11 Plus Exams Forum

DD is taking NFER tests this week. Came out in tears on Monday and told her mum that she was distracted by some of the class coughing. Mum spoke to the teacher who said dd had done well and she had given extra time to one child who had accidently missed out a section in the 25 min test .

Question is ,how did the teacher know how much time to add ? And the child will have had extra time checking the work that they had completed.

What do you mean by NFER tests?

NFER= National Foundation Educational Research.

Some State Schools use these tests to estimate the academic ability/potential of children ( I believe). My dd's school has been using these tests for years and the results help parents decide if their child is suitable for selective schools.

Ah yes, I just wondered which tests you mean. If you mean the CAT ones, then I wouldn't worry. Teachers only guess that these show whether or not your child will pass a selective entrance exam or not. Parents can decide for themselves if it's worth a shot without this particular piece of information. If you google around you can find quite a bit of info from the publishers of the test about what the results mean, how reliable they are, what they should be used for etc.

If your child comes out exceptionally high I think it tells you something, if not, I'd just bin the answer.

Your teacher just made a nonsense of the tests by giving that child extra time. The whole point of the tests is for students to complete a series of tasks in a specified amount of time. So if you give one student extra time then it is not a fair test unless you exclude that students results from your class analysis. Hopefully none of the parents from your class will make their decision about entrance exams based on advice from this teacher! It is no longer necessary to rely on the teacher for advice, there is so much material about there you can use to assess your own child. DG