The School Entrance Score Assessment
Understand your child’s current level for selective school entrance with Owl Tutors’ online diagnostic assessment using Cambridge CEM Primary Insight.
What is the School Entrance Score Assessment?
Owl’s School Entrance Score Assessment is an online diagnostic assessment for parents preparing for selective school entry.
It uses Cambridge CEM Primary Insight to provide age-standardised scores across reading, spelling, arithmetic, mathematics and developed ability. The assessment gives parents a clearer view of their child’s current academic level before deciding which schools to target, whether tutoring is needed, or which areas of preparation should come first.
Two main exam boards produce entrance exams for almost all the private and grammar schools across England – GL and CEM. Here, we focus on the CEM test and why it might be helpful for your child to undertake. The CEM test examines different aspects of academic ability including verbal, non-verbal and mathematical levels of achievement. It also suggests potential achievements in the future.
Is your child working near the right level?
Many parents come to us with the same question: is my child currently working at the level needed for the schools we are considering?
The assessment helps answer that question by giving age-standardised scores across the main areas that matter for school entrance preparation.
It can be useful if you are considering 7+, 8+, 11+ or independent-school entrance, deciding whether tutoring is needed, or trying to understand whether your child appears broadly on track for a target school.
Take the School Entrance Score Assessment
Use this assessment when you want a clearer view of your child’s current academic level before choosing schools, starting tutoring or planning preparation.
After purchase, Owl sends you a Cambridge CEM access link and password. Your child completes the assessment online at home, then Owl checks completion and returns the available PDF reports.
Reports are usually returned within 24-48 hours after all sections are completed, although turnaround can vary.
How do scores relate to schools?
Based on our experience and yearly data on school entrance examinations entry, we have positioned indicative pass grades for selective independent schools.
Different schools, for a variety of reasons, will have different pass thresholds. Some are more academically selective than others and as such require higher pass marks.
Please note that this is not an exact science and our presented school scores are indicative and can be subject to some change. You can find more information via our School Competitiveness Index via the link below.
What the assessment covers
Children are assessed in five areas:
- Reading
- Spelling
- Mathematics
- Arithmetic
- Developed ability: picture vocabulary and non-verbal reasoning-style tasks
The assessment is adaptive, so questions respond to the child’s answers and are matched to age and performance level.
Each area can be completed separately. Once a section has been started, your child should continue until that section is complete.
What parents receive
Parents receive three PDF reports:
- Parent overview report
- Age-standardised score report
- Age-equivalent report
You can also view anonymised sample reports before purchasing, so you know exactly what will be returned after your child completes the assessment.
How should my child complete the assessment?
The assessment is completed online at home. It is best taken on a laptop or desktop, in a quiet space, with a stable internet connection.
Parents can help with setup, logging in and checking that a section has been completed. Parents should not help with answers, because this would make the result less accurate.
There are five assessment areas. Each can take up to around 30 minutes, although some children may complete sections more quickly.
CEM stands for Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring. Owned by the University of Cambridge (previously University of Durham). We recommend CEM to Owl clients who want a realistic snapshot of their child’s ability and, more importantly, potential.
Tellingly, these assessments are used by over 70% of independent schools in the UK, largely as a way to track their pupils’ annual progress, due to the fact that CEM testing allows for scoring and rating against peers both in the UK and on the British curriculum overseas.
The CEM test will help you to understand where your child ranks in terms of ability, compared to thousands of others across the country and abroad.
Well, CEM does not only produce examinations but also specialises in the production of broader developmental assessments for children, based on over 30 years of education research by the Universities of both Durham and Cambridge. These tests are designed to:
– Support educational tracking to give schools a measure of individual potential and progress throughout school
– Help to inform teachers where interventions to produce outcomes might be necessary.
We pride ourselves on offering a personalised service to all our clients. We explain how things work in detail and from an unparalleled knowledge base – if we don’t know the answer, we know someone who will! Undertaking a CEM test is not about simply producing a report; it’s about the discussions and analysis that happen after the test, and the key ways this can impact your decisions about your child’s future. Please do get in touch to find out more.
Ideally, you will need a PC or laptop with a stable internet connection. However, if your internet connection is not reliable you can download a web application and complete the assessment offline, then upload it later.
The CEM assessment is delivered using HTML5, which is supported by most modern web browsers. These browsers can be run on a desktop or laptop PC and Apple computers running Windows, Linux or MacOS operating systems.
The CEM assessment has sound, so headphones would also be useful, and a quiet room in which to complete the assessment.
Your child will also need paper and a pencil and rubber for rough working out and notes. These are not part of the assessment but are useful.