New London Consortium assessment for 2023 entry

[EmotiveBubblez]

The Consortium have announced their new assessment today that has been developed in conjunction with Atom Learning.

Details are:

The assessment will include cognitive reasoning, English comprehension, Maths and some creative new components to assess problem-solving and analysis skills.

Any prior knowledge assessed in the entrance examination will be based on the National Curriculum for Year 5, but with opportunities for additional challenge built into the assessment.

The assessment will be taken as an online assessment.

There will be five distinct components, taken in the following order:
20 minutes for Maths
10 minutes for Non-Verbal Reasoning
30 minutes for English comprehension and Verbal Reasoning
BREAK for 30 minutes
15 minutes for Problem Solving
25 minutes for the Analysis component

Familiarisation materials will be published on the Consortium website in early Autumn Term 2022. We recommend that all candidates look at these before taking the assessment.

I am happy to hear they will be tested on the Y5 curriculum bot happy that the familiarisation materials are available from he Autumn term given the assessment takes place in December.


What are people's thoughts and how are you preparing?

Y5 parent - EB

[tamu1234]

Does anyone have input of the FHRP interview process? We are going this week. There is a group activity as well as an interview - any tips from experience last year?

[Londonmum1234567]

@tamu1234

Hi, does anyone know when the schools will send out the invitations for the interviews based on the tests - some like SHHS, FHRP and G&L are only selectively sending out the interview invites.

FHRP sent invitations to interview on 13/14th Dec

SHHS to email by 11th Jan regarding interview

[QuiteAJourney]

With apologies for asking, but just wondering what the 'Problem section' was like? We did not apply to any Consortium schools but have friends applying next year and a bit put off by the scarcity of indicative materials, especially for that section.

[quizaddict]

G&L is 9th Jan and I think interviews are 13th Jan

[tamu1234]

Hi, does anyone know when the schools will send out the invitations for the interviews based on the tests - some like SHHS, FHRP and G&L are only selectively sending out the interview invites.

[Mamabear12]

Anyone find the test easy?! My dd said she found it easy and she finished all 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ I’m worried bc it’s adaptive so I hope she managed to get to the hard questions. She did say the questions got difficult but she managed it. It’s crazy with the adaptive tests bc you really just don’t know. I just hope she did well enough to pass!

[goMN]

The tests were time pressured but similar to other online tests.
Even though DD had not done any specific practise for the problem solving and analysis section she did not find it too hard. Long wait until January now .... Good luck to all those sitting the exam tomorrow.

[FriendlyMom]

I second your post, @Parent123456 - my daughter said something along these lines. Also, the teacher sat at the desk, and there were screens separating the girls' computers.

[Parent123456]

My DD said the maths / vr / nvr and english were very time pressured and she could not finished at all, not looking good.
The 2 other part she did not find the answer to some questions and said it was tricky..
School told them it would be infinite number of questions but it was not, a few girls manage to finish.
She said was quite similar to the CEM pretest of city and you had to be very quick.
Now very long long wait until January..

[LondonMum20222]

@njshore

My daughter just took the online Consortium exam at her prep school and, from what she told me, it's such a scam as it will heavily favour prep feeder schools. You can bet that all the teachers stood behind the girls taking notes on what's on the exam to prepare their students next year. Too bad for state school kids and those not at a feeder prep.

These schools in the Consortium should have the girls take the exam at their schools (pick any school) if they even care about the integrity of the exam and selecting the most able girls, not the ones helped out by cheating teachers.

Did your daughter say that teachers were standing behind the girls taking notes? I would find that shocking, not least as it would be horribly off-putting for the girls taking the exam to have teachers standing at their shoulder.

Or are you actually accusing the teachers of helping the girls during the exam, given your reference to "cheating teachers"? If you're saying teachers at your daughter's prep school cheated, and you feel strongly enough to come on here and talk about it, I suggest you report it to the Consortium.

[FriendlyMom]

Hopefully this year the exam process will be fairer. The secondary schools surely must account for that.
Good luck to all girls sitting the Consortium exam today!!!

[PreplexJ]

@njshore given the range of exam days, the note taking teacher can even prepare it for the preschool students this year

[njshore]

My daughter just took the online Consortium exam at her prep school and, from what she told me, it's such a scam as it will heavily favour prep feeder schools. You can bet that all the teachers stood behind the girls taking notes on what's on the exam to prepare their students next year. Too bad for state school kids and those not at a feeder prep.

These schools in the Consortium should have the girls take the exam at their schools (pick any school) if they even care about the integrity of the exam and selecting the most able girls, not the ones helped out by cheating teachers.

[LondonMum20222]

@PreplexJ

@HighHopes3 DD found it easier than the normal atom learning practices. It is hard to gauge though since the test is adaptive.

Thanks for sharing @PreplexJ - when the test is so new, it's going to be interesting to see what results come out of it. Well done to your DD for having it behind them (and it sounds like they coped very well!)

[HighHopes3]

@PreplexJ

@HighHopes3 DD found it easier than the normal atom learning practices. It is hard to gauge though since the test is adaptive.

Thanks @PreplexJ - that really helps - any insight is reassuring. You (and your DD) must be relieved it is behind you! All the best in the process!

[goMN]

Thanks for sharing @PreplexJ

[PreplexJ]

@HighHopes3 DD found it easier than the normal atom learning practices. It is hard to gauge though since the test is adaptive.

[HighHopes3]

Bump - this friday the first cohort sat the new Consortium exam - would be grateful if any of the parents would share how their DD found the exam. Good luck to all!

[LondonMum20222]

@EmotiveBubblez Yes, we're still a year out and it already feels pretty overwhelming tbh!

[EmotiveBubblez]

That’s what I’ve said. Thanks @LondonMum20222

the emotional management of this process is mind blowing lol.yours and your child’s.

[LondonMum20222]

@EmotiveBubblez I think the only thing you can say to DD (and to yourself) is that everyone is in the same boat this year as regards the Consortium exam - nobody knows quite what it entails, so everyone will be going in slightly blind.

[EmotiveBubblez]

@LondonMum20222 yes we are the Guinea pigs.

every school you speak to all say the same thing. Don’t tutor just look at the familiarisation materials and your child will be fine.

as we know the prep children have this weaves into their curriculum the state children do not. The majority tutor and/or use Atom.

my daughter has asked questions about the other areas and I am unable to give her a specific answer about what it entails. For some children the unknown can cause further anxiety and have an impact on their performance.

[LondonMum20222]

@EmotiveBubblez Thanks for that. Useful to know we're not missing out on anything Consortium-specific by not subscribing! Our head told us that they still don't really know what's going to be in the Consortium paper for this year, which does make this year's Y6 feel a bit like guinea pigs...

[EmotiveBubblez]

@LondonMum20222 like you said all maths, English, VR and NVR. During the holidays they run zoom classes on creative writing other topics.

I haven’t seen anything that resembles the new component of the consortium test.

[LondonMum20222]

I think the point of the new Consortium test (beyond trying to get us all to pay a subscription to Atom) is that the two new components are supposed to be tutor /practice-proof. Who knows how true that'll be in practice. The familiarisation materials are so scant they're not enormously helpful, I thought.

For those using Atom, is there anything on there that resembles the creative or puzzles component from the familiarisation materials? From what we looked at on the free trial, it looked mostly standard English, maths, VR and NVR.