CAT scores - school's reaction to a low score

[pleasemayileavethetable]

Hi all,

I have been dealing with this for a couple of months, do you mind if I ask for advice please?

Should I let the school follow their process, or should I get more involved/private tutor etc in the face of the CAT flagging up a warning?

• My son scored below average in the year 7 CAT test.
• The way CAT scores were explained to me is that they can hint at a future possible problem to learning, rather than an immediate problem.
• My son is intelligent and has always peformed well in Maths and English and in real life he is excellent communicator with adult-like verbal reasoning.
• The school's reaction to the CAT score was to pull him out of some lessons as an intervention.
• We are grateful that the school spotted this, the disappointing aspect is they made these changes without informing us.
• The unfortunate knock-on effect has been the cause of stress to our son.
• He went from believing he excelled at Maths and English, to suddenly being told he has some issues, and the school haven't explained to us or my son.
• The work in these intervention classes are so basic that my son just doesn't understand why he is being asked to do such basic easy work.
• I spoke to the school to try and get some more details and ask if we can look at explaining to us/our son so he has an understanding of what is happening.
• We got some high-level information and I was able to explain it in terms my son understood as to why he needed to attend some different lessons.
• I protected his feelings, but also explained that we all need help. It did the trick. We are an open family and always discuss together topics like this.
• Unfortunately, later in the academic year the school made some more changes to my son's curriculum by taking him out of his tutor class, disappointginly they didn't inform us and the effect on my son has been to creep in some self-doubt as to why he was put in an IDT class.
• My son's perception of this IDT class is it contains children with serioues learning difficulties, and some are unruly.
• It's been a challenge to keep my son's feet on the ground, to explain perceptions and judging people is unfair - I won't go into the details.
• Again, without the school's help I have tried to rationlise the change with my son, but he is beside himself - he's calling himself all sorts of derogitory names.
• I can almost see right before my eyes my son going from a child that loved school he has become disinterested and lost some of his confidence.

I had no preconceptions about the CATs. And of course Googling presents everything from how great they are all the way to taking care when taking their results too literally.

I am trying to fast forward in time and look back without hindsight, as it were, "what is the right thing to do now", "what will I regret not doing".

I believe the schools intentions are good, but I have lost some confidence in their ability to consider both the mental impact as well as the educational needs of my son.

I hope I am lucid about the situation we find ourselves in, and ordinarily my approach to schooling is totally positive, letting the school lead the way. Not that I am approaching this negatively, but I just feel my son is just being treated like a number.

Am I being too precious?

The way I see it is we have three approaches...

1. I find a way to reconcile my son's worries and have him attend what the school believe is right.
2. I get a private tutor to help.
3. Is a retest worth considering? Do I sound like an overbearing parent if I think the test might not have been taken seriously by my son?

Any advice would really be appreciated. I feel torn for my feelings of allowing the school to follow their process but my instinct tells me they are making the situation worse.

I wish I could understand the details of the CAT score but I also appreciate the school must start from a baseline to figure out what help my son might need. But by the same token, I know my son - he's intelligent, he only needs showing a concept once and if you've got his attention and interest he'll then commit Maths and English to memory. Personally, I believe my son didn't take the CATs seriously and just casually entered any answer!! He's an all or nothing type of person. But I worry I am biased.

Long story, sorry.

Thank you :)

Presumably these were done last term shortly after he started the school, so the intervention has not been that long. The scores are not the be all and end all though. Does he have issues processing information. English is a pretty broad subject, he might have strengths which have covered for his weaker areas to date but are now more exposed (comprehension tests for example). You need to speak to the Sendco about how being removed from a regular timetable has affected him and whether an EP assessment is appropriate at this stage.

If it is a selective school it is possible to be below their average scores but above the national ones.

What kind of school does he attend? A comprehensive? Independent?
If he took KS2 sats, what were his scores?

It's a comp. His KS2 SAT scores were high, but I can't remember them now.

Our instinct is to have him go back into the regular stream and if I can tackle it using a private tutor I think it will be better for our son. But of course we are worried are we (and he) are focusing on the vanity of him being in a special class. But ever fibre in my body tells me they have this wrong. But of course I am not a teacher.

What I do know however is he has had his world turned upside down and I think it will do more damage than good at this stage.

It's interesting what you say about "processing information". That somehow does ring a bell. It's a case of once he's understood, he's on it and achieves. But he does allow his emotions to get in the way of understanding sometimes.

I did wonder that the very reason this intervention has affected him emotionally so much may well be the reason it is needed. The irony :)

But it makes it very difficult to find a solution that satisfies our son's emotional wellbeing as well as what might be an educational needed.

I am tempted to look into a private tutor to help establish what needs he may have. But finding one that will specifically focus on a CAT result outcome is overwhelming based on my searches already.

Can you remember vaguely how high? If he was getting 110+ across the board them I would definitely as for a re test.
If you can afford it I would pay for an evaluation with an Educational Psychologist to see where his strengths and weaknesses are and how best to support him.

It's a comp. His KS2 SAT scores were high, but I can't remember them now.
Our instinct is to have him go back into the regular stream and if I can tackle it using a private tutor I think it will be better for our son. But of course we are worried are we (and he) are focusing on the vanity of him being in a special class. But ever fibre in my body tells me they have this wrong. But of course I am not a teacher.
What I do know however is he has had his world turned upside down and I think it will do more damage than good at this stage.

It's interesting what you say about "processing information". That somehow does ring a bell. It's a case of once he's understood, he's on it and achieves. But he does allow his emotions to get in the way of understanding sometimes.
I did wonder that the very reason this intervention has affected him emotionally so much may well be the reason it is needed. The irony :)
But it makes it very difficult to find a solution that satisfies our son's emotional wellbeing as well as what might be an educational needed.
I am tempted to look into a private tutor to help establish what needs he may have. But finding one that will specifically focus on a CAT result outcome is overwhelming based on my searches already.

I seem to remember 111. I may ask the primary school.

Ah EP - I hadn't realised what it meant.

That really helps thank you - I can upgrade my Google searches :)

A tutor can not diagnose or look at one test in isolation, you need a Educational Psychologist to look at his strengths and weaknesses and what strategies might support him.

Thank you. I have begun the challenge of finding an EP :)

I think I'd approach school, after getting his SATs confirmed, with a concern that the SATs and CATs seem to be at odds with each there, and see if the SENDCO at school can offer any insight. It could be as simple as two children have been switched when entering data (it drives me up the wall that if we have 2 people with the same surname, the default is to order them by date of birth, not first initial).
I'd also see if any cheepish CATs practice questions - or verbal and non verbal practice - books are available. I know the whole point is you shouldn't be able to practice them, but you can definitely do better if you have so e idea about how the questions appear.
A child you believe to be clever shouldn't be in the remedial class unless there is some serious misunderstanding on one side or the other. Get him to do a set of questions, and see how he does.

They won't put a kid in am intervention class unless they need to. I'm sure if he's performing highly in his regular classes they'll be all too eager to let someone else have his place.

I'd hold off with a private tutor, educational psychologist until you've had a proper conversation with the school. By now you should have had the first bit of communication about his effort and target grades. What did they say?

I could really cry reading your message. You put into words what we've ben struggling to say, because it's not PC and I hate to judge others - and certainly don't want my children to do so. And for clarity, I am not saying you are judging. But you know what it's like to use language such as this.

As you can imagine, we cannot think of anything else today. I've wanted to shout from the rooftops, but also wanting to be measured and not cut our noses off!

We've been through far worse as a family and we will use this as another example of our strength.

Thank you for making use feel sane.

We haven't had anything. So far the 'tests'/work our son has done so far have been so very basic.

No end of term report or parents' evening?

Lots of state schools only have end of year reports and a parents evening (where you wouldn't get a chance to speak to all of their teachers) once a year.

Yes, and they are everything you'd want them to be. Only ever had good behaviour points. He's scoring either core, core+ or extended.

I sat with him this evening to do homework and I observed something that opened my eyes and allowed me to see how intelligence can be used to cope, to circumvent other lacking skills. Reading comprehension on a short passage (one page of A4). He had to answer four questions. Rather than reading the passage first, he preceded to scan for the question answers. Whilst this gets him the answers he needs, it's not sustainable. In GCSE's I imagine they are asked to read a 20 pages booklet for example, then answer questions. No amount of scanning is going to help.

I don't know if the above is a thing (ie: have I really spotted a warning sign), but if I - as a non-teaching professional - can observe it and extrapolate a basic theory where apparent intelligence isn't a guarantee of success, then I bet there are 100s of better examples where an educational professional can find these out. And to do this they need to put him into a class where they can pay attention to small tests that are given. Perhaps my son really does need the help.

I realise I have changed tack, but today all I have done is, ironically, educate myself lol. Through reading articles and from you kind people.

The uphill battle now is the fact that the school have alienated him because of the lack of consultancy with us as parents before the move to the new class was made. We are at a point now where he is refusing to go into school if he is to take part in these new classes.

Life and it's challenges huh! My motivation is to know in 10 years time I made the right, likely more difficult, choice now.

That's correct, we haven't had a parents evening for year 7. Just the interim reports where he received only good behaviour points (ie: no bad) and core, core+ and extended. Ironically the lesson he scored extended in has been replaced by the intervention class!!

Gcse comprehensions are not 20 pages! However those same skills to extrapolate, interpret and put information into context, apply to history, geography, mfl etc.

I would get a tutor with a good reputation and expertise for this age, and ideally one who has been used by someone else you trust.

They would be able to assess what, if anything, is wrong as well as set your DC on the right course.

School has not been communicating enough.

That makes it sound as if he could have been taught very much 'to the test' without much attention paid to whether he actually understood the concepts. It is very common and a huge driver for administering CAT4s in the first place, as they are designed to measure raw ability/aptitudes, rather than how well they've remembered what the teacher told them they had to do.

It's good that they've identified a possible reason for a spiky profile or one where he wasn't able to answer the questions at all because he hadn't been taught them.

What's his attention span really like? Is it an effort to get him really into something or keep him focused when there are other things going on around him, visually, auditory or activity related?

I remember reading reviews of this when it came out.

Maybe it has first rate insights into how to read for depth of comprehension and enjoyment.

About the author (2019)

Joe Norman has been a tutor of children aged 10-13 since 2000. He specialises in training children for entrance and scholarships to top schools such as Eton, Winchester and Westminster. He studied at Winchester College and Oxford University.

www.amazon.co.uk/Super-Tutor-education-money-chapters/dp/1780723865

What are CAT4s please?

What is the difference between these and the old SATS at various Key Stages?

I'd be looking into whether he can understand what the questions is asking- my own DS14 is top set and bright but really struggles with "word" questions in Maths as it requires him to unpick what the actual maths he has to do is.
The CAT tests are a good general indicator, but can't give the whole picture of a child's abilities. Is school giving intervention because of lack of knowledge, or because of lack of ability to apply knowledge? These are two different things.

As a PP mentioned, your SEND department should also be looking at why his performance in a testing environment is markedly different to in his class work. That could suggest a hitherto hidden difficulty he has with processing information, or concentrating, for example.

On the other hand, the intervention group might be a really positive thing. Can you ask school for detail of what he is doing when he's in the group (so you can reinforce more at home?)