Year 7 CATs 2022 PDF

PS020/22-23MWH/EWE 26th September 2022 Dear parents and carers, In two weeks’ time we will be testing all year 7 students using standardised Cognitive Ability Tests (CATs). These tests are nothing for your child to be worried or alarmed about and nothing that your child can revise or prepare for....

PS020/22-23MWH/EWE 26th September 2022 Dear parents and carers, In two weeks’ time we will be testing all year 7 students using standardised Cognitive Ability Tests (CATs). These tests are nothing for your child to be worried or alarmed about and nothing that your child can revise or prepare for. It is suggested that you think of it like an eye test; if you practice ahead of an eye test and memorise the card, your diagnosis may not be correct and valuable information may be missed. All year 7 students will sit three tests in total over two days (two on Monday 10th October and one on Tuesday 11th) in order to help us to better understand how your child learns, what their academic potential might be and whether they might need more support or challenge. Attached to this letter is a timetable of when each class will sit their tests and some key questions and answers to provide further detail about the tests and what will happen on the day. You will need to look at your child’s normal timetable to see which classes they are in and when they will therefore go to the testing room instead. Kind regards, Matthew Whatford, Deputy Headteacher Key questions and answers Why are year 7 students doing this test now? Most schools do these tests at the start of year 7. They are especially helpful to us at this stage in their academic career so that we can triangulate with their SATs data, providing a broader and more rounded understanding of your child’s profile as a learner. How do the tests work? The tests themselves are all computer-based and tasks involve thinking about shapes and patterns (Non-Verbal Reasoning), words (Verbal Reasoning), numbers (Quantitative Reasoning) and some questions are answered by mentally generating and transforming visual images (Spatial Ability). When will my child sit their tests during the school day? Attached is a full schedule of when students will sit their tests - they will not attend their normal lessons, but instead be met at the room listed in their scheduled slot, with their teacher staying with them for the test. Students will also get an individual timetable sent through to them, which shows just their testing sessions. What do students do when they are not sitting their test? Students will attend their normal timetable when they are not sitting the tests. How will the needs of different learners be taken into account? All students will sit the same test and there is no extra time allocated to students who might otherwise qualify in other tests. The process is standardised in every school who uses CATS and therefore diagnostically extremely powerful and reliable. How can I best prepare my child for these tests? The most important thing now is for you to prepare your child to understand that they need not worry about this process and that they should just do the best that they can do on the day. Please make your child’s tutor aware of any worries so that we can address these in school and help them to feel ready for this process. What will parents and carers get from these tests? The results from CATs are not necessarily all that useful for parents. We will still share them along with some information about what you might interpret from them, but they will be used primarily by teachers and leaders in the school to target any further support or stretch for students. They will also provide us with a useful set of information that we can triangulate with the SATs data that has come through for your child. Further information can be found here: https://support.gl-assessment.co.uk/knowledge-base/assessments/cat4-support/general-inf ormation/information-for-parents/