CAT Tests before senior school starts

[BettySundaes]

Is this normal? Child is in full wind-down mode for Yr6 and has been asked to do online CATs for new secondary school. Feels really unfair and they won't be at their best.

I don't know if it's normal, but it may well be better to do it now than after 6 weeks of holidays when they have forgotten things. Plus presumably all are in the same boat. Although I understand that your 11yo feels hard done by!

What so cat scores translate to? Grades wise for gcse ? Or is it ah IQ score ?
My child got 116

We normally get them to come in on a Saturday to do them at their new secondary school. It’s part of the transition process. It’s just one set of tests & they will get assessed at least termly so not the end of the world if they don’t do well

The school haven't said what they will be using them for. They have already done banding tests for the school and they have their SATs results - seems a bit mean and overkill.

@foxster22 its meant to be more like an IQ test than a SATs which is testing learning. They are typically used along with other data to help with GCSE predictions by schools.

Our did them once they had started at new school and it streamed them for maths and English.

Much better than sats imo as there is very little prep done for them so fixes a better reflection of actual ability.

Gives, not fixes.🙄

No prep needed for them. My DC are at a private primary school and they do them every year - very low key. We get given the numerical results : I think they do broadly translate to IQ but there are several different CAT tests that map to different areas of aptitude (eg problem solving, language etc)

As I recall there are different tests which test verbal numerical and something else (can't recall). DS's school used them as a broad predictor of GCSE scores and I think they are helpful for flagging up discrepancies in profile (so very highly scoring on one test and lower in another) which helps inform the school of particular aptitudes or spiky profiles. No prep needed and I recall DS found them quite fun.

It shouldn’t matter when they are done as all children are in the same boat and they in theory can’t prepare for CATs. They shouldn’t be stressful if managed well.

CAT scores are often used for predicting potential results at GCSE. They are more reliable than SATs which most secondary schools don’t trust. I’m guessing they are doing now so they can process the data over the summer and hit the ground running in September.

They can relate to IQ but not in terms of score as the highest CAT score you can get is 141. If you are interested to understand your child’s results Google CAT scores graph and you can se where they might fit in the bell curve.

Yeah my old school didn’t trust SATs at all so did these instead 🤷🏻‍♀️ Begs the question- why do SATs doesn’t it…

Yes normal, ours usually have to go in on a Saturday in July to do them ready for year 7.

Yes it’s pretty normal. At my previous school we did them on the transition days. Gave us better info than manipulated SATS and a baseline to work from. Plus we screened for dyslexia too so we could pick up missed cases early. Surprisingly lots are missed.

Doing CATS was really useful to my dd. It picked up a spiky profile which led to further assessment and an eventual autism diagnosis. Because she’s very intelligent it was totally missed at her primary school. She was underachieving and no one realised because she was above average.

CAT test scores are highly predictive of GCSE scores. This is based on an Oxford study of 80,000 students:

www.researchgate.net/publication/232987451_Comparing_the_predictive_validity_of_reasoning_tests_and_national_end_of_Key_Stage_2_tests_Which_tests_are_the_'best'/download

Great chart to understand test results: