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Academic Assessments Understanding your child

How smart is my child?

Get insights into your child’s strengths, weaknesses and potential levels of attainment with our online Academic Assessment.

At Mentor Education, we hear time and time again from parents that schools are not giving them the information they need to help identify their child’s potential and signpost their next steps in respect of their education. Mentor Education Academic Assessments can help parents:

  • Choose future schools where their children will thrive and be happy
  • Discover academic strengths and weaknesses
  • Track progress at important junctures such as 11 Plus
  • Compare academic potential and current attainment
  • Compare with peer group children
  • Plan tuition for an important exam such as the 11 Plus or 7 Plus.

Parents want their children to go to secondary schools where they will be happy and fulfil their potential but often, they have no information on which to base these choices. We hear this from families in the state sector and the private sector alike. Our Academic Assessments help parents plan their school entrance campaigns such as 7+, 11+ and 13+.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.





Will my child pass their school entrance exam? Is it worth putting my child through this?

These are the questions we hear so often from parents who contact us and the questions that our Academic Assessment is designed to answer. Parents know the commitment and investment school entrance exams require and the strain they can put on the whole family. They want to check that their child is a good candidate and will not be unduly pressured to reach the standard required by some competitive Independent schools. Our Academic Assessment generates a wealth of data that answers these questions and more.

Following the Assessment, we can give you clear guidance on which schools will be in the right banding for your child, including aspirational options. We can also clearly pinpoint where your child needs to improve and where they are on track, with targeted solutions for any development areas.

Mentor Education’s Academic Assessment

Mentor Education is one of a few education consultancies licenced to offer assessments by CEM, created in partnership with Cambridge University’s Education Research Department. CEM assessments are used by over 70% of Independent Schools in the UK (and many International Schools) as the exam board for their admissions tests. Also sometimes known as INCAS tests, many schools use them to track their pupils’ progress annually. The CEM test allows scoring against peers in the UK, as well as international students on the British curriculum.

Reasons we particularly like the CEM test include:

  • Digital – the test can be completed remotely and in classroom settings here at Mentor Education
  • Adaptive – the difficulty of test questions adapts during each module based on how the child is getting on so they never feel the test is too difficult for them
  • Diagnostic – there is no pass or fail, just lots of useful data for parents
  • Big – giving access to the largest pool of student data in the UK and the most meaningful results.
child taking the academic assessment on a laptop

For British children the Mentor Education Assessment generates a diagnostic profile of a child’s reading, spelling, Maths and mental arithmetic, Verbal and Non Verbal Reasoning, facilitating full literacy and numeracy acquisition. Combined with Mentor Education’s 40+ years of experience and up to date information on independent school admissions, we can signpost future schools and provide an action plan for school entrance campaigns such as 7+, 11+ and 13+.

For International children planning to enrol into British schools, Mentor Education Assessments help compare their academic performance against their peers in the British Education system. This helps navigate parents to the correct British schools to target. With CEM being used in many admissions tests in top British independent schools, there is an added benefit of forecasting the chances of successful results in admissions tests.

What is tested in our Academic Assessments?

Mentor Education Assessments are carried out in modules that a student can work through in any order and take breaks in between.

The Modules include: Reading, Spelling, Mathematics, Mental Arithmetic, Developed Ability (Reasoning) and Attitudes to Learning.

All modules are adaptive which means that the questions become increasingly harder or easier, depending on how many questions the student is getting right or wrong. Thus, the assessment never feels too difficult or too easy and is usually an enjoyable, stress free experience for students. The level of sophistication in the test algorithms gives really accurate and detailed feedback for each pupil.

How tests are scored and results presented

One of key aspects of Mentor Education Assessments is the useful way that test scores are presented. There are two main ways each module’s results are shown:

Age Equivalent Scores these provide an age at which the student is performing in each module relative to their actual age. See example below:

AssessmentStudent Age
(Years:Months)
Age Equivalent Score
(Years:Months)
Age Difference
(Years:Months)
Reading11:111:5+0:4
Word Recognition11:112:8+1:7
Word Decoding11:114:2+3:1
Comprehension11:19:9-1:4
Spelling11:112:9+1:8

Standardised Scores this provides a score relative to an average score with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. This means that 68% of all pupils will have a score between 85 and 115 Pupils below 70 or above 130 are exceptional and are in the bottom or top 2% of the pupils sitting the assessments respectively. See example below:

AssessmentAverageStandard ScoreComparison
Reading100102Average

What is in the report you receive after your child completes the Academic Assessments?

  • Age Equivalent Scores
  • Standardised Scores
  • Analysis of the results by a qualified teacher offering practical advice, support and next steps
  • Summary by an Educational Consultant, with optional signposting of school choices.

You will receive a detailed report of the results of the Academic Assessment approximately 5 working days after the assessment date. The report will give you a detailed breakdown of their performance in each module as explained above. Furthermore, we will also provide practical ways to support your child’s attainment in each area, relevant to their recent performance on the test.

If there is a particular reason for the Academic Assessment, we can expand on the test scores to answer specific questions that you have. For example, we can suggest schools for you to visit which correlate to your child’s academic potential, either for primary or secondary school. We can also band their results relative to popular schools if we know them sufficiently well.

This assessment is not intended to be used to provide a diagnosis of specific learning difficulties such as Dyslexia. However, the comprehensive nature and quality of the information provided in Mentor Education Assessment can provide a great deal of contextual information about a pupil for an SEN practitioner to utilise.

At Mentor Education, we never tutor for the sake of it and if following an Assessment we can see your child is on track and performing in line with their potential we will be honest about this and recommend that no tutoring is necessary for the time being.

What is required for the Assessment (technical)

To conduct a Mentor Education Academic Assessments you will need:

  • A stable internet connection (the whole test is done online)
  • The latest version of Google Chrome browser installed on your PC or laptop
  • Adobe Flash Player allowed/enabled
  • Audio Speakers, Keyboard and Mouse that are working as expected.

How much do Academic Assessments cost?

The Mentor Education Assessment costs £495 and this includes the cost of the test itself and a full report including:

  • A detailed explanation of what your child has been tested on
  • Your child’s results
  • Commentary and practical suggestions from a qualified teacher
  • Commentary from one of our Education Consultants.

How to book

You can book an assessment on our website, or contact our team who will guide you through the process.


Get in Touch

You can call and talk to our team, who will be happy to answer any further questions and process your booking, on 020 8883 2519. Or, simply fill out the form below and we will get back to you.

Interested in becoming a tutor? Join Mentor today.

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