ESF Assessment Questions for Year 5

Can anyone urgently let me know what to expect ? Kind of questions , nature and method and the level of difficulty n duration etc

thanks

Originally Posted by AnnaMom

Can anyone urgently let me know what to expect ? Kind of questions , nature and method and the level of difficulty n duration etc

thanks

My expectation is they do a reading assessment, a math assessment, and a writing assessment and do some conversation (check on English). Pretty similar to the ongoing assessments they do with children who are in the school, just to understand the level the child is at, and the support it may need. Would expect about 1 hour.

Originally Posted by MommyTo3

My expectation is they do a reading assessment, a math assessment, and a writing assessment and do some conversation (check on English). Pretty similar to the ongoing assessments they do with children who are in the school, just to understand the level the child is at, and the support it may need. Would expect about 1 hour.

As far as I have experienced, there is no formal assessment, or at least there is no testing. Teachers want to see how the children interact in the classroom environment across various areas (science, reading, etc) and, importantly, measure their English language ability.

But all schools are different I guess??

One thing I would say is do NOT prepare for the local school-type interview. Your child will not be interviewed so do not rote learn standard Q&A responses or send your child to pre-interview training. It is doomed to backfire. Instead tell your child to relax, have fun, be polite to other children and ask questions. Basically, to be themselves. It worked for me and my son got accepted in two ESF primary schools this year.

Formal assessment, informal assessment, that doesn't matter, they don't grade as such however they do the same assessments they do with children in the school on a continuing basis, usually one per term to identify reading level, math level, writing level and the progress made. I would assume the would do regular assessment and benchmark testing at all schools without having to hand out graded report cards.

Originally Posted by MommyTo3

Formal assessment, informal assessment, that doesn't matter, they don't grade as such however they do the same assessments they do with children in the school on a continuing basis, usually one per term to identify reading level, math level, writing level and the progress made. I would assume the would do regular assessment and benchmark testing at all schools without having to hand out graded report cards.

Are you sure? Our son interviewed with two schools and both had different interview process?

At one the emphasis was clearly on interaction with other children, while the other was this but also more child-teacher conversation. There was no assessment or benchmarking that I am aware of beyond English ability and general behaviour - in fact at neither school was our son asked to write anything, and certainly was not tested on his maths.

These schools do not admit based on educational ability, but suitability. This is what I wanted to communicate with the OP.

(I should note, I have links with one of the schools and that is how I know what they were looking for in the "interview".)

Originally Posted by shenwen

Are you sure? Our son interviewed with two schools and both had different interview process?

At one the emphasis was clearly on interaction with other children, while the other was this but also more child-teacher conversation. There was no assessment or benchmarking that I am aware of beyond English ability and general behaviour - in fact at neither school was our son asked to write anything, and certainly was not tested on his maths.

These schools do not admit based on educational ability, but suitability. This is what I wanted to communicate with the OP.

(I should note, I have links with one of the schools and that is how I know what they were looking for in the "interview".)

You're talking about Y1, the OP asked about Y5?!