her scores have improved massively from the start (latest SS clearly > 130 and 1st decile on average across 4 topics). However, I can see she is getting used to the questions especially in Maths where the same or very similar questions tend to come back so my view has been that her scores are somewhat artificial. If your DS was used to Atom it might explain why he found the actual test harder.

2. The test is meant to be adaptive so if your DS found it hard, I'd say it's a pretty good sign that he's been doing well and thus was given harder questions.

@blocksmum, I know that you have now removed your message, but it was very helpful to read your son's first-hand account of the test, so thank you.

@Oceane11Plus, yes same experience here. He is no pretty much scoring over 130 consistently (and top scores in Maths) on Atom, but that's through familiarity, rather than a sudden jump in the ability. He still find 3D objects (constructing and rotating) challenging, but so do I!

@GrammarHopeful Exactly the same for DD The ONLY topic where she has a relatively poor ability score is 3D shapes in NVR!

I didn't actually delete my post, someone else must have done. Anyway, I guess my main point was, my son didn't find it super similar to atom in the end. Atom is expensive, so I thought it worth mentioning. For us, considering how totally unprepared he would have been without it, with extremely patchy schooling and this being his first proper test of any description (and as he liked computer-based practice), it was still a good resource. But if we were to do it again, I probably would have used more regular 11+ preparation resources. I think Oceane is right also that being too used to one platform could be a disadvantage. Good luck to everyone's children!

@OptimysticMom

Are you saying that the ISEB pre-test varies according to which school you are at/from? I was under the impression everyone, whether they were from a prep or a state school took the same pre-test in the sense it was from the same set of question banks and was adaptive (predominantly on the maths) in terms of level of difficulty.

As to your statement that "its not difficult to chosen for your selected school", I think this depends on how competitive the school is.

My DS used Atom for a month and found it about 70% similar to the actual ISEB. He said Atom was harder on English and tested numerous aspects that didn't appear in the actual pre-test. The actual test was harder in VR and Maths.

The ISEB pretest is exactly the same for all the schools. What does vary is the cut off mark which will be different for every school. The most selective schools will have the highest cut off marks to qualify for the next step and so on...

@OptimysticMom

I’m with oceane on this one. I can imagine the cutoff being different but believe there would be an absolute outcry in SW London if State kids got an easier version of the tests. I know there’s several types of pretest used by schools - CEM / CAT / UKiset - could it be that lower school children use a test from a different supplier?

I think also, there are many schools using ISEB for the first time this year and only because they have to. Until they have every applicants test score and demographic they probably have no idea how to cut the data?

My guess is the GDST schools may collaborate to determine cutoff points and perhaps the Dulwich schools. Perhaps this is why Emanuel is sticking to what they know.

@OptimysticMom

The ISEB Pre-tests are adaptive, and this adaptability varies from school to school. Atom, unfortunately, creates much anxiety for parents/students, as the level of complexity is well above average, and does NOT reflect the actual ISEB Pre-tests.

There was not a single subjunctive, modal, auxiliary verb, etc question in the grammar section this year from what I've heard from students and son.

The Pre-tests are specifically geared towards the school your child attends: state school children are called in separately, on a different date and provided an 'adaptive test' suitable for their presumed abilities- they do not receive the same test as the internal candidates. e.g. For the Under School, all the boys had more or less the same English, NVR, Maths tests, as they are expected to be at a higher academic level than most other schools. And the tests were actually significantly easier than any of the Atom mocks the boys had attempted.
For state school students, the Atom mocks are perhaps best for timing purposes. As long as your child doesn't run out of time, works methodically and avoids silly errors, it is not difficult to be chosen for your selected schools. Hope this helps alleviate the Pre-tests anxiety. Good luck.

How does this adaptability vary from school to school??

Candidates from state schools and independent schools will be sitting the test at the same time in the same place. I fail to see how they will be sitting a different test

Does anyone know if time is a factor in the standardised scoring or if the schools are told of the time taken by the child for each individual section?

For example, the Maths section is 50 mins. If the child finished the test in half the time and scored, say 125, is this considered a negative (good score, but clearly rushed it needlessly) or positive (good score and only needed half the allocated time).

I think it’s unlikely schools get told the time taken to complete each section and even more unlikely they would take this metric into account.
IMO the time taken to complete the test is irrelevant - there are several reasons why DC can complete a test before the allocated time: rushing carelessly, rushing as being very gifted, or on the contrary, not taking the time to work out some questions/having no clue and guessing the answers. Therefore no meaningful conclusion can be drawn from it.
In addition taking this information into account would be over complicating (an already complicated) decision making process.
If time was important, it would be somehow included in the score/taken into account to generate the next questions through a very clever algorithm!