CAT scores for SPGS

[SWLParent]

Does anyone know what sort of Year 6 CAT scores are needed for applying to SPGS or G&L?

Yeah, 135 as a minimum entry standard, even an average entry standard, for literally any school in the country would be pure fantasy.

I think for SPGS you're talking maybe very high 110s for a weak/outside chance, mid-ish 120s for a strong chance, anything upwards of 130s to be certainly up to scratch.

Will just repeat from the other thread:

Two years ago, DD averaged very high 130's, was offered spot @ SPGS. Very high 130's placed her in top half to top third of performance on their entrance exams. Good luck.

@funtoday if you search the GL assessment website it explains its a standardised just like CATs but just on a different population (independent schools only). 125 for bot tests equates to circa top 5%.

@fundogwalker I'm intrigued - given that schools don't tell you where your daughter placed in the entrance exams, how do you know that her CAT score placed her in top half to top third? I'm interested to know where you got that information from.

Sorry for the silly question but what is a CAT score? Is this a test that prep schools do or based on a series of tests? We are at a state primary and use Atom. Is a CAT score a similar concept but based on tests administered at the prep?

Do prep schools refer to these CAT scores in their references for pupils to secondary schools?

CAT4 tests are often given by prep schools.

www.gl-assessment.co.uk/assessments/cat4/

They are tests that are sometimes given by Prep schools but more often used in secondary schools to baseline test kids on entrance. CAT4 and MIDYIs are the 2 main tests used for this and test skills and give the school an overall score and a breakdown of numeracy, literacy, verbal reasoning, numerical or non verbal reasoning and sometimes spatial skills.

Schools use them to see where individual students are starting, sometimes to set for maths and English and also to identify potential special needs. They can also be used to indicate how able a cohort is likely to be and give possible GCSE outcomes.

Students and families are often given little or no notice and kids are told not to prepare and also that you can’t. It’s not strictly true, as those prepping for 11+ in state grammars or independent schools know, you can boost your marks with some prep. Some schools will have kids sit these during a July taster day or more often in Sept of Oct of Yr7. Results are rarely provided to parents. They are for internal purposes.

Few schools don’t do baseline testing of some sort. In normal years they can compare the outcomes to SATs from KS2 which many secondary schools have little faith in.

Is a CAT score equivalent to what I get in Atom Learning from, say, an ISEB mock test?

No, it is not. Atom will tell you to add approximately 8 points to your Atom score to convert it to an equivalent CAT score.

There are SPGS mock tests in Atom Learning. I saw 20 mins for 35 questions for both Maths and NVR, and 10 mins for 17 questions for VR. Are the times in actual tests so tight?

The initial computer-based test is quite time pressured. The second round of tests, less so.

Thank you so much for your response. Is the second round paper-based?

Yes

My DD has very different scores between NVR/Maths (130-140+) and English/VR (110-120) because we are not native English. How will the school see these scores in your view? Thanks.

@uk2020 I honestly don't know the answer. I would check with your daughter's current school to get a view on this.

I think the correlation between cat scores and entry exam success is not as strong as some would think. I wish it were, as dd has excellent cat scores, but if these scores are indicative of potential she has yet to fulfil that.

I have also been told that these schools place most of the emphasis on their own exams, and will hardly take cat scores into account. I think a good tutor (or dedicated parent) can prepare almost anyone for these exams. We had a girl in my older dd’s primary school who was in the bottom set for maths and middle set for English get into SPGS. She is a few years in now and is allegedly struggling, I don’t know the family very well but that’s the gossip. But she got in.

Agree with the above, most schools will not look at the cat scores, one of the reason being that state schools generally don t have Cat results anyway.
Having a cat score of 130+ does not "guarantee" you will pass SPGS assessment, similarly having a 120 cat score does not mean you are going to fail.
A school might look at those scores if they are unsure about a candidate alongside the school reference.

Agree, the most important thing for entry into most schools is their own entrance exams. There's is the Oxford research that says CAT scores are 81% correlated with GCSE results. However, without question a school's entrance exam is the most important thing regardless of any other test results.

I think the importance of CAT score as an indication of the ability of someone to get into a particular school is greatly exaggerated. My son has a very high CAT score (top 1-2 %) but I think his ability level to pass 11+ into top schools (we are still in this process) is much lower (maybe top 5% or more)

I wonder if many parents have looked at the typical CAT4 questions. They are so much different from the 11+ exam questions (grammar or independent). My son handles the short simple math questions in CAT far better than the complicated worded questions in the 11+ exam. The test of vocab in CAT4 is much simpler and straightforward. There are comprehensions with loads of inference questions and creative writing in the 11+ exam. My son is much weaker in these. And there are NVR in CAT4 that can be tutored but most 11+ exams dropped NVR already. My son is very good at NVR.

I wish the schools admit based on CAT scores, but they are not. So if SPGS or Westminster admits students with a CAT score of 120, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

And to dream that CAT score equates IQ or intelligence, in general, is simply quite naive. The CAT4 and many IQ tests are structured with simple and unrelated questions for the ease of testing and scoring, while in real life, and in many exams, they involve much more complicated questions which are often linked together (Math or English).

My understanding is that CAT scores are used by a child's current school as an indicator of general aptitude, and a way to help tailor learning, but that the scores only become relevant as regards senior schools if a child is borderline & the senior school asks for them. Our head told us most senior don't ever require to see them. But presumably they do serve some purpose to the prep/primary school in terms of identifying strengths / weaknesses etc or else the schools wouldn't keep doing them!

There is no cut off level, also you need to ask how the CAT score was produced, is it the baseline score without preparation or the CAT score a child had in Year 6 after several years of doing CAT tests and practicing reasoning tests. I certainly know girls who started out in the 120-125 range but got it up to a level of 130-135 in Y6. It doesn't mean the children will thrive there long-term, but just because a child has a CAT of 122 in Year 4 or Year 5 it does not mean they can't get in. It also depends on the subscores and what area of weakness they showed. 11+ papers are more or less half Maths half English whereas CAT is heavily geared towards STEM abilities (quant / NVR / spatial make up three parts and VR is only a quarter). My DC scored 135 in the VR/NVR in ISEB and 139 in CAT but would not stand a chance at SPGS due to her level of English and unwillingness to study / do homework. We do know keen, hard - working children with significantly lower CATS who studied hard and were tutored and who are now at SPGS and doing well there so far.

I think anyone scoring 125+ who is willing to work hard and motivated academically should have a go, as these tests can be erratic and some kids have spiky profiles which can drag the overall score down. Likewise, some kids with scores of 140+ do not get in and then do very well and are happy elsewhere.

for those that have asked me for the link previously:

www.researchgate.net/publication/222403422_Intelligence_and_Educational_Achievement

Some schools do use CAT scores as additional information in admissions decisions, mostly when a child has borderline scores on the entrance exams; schools may believe that a child with borderline entrance exam scores but low(er) CAT scores was "overly" prepped or tutored.

I suspect that SPGS pay little, if any, attention to CAT scores for the simple reason that their pre-test is supposed to cover much the same ground; they effectively force all applicants to sit an "ability" test. As they clearly do have some minimum requirement for their pre-test, they effectively have some minimum requirement for what CAT is supposed to measure. The level of that cutoff is subject to debate, but the fact that the (vast) majority of applicants pass the pre-test and are allowed to sit the second round indicates to me that the level is not that high. This is not to say that a higher score on the pre-test or a higher CAT score than the minimum doesn't improve the chances of getting a place. This is merely to say that the hard cutoff can't be that high.

@user149799568 Do you have stats on how many people sit the SPGS pretest and how many then get through to written papers? Nobody - including our prep school head - seems to have access to that information thus far!