CAT Tests in Year 7?

[grumpycamel]

DC will join a private school for year 7 in 2023. I was curious if private schools continue to use CAT tests at this stage and if they are in the same subjects, i.e., NVR, VR, and Quantitative Reasoning? Thanks

In DD's (year 7) school last year they did it early in the first term. And yes, the same areas of NVR etc. We weren't shown the scores.

This is a London girls' selective indie. I would imagine many other schools would do it too, just to get an idea about where each child is starting from.

Yes, they usually do it. It is more to assess the ability level of that cohort and less about individual children. However, it is also often used to spot ‘spiky profiles’ where very different scores in the different elements might be an indicator of some kind of special need, especially when backed up with teacher experience.

Sometimes these results might also be used to partly inform setting, but usually not so much if there are already entrance exam results. Many highly selective independents don’t actually set for Maths in Yr7 either now. They figure that they are all pretty much on L7-9 trajectory and can be taught together for a year. Over that year it becomes clearer who is more able in maths and then they can be set….but the CAT scores don’t play much part in it.

CAT scores are more likely to be used in state Comps to help influence setting , where all they have are pretty unreliable SATs results. The kids haven’t passed an entrance exam and there’s a wide range of abilities, so setting from earlier in is more important.

Thanks justanotherdaduser and WombatChocolate! It's interesting that they can sometimes be used for setting.