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 :)

Argh!

Don't be afraid to be 'that parent'. I had this - and, actually, still have it. As a senior teacher in a large comprehensive, though, I know the system. I have generally placed a lot of faith in CAT scores (or some form of baseline data). But in September my own son sat his CAT test.....and utterly messed up. He told me he'd entered the results into the wrong columns on the optics.

I emailed his Head of Year and explained what had happened. The HOY replied to say not to worry and that, while he couldn't do it again, it wouldn't have any consequences. I replied, this time from my school account with my job title signature. I replied that this was interesting, as in any school I'd worked in it would have significant consequences- the exact sort of weird intervention you're talking about, OP. HOY leapt in and sorted it as much as he could that day- but my son wasn't allowed to do the test again. He had to re-enter the results as far as he could remember them without the questions. He has definitely been under predicted as a result. It's made me question the whole system.

OP, the SATs grades are ultimately the most important for the school. It's those their results at GCSE will be measured up against.

1. Find out the exact SATs results- phone primary school if necessary.
2. Email everyone. Heads of Maths, English and Science in particular. Absolutely be 'that parent'. We flippin' love that parent in comprehensives. We don't get enough of them. Get the personal email addresses. Reception should give them out if they're not available online- or they'll forward an email on for you.
3. Express a concern about the disparity between SATs results and CAT tests, and make sure they know there is a difference. They will WANT to know. They don't want to waste an intervention place on someone who doesn't need it.
4. The person arranging the sets is unlikely to be the person teaching your child.
5. Send your child in with correct equipment and a reading book. This, sadly, is the point in the year when the less diligent students are starting to lose stuff.

Kick up a very polite (because nice parents are definitely favoured) fuss.

Good luck!

It think you need to get his SATS scores from primary, his CATS from secondary and see if they marry up. A high sats with low cats suggests either:

• teaching SATS to the test,
• or his cats is wrong
• or has been marked against the wrong kid. (This happened to ds btw who spent a week in an English nurture class with kids writing 'bang' when asked to describe fireworks and ds writing 'the sounds and colours disappearing into an infinite sky, travelling for all of eternity' )

Some of these answers are wonderfully informative and helpful.

Understood, thanks. It was just to illustrate a point .. that I had opened my mind to the fact that someone can be intelligent but also lack ability, so to speak.

Amazing. Just amazing. I did exactly what you said :) ..I hate being that parent, but I put those feelings to one side and politely and professionally laid out my thoughts, concerns and requests. A bullet list no less :)

I am on it!

I hope your son is now back on the right path.

The essence of my email to the school was to ask for an alternative method to have my son assessed. Rather than disrupting his schooling any further. Albeit with good intentions.

But this morning, through coaching by us, he's a happier boy.

We will work to get his spring back.

I will endevor to help the school understand the entire situation from our point of view in the hopes another child doesn't have to suffer the same.

In your experience, can the school assess our son in a different way? But right at this moment I want the rest of his school year to be simple, with no special tests or pschologists etc.

Thank you so much again for your reply. And if you ever want to go freelance let me know :)

Haha superb, well at least it proved one thing huh!! --I like that description actually :-)

To add insult to injury, pure comic timing, the school just emailed regarding my son a SUCCESS AND WELL DONE letter congratulating him on his exceptional programs in FML (foreign modern lang) - the punchline: it's the lessons he was removed from for the intervention!!

I realise the intervention is strategic move, but still, it tells me the school's left arm doesn't know what it's right arm is doing. It's disappointing and does concern me.

Hullo!

The CAT scores can probably not be re-done. They're usually run only once per year group by an external company so that the school can remove any bias from a situation. For most of the cohort that increases the validity.

So the problem is that the CATs scores may be the key data for the school. It depends what the school is doing to calculate his flight path- but it sounds like in your son's school whatever his results were has triggered interventions.

I think that indicates it's a very good school- but that also indicates it's quite a large school, where a child can remain relatively anonymous. That may mean that he will be repeatedly put into lower groups for various things until someone realises. If they're good, then the school will realise, but it might be quicker if it's you. We would have a layer of admin to get through- so last term it took me a term to get a bright child moved up from a bottom set to a top. Had his parents written an email, that would have been fast-tracked.

I think keep an eye on things and be ready to pounce. At some point- possibly GCSE- teacher data will start being more significant, and you can sit back a bit. But his CATs data will still remain there, on the system....

.....UNLESS, you get the deputy head involved. There will be somebody important somewhere in charge of analysing the data for the school. It would need to be at least at that level, though I don't know how your son's school is organised. When we have students who arrive in, without CATs data (because they've transferred from abroad, or a private school), we sometimes replace the data with a teacher prediction. So it is formally possible to do that- but, understandably from the school's perspective, it needs to be quite difficult to do.

Good luck (and, yes, I'm happy ish with my son's CAT data, thanks. It predicts him lower than he should be- but I'm making sure he'll be in the top sets anyway. That's easy to do- because I'm running an INSET for some of his teachers- so I'll make absolutely sure they know who my son is! That's not an option for most parents, however. This thread, and my own experiences, have made me question the system a little- which I will be bringing up for discussion in my own school)

Get a good tutor and push the school for a retest.
i don’t believe that CAT scores are never changing.
my son got a 30 point difference in his. Yes, 30 points!
the first time he took it it was all computerised and he’d not understood the instructions properly I don’t think.
anyway, I know schools hold cat scores as all important - but I don’t necessarily agree.

Get a meeting with them. Have they looked at the mismatch between his CAT score and other data? Were his teachers consulted about whether intervention was necessary?

It does sound possible that there is some sort of error - possibly data entry, possibly his completion of the test (eg if there's multiple-choice, slipping by one on the answer sheet), possibly not taking it seriously enough. If there isn't an error, then where were the problems?

What specific difficulties did the CAT test suggest? In the intervention class, are those specific difficulties being addressed, or are they just being given general supplementary work as a group? What are his targets?
Highlight tasks he is being given that are clearly unnecessary.

Reading your posts OP it seems you are articulate and intelligent and well as being deeply concerned.

The schools decisions do seem strange and I think you should look for in depth explanation including writing to both the head and governing body if necessary.

Hopefully you are on the right tracks to get him sorted - poor kid I feel for him being out through this if it isn't what he needs!

A few notes from my experiences:

• a 'school refuser' will get you in the door for discussion quicker as attendance is key.

• to have him in this level of interventions he must now be on the SEND register - which you should be informed of and a plan written which will detail his needs and how they plan to address them. The school should supply you with a copy of this planning asked.

• there will be a SEND linked governor who you can request intervens to get you in the door for discussion if need be.

• primary school will be able to send you the SATS results again and likely any accompanying info if you explain to them why you need it. Seconday will also have direct access to SATs results and can share. There will also be a CAT report they can share with you.

• your local SENDIASS will be able to help navigate this maze - they are an independant service funded I think by the local authority.

Hullo to you too :) ..first off, like the other brilliant replies I will now spend the afternoon responding to - in between Zoom calls - they have filled my heart with warmth and hope! A bit dramatic I know, but my little man's head is all over the place and mine is full of anger and heartbreak. But determination too. So, your reply is of huge comfort, and I'd just like to thank you firstly for the time you have taken to reply. I'll be copying this para to each of the replies too because the impact you have had on how we will tackle this as a family is mahoosive!! #faithintheinternetrestored :)

On to your points...

Yes, the CAT result triggered the intervention, and from my understanding their plan is (was - I've since put a halt to it, solely because my son's mental well-being was taking a battering) to take my son through lessons to establish where he needs the help. Great in theory, in practise not so good (and I am willing to accept that my son's emotional reaction is perhaps unusual, but it's happened and we need to be sensitive to it).

In terms of being a very good school, we are encouraged that they spotted this and acted. I just wish they had done so with our consultation. I wouldn't mind so much except they made the same mistake twice (pulling him out of his regular timetable without any warning). The effect it's had is cruel. It is a big school, I think 1,600 kids. Your point about him being put into lower groups is gold dust! We will make a note of this and keep an eye on it. I hadn't appreciated that parents writing emails has such an impact. I imagine it is received with an eye-roll seems I have my own preconceptions to change too.

I do worry about the CAT being on the system. I find that quite depressing if the CAT score is an error. But I am optimistic about the fact that as you say, the closer he gets to GCSE the more teacher-lead his 'scoring' will be.

I may consider the deputy head route - I will see how we get on speaking with the SENCO. But thanks for the pointer.

With our elder child being in a higher year we are learning about how the top/bottom sets work and the fact that children in the lower sets have a ceiling in terms of how high they can score. I don't want my son in a class that he shouldn't be in that prevents him from attaining what he might be able to - and equally I don't want him in a top set if he is going to struggle. How I navigate this I do not know, but it sounds like I may need to get to know each teacher. Which could be a question that I ask the SENDCO so we are really keeping a very close eye.

Thanks again for your replies, and I hope the discussions you have in your own school make a difference to that one child out there like my son!

..first off, like the other brilliant replies I will now spend the afternoon responding to - in between Zoom calls - have filled my heart with warmth and hope. A bit dramatic I know, but my little man's head is all over the place and my is full of anger and heartbreak. So, your reply is of huge comfort, and I'd just like to thank you firstly for the time you have taken to reply. I'll be copying this to each of the replies too because the impact you have all had on how we will tackle this as a family is mahoosive!! #faithintheinternetrestored

As with yours, this is precisely what we imagine with our son - he has misread or not taken it seriously. I think I said once before, he's all or nothing. But he is very diligent when he knows it counts.

I will try for a retest. And I've to balance it with not making him feel like he's under a microscope. I am very tempted to leave it for this year and tackle it next year. He's had such a wonderful start to secondary school and actively used to say how much he enjoyed it. We've taken a huge leap backwards. So lots of chats at meal times will restore his enthusiasm I hope.

Do you mind if I ask how you went about the retest please?

Amazing what spellcheck can do these days isn't it :)

My next port of call is the SENCO and I have already written an opening letter/email firstly asking for their suggestions as next steps. Thanks to yours and the other replies I have a healthy list of possible/likely/mandatory steps but I want to see what the SENCO has in mind first. If after presenting my proposal it falls on death ears I will escalate it.

Thanks so much for your help.

What were his cat scores? I would be very open minded with senco, Suggest that the results came as a surprise given sats and feedback ti date, that you are keen to support any issues your ds may have but the approach so far appears to have impacted his self esteem. Can you meet to discuss?

Mind. Blown. :) ..so many new terms, I am collecting them as I go through your reply.. to which I'd just like to thank you and let you know, as I have with the others, has filled my heart with warmth and hope! A bit dramatic I know, but my little man's head is all over the place and mine is full of anger and heartbreak. And determination now. So, your reply is of huge comfort, and I'd just like to thank you firstly for the time you have taken to reply. I'll be copying this to each of the replies too because the impact you have had on how we will tackle this as a family is mahoosive!! #faithintheinternetrestored

I didn't know of the SEND register - Googling I see it's well documented. The irony is if my son does have a need we have no idea what it is. The frustration is palpable. But thank you, I can now ask about this.

Equally, knowing there is a governor linked to this is an absolute God send - doubly so because we have a friend on the board. Truly the fog is lifting, I am having an epiphany right now, I am not joking!!

I am going to write to get the SATs, and I will request the CAT results.

Th SENDIASS I thought was the start of a joke heh but again, this is amunition/knowledge that just cannot be bought.

Thank you so much. I hope your struggles through the system are over. All the best to you and yours, thank you :)

I forgot to ask in my prev reply to you about the "school refuser". I now understand what you mean. Wow! Chalked in onto the list. They aren't going to know what hit them :)

The school has definitely handled this badly, by not explaining to you (and more importantly to him) what’s going on and why. My confidence in this school is low.

I suggest you write to the school office asking for a meeting with his form tutor. Explain that before the CATs your child was progressing well academically, was enthusiastic about school, and had never had any mental health issues, but since the CATs and the school’s subsequent interventions, he’s being given work too easy for him, is not progressing academically and his confidence has been crushed to the extent that he is anxious and developing mental health issues, and even worse, he now hates school and does not want to attend. Say that while you appreciate that the interventions were intended to support your son, the effect has been detrimental on his education and wellbeing and that the school needs to work with you to fix this. Say that the failure to communicate with you and your child about why changes were made has caused avoidable confusion and deprived you of the opportunity to support your child through those changes.

Put some pressure on. It is ok to be ‘the annoying parent’ I have been that parent many times and it always gets my child better outcomes than if I’d kept quiet.

My DS is also in Y7. Got ok SATs results, 109, 108 and 105 but scored very poorly on his CAT tests. However he was diagnosed with ASD at the end of Y6 so I knew some of the stuff in CAT tests he would find difficult. He is very high functioning and masks really well most of the time. I only mention it because some of the stuff you have mentioned that your DS does sounds very similar to mine.

No worries at all. Ask away. There are lots of us here who have been through it and are still going through it.

Mine is in yr9 and the struggle still very real. We have 3 diagnoses now (1 she has had since infant, 2 gained in yr8), with at least 1 more expected - now that is an absolute head-fuck for a teenager!