Hymers College explains why they’ve used Cambridge Insight baseline assessments for 30 years to get instant insight into the abilities of their Year 7s…
Why do you use a baseline assessment for your Year 7s?
We need to understand our Year 7s’ abilities quickly; we do this by asking a series of questions, the answers to which can make a significant difference to the success of the potentially problematic transition between Year 6 and Year 7:
- How does this cohort compare to previous years?
- What’s their academic potential and what should we expect from them?
- What are their strengths and weaknesses and are there any areas of concern?
- What will they be like in the classroom, both individually and as a group?
Cambridge Insight’s baseline assessments provide much of the reliable and objective information we need to answer these questions.
How do you use individual student reports to provide personalised support?
They provide a stimulus for investigation, focusing on significant discrepancies between the individual component scores in vocabulary, maths, non-verbal and skills that we can then discuss with the English and maths departments.
We quite often see significant discrepancies between these two scores at the individual level. Investigating this discrepancy can bring to light pupils who can read, but just don’t read for pleasure and, of course, instances where English isn’t the first language at home and isn’t as highly developed as other skills.
“We need to understand our Year 7s’ abilities quickly”
Hymers College
In these cases, our librarian can put together a more personalised reading programme, as breadth of vocabulary can be such a decisive factor in determining how successful a pupil may be further down the line in GCSE examinations.
How do you involve the whole school in understanding the value of the data, including parents?
We include form tutors and teachers in the discussion around baseline assessment data, as well as parents and pupils. We brief the Year 7s not just on when and how they will do the assessment, but how it will benefit them.
Alongside a rationale for parents, we provide an individual interpretation of the child’s results and whether we feel that any further action is needed, both in the light of any significant discrepancies between individual component scores and of feedback from the maths, English and learning support departments.
How do pupils and parents respond to the assessment?
We do our best to prevent pupils feeling labelled by a test result and feel that dealing with data about themselves is an increasingly important feature of modern life, so helping pupils develop the resilience and growth mindset to do so in an intelligent and reflective manner is a worthwhile skill.
Most parents welcome objective information and are keen to support their children. We would prefer to have a potentially difficult conversation with a parent at the start of Year 7 rather than after a poor set of summer examination results.
Speak with a member of our assessment advisor team to find out more. Book a discovery call.
- Speeds up the ‘getting-to-know-you’ time at the start of Year 7
- Provides curriculum-agnostic data on student ability and potential
- Predicts exam success, including GCSE and A Levels
- Demonstrates the value-added by the school on students’ knowledge
Hymers College is a selective independent senior school in Hull with its own junior school on site for Years 4–6. The school has used Cambridge Insight assessments since the mid-1990s.
