Category: Teaching & Learning

Welcome to “Part III” of our analysis of this year’s CAT4 results!

In Part I, we provided a lot of background context and shared out the simple results of how we did this year.  In Part II, we began sharing comparative data, focusing on snapshots of the same cohort (the same children) over time.  Remember that it is complicated because of three factors:

• We did NOT take the CAT*4 in 2020 due to COVID.
• We only took the CAT*4 in Grades 5-8 in 2021.
• We resumed taking the CAT*4 in Grades 3-8 in 2022.

Here, in Part III, we will finish sharing comparative data, this time focusing on snapshots of the same grade (different groups of children).  Because it is really hard to identify trends while factoring in skipped years and COVID, we are going to narrow in here just on Grades 3 & 4 (2022 -2024) and Grades 5-8 (2021-2024).

Here is a little context that will apply to all six snapshots:

• Remember that any score that is two grades above ending in “.9” represents the max score, like getting a “6.9” for Grade 5.
• Bear in mind, that the metric we are normally looking at when it comes to comparing a grade is either stability (if the baseline was appropriately high) or incremental growth (if the baseline was lower than desired and and the school responded with a program or intervention in response).
• In 2023 we took it in the “.1” of the school year and in all prior years in the “.2”.  If we are being technical, therefore, “.9” would actually be the truest measure of growth since the time frame is “.1” less.  For the purposes of this analysis, I am going round “.9” up and consider it a “year’s” worth of growth.

Here are the grade snapshots:

What can we learn from Grade 3 over time?

• I don’t want to have to repeat this each time, but please remember these are different children taking this test in Grade 3.   Grade 3 is also the first year we take the test and so there is only so much to learn here.
• One assumes that with a stable teaching team (not always true) that, over time, the scores would gently curve upwards towards a maximum (here “4.9”), however, again, considering these are completely different children, the growth really is more visible in Part II’s analysis.
• When I look at this, I say, that “Writing Conventions” and “Spelling” are the areas for focus.  In a few more years, we’ll know better what is the blip and what is the trend, but even though we are essentially at “grade level,” the floor we seek is set a bit higher.  This will be a place for Grade 3 to use the data to drive curricular and programmatic decisions.

What can we learn from Grade 4 over time?

• Here we see a bit of the converse of the one above…if 2023 is the blip, then these are overall excellent scores.
• Again, if there was a place to look – even if all years fall at or above grade level – it would be Computation & Estimation.

What can we learn from Grade 5 over (more) time?

• Again, we are looking at Grade 5.  So even the dips (Grade 5 2024 Spelling) are actually at grade level.
• Writing Conventions are a bit hard to tease out (different children), but worth paying attention to.
• And, again, Computation & Estimation has settled higher, but with our hopes for two grades above, still has room to grow.

Now let’s see how the transition to Middle School impacts things.

What can we learn from Grade 6 over time?

It is worth asking if there one can see the difference when we shift from Lower School (with there being a General Studies Teacher) to Middle School (with separate Language Arts and Math Teachers).  Because even though this is four year’s worth of different children in Grade 7, other than a couple of blips, these are all uniformly excellent scores at or near the max.

What can we learn from Grade 7 over time?

This is essentially the same story as Grade 6, which reinforces the above.

What can we learn from Grade 8 over time?

The same.

Biggest takeaway?  It is probably overdue for OJCS to take a hard look at Spelling, but other than that a snapshot of where all our students are by their last year at OJCS has to reassuring for our current parents and, hopefully, inspiring to all those who are considering how OJCS prepares its graduates for high school success.

The bottom line is that our graduates – year after year – successfully place into the high school programs of their choice.  Each one had a different ceiling – they are all different – but working with them, their families and their teachers, we successfully transitioned them all to the schools (private and public) and programs (IB, Gifted, French Immersion, Arts, etc.) that they qualified for.

And now again this year, with all the qualifications and caveats, our CAT*4 scores continue to demonstrate excellence.  Excellence within the grades and between them.

Not a bad place to be as we enter the 2025-2026 enrollment season…

Welcome to “Part II” of our analysis of this year’s CAT*4 results!

In last week’s post, we provided a lot of background context and shared out the simple results of how we did this year.  Here, in our second post, we are now able to begin sharing comparative data, focusing on snapshots of the same cohort (the same children) over time.  You may notice a few irregularities in the data because of three factors:

• We did NOT take the CAT*4 in 2020 due to COVID.
• We only took the CAT*4 in Grades 5-8 in 2021.
• We resumed taking the CAT*4 in Grades 3-8 in 2022.

Here is a little analysis that will apply to all five snapshots:

• Remember that any score that is two grades above ending in “.9” represents the max score, like getting a “6.9” for Grade 5.
• Bear in mind, that the metric we are normally looking at when it comes to comparing a cohort over time is whether or not we see at least one full year’s growth (on average) each year – for Grade 8 we are factoring an expected two full year’s growth between 2019 and 2021 due to COVID.  [Feel free to refer to prior years’ results for specific analyses of both “COVID Gaps” and “COVID Catch-Ups”.]
• In 2023 we took it in the “.1” of the school year and in all prior years in the “.2”.  If we are being technical, therefore, “.9” would actually be the truest measure of growth since the time frame is “.1” less.  For the purposes of this analysis, I am going round “.9” up and consider it a “year’s” worth of growth.

Here are the cohort snapshots:

What does this snapshot of current Grade 4s reveal?

• Pretty impressive, eh?!  With a maximum score of 5.9s almost all across the board, including more than a year’s growth in some categories, this is about as much as can reasonably expect.
• The only place to pay attention to is Computation & Estimation, which although above grade-level (in both years), “only” showed .8 growth where we prefer to see .9 or higher.  But that is a very minor difference.

What does this snapshot of current 5s reveal?

• Again, incredibly impressive all across the board, with lots of places where we see way more than 1 year’s worth of growth!
• Important context in the places that in the 2024 results look lower.  Spelling, which just fell below the baseline of 5.1, actually grew at a 1.6.  Computation & Estimation actually grew at a 1.3.  This means that both are on track with another year to be on par with the rest of new-max scores.

What does this snapshot of current 6s reveal?

I mean…nothing really to say at all.  Perfect max scores all across the board with Computation & Estimation making the final leap up to join the rest.  Wow.

What does this snapshot of current 7s reveal?

• Again, incredibly impressive, not only the near-perfects across the board, but the growth in some areas is above and beyond.
• Writing Conventions took a 1.3 leap to the top.
• Spelling took a huge 3.2 leap to the near-top.
• Both Math scores took huge leaps as well.

All of this shows the cumulative effect of our Middle School.

What does this snapshot of current 8s reveal?

No analysis of current Grade 8s needed, just appreciation for their tremendous growth across their careers at OJCS and for their last three years of near perfection.  Not a bad advertisement for OJCS  and the OJCS Middle School.

To sum up this post, we have so much to be proud of in the standardized test scores of these particular cohorts over time.  The Math and Language Arts Teachers in Grades 3-8 have now begun meeting to go through their  CAT*4 results in greater detail, with an eye towards what kinds of interventions are needed now – in this year – to fill any gaps (both for individual students and for cohorts); and how might we adapt our long-term planning to ensure we are best meeting needs.  Parents will be receiving their child(ren)’s score(s) soon as they, and any contextualizing conversations, will be folded into Parent-Teacher Conferences.

Stay tuned next week for the concluding “Part III” when we will look at the same grade (different students) over time, see what additional wisdom is to be gleaned from that slice of analysis, and conclude this series of posts with some final summarizing thoughts.

[Note from Jon: If you have either read this post annually or simply want to jump to the results without my excessive background and contextualizing, just scroll straight to the graph.  Spoiler alert: we did great!]

Each year I fret about how to best facilitate an appropriate conversation about why our school engages in standardized testing (which for us, like many independent schools in Canada, is the CAT*4, but may soon become the CAT*5), what the results mean (and what they don’t mean), how it impacts the way in which we think about “curriculum” and, ultimately, what the connection is between a student’s individual results and our school’s personalized learning plan for that student.  It is not news that education is a field in which pendulums tend to wildly swing back and forth as new research is brought to light.  We are always living in that moment and it has always been my preference to aim towards pragmatism.  Everything new isn’t always better and, yet, sometimes it is.  Sometimes you know right away and sometimes it takes years.

The last few years, I have taken a blog post that I used to push out in one giant sea of words, and broke it into two, and now three parts, because even I don’t want to read a 3,000 word post.  But, truthfully, it still doesn’t seem enough.  I continue to worry that I have not done a thorough enough job providing background, research and context to justify a public-facing sharing of standardized test scores.  Probably because I haven’t.

And yet.

With the forthcoming launch of Annual Grades 9 & 12 Alumni Surveys and the opening of the admissions season for the 2025-2026 school year, it feels fair and appropriate to be as transparent as we can about how well we are (or aren’t) succeeding academically against an external set of benchmarks, regardless of what is happening in the wider world.  That’s what “transparency” as both a value and a verb looks like.  We commit to sharing the data and our analysis regardless of outcome.  We also do it because we know that for the overwhelming majority of our parents, excellence in secular academics is a non-negotiable, and that in a competitive marketplace with both well-regarded public schools and secular private schools, our parents deserve to see the school’s value proposition validated beyond anecdotes.

Now for the annual litany of caveats and preemptive statements…

We have not yet shared out individual reports to our parents.  First our teachers have to have a chance to review the data to identify which test results fully resemble their children well enough to simply pass on, and which results require contextualization in private conversation.  Those contextualizing conversations will take place in the next few weeks and, thereafter, we should be able to return all results at Parent-Teacher Conferences.

There are  two big ideas to keep in mind:

• The goal is to track data across all grades to allow us to see if…
  • The same grade scores as well or better each year.
  • The same cohort grows at least a year’s worth of growth.

• It is super important to have the proper understanding and perspective of what a “grade equivalent score” really is.

Grade-equivalent scores attempt to show at what grade level and month your child is functioning.  However, grade-equivalent scores are not able to show this.  Let me use an example to illustrate this.  In reading comprehension, your son in Grade 5 scored a 7.3 grade equivalent on his Grade 5 test. The 7 represents the grade level while the 3 represents the month. 7.3 would represent the seventh grade, third month, which is December.  The reason it is the third month is because September is zero, October is one, etc.  It is not true though that your son is functioning at the seventh grade level since he was never tested on seventh grade material.  He was only tested on fifth grade material.  He performed like a seventh grader on fifth grade material.  That’s why the grade-equivalent scores should not be used to decide at what grade level a student is functioning.

Let me finish this section by being very clear: We do not believe that standardized test scores represent the only, nor surely the best, evidence for academic success.  Our goal continues to be providing each student with a “floor, but no ceiling” representing each student’s maximum success.  Our best outcome is still producing students who become lifelong learners.

But I also don’t want to undersell the objective evidence that shows that the work we are doing here does in fact lead to tangible success.  That’s the headline, but let’s look more closely at the story.  (You may wish to zoom in a bit on whatever device you are reading this on…)

A few tips on how to read this:

• Historically we would take this at the “.2” of each grade-level year, but the last two years we have taken it at the “.1”.  [This may have a slight impact on the comparative data.]  That means that “at grade-level” [again, please refer above to a more precise definition of “grade equivalent scores”] for any grade we are looking at would be 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, etc.  For example, if you are looking at Grade 6, anything below 6.1 would constitute “below grade-level” and anything above 6.1 would constitute “above grade-level.”
• The maximum score for any grade is “.9” of the next year’s grade.  If, for example, you are looking at Grade 8 and see a score of 9.9, on our forms it actually reads “9.9+” – the maximum score that can be recorded.
• Because of when we take this test – approximately one-two months into the school year – it is reasonable to assume a significant responsibility for results is attributable to the prior year’s teachers and experiences.  But, of course, it is very hard to tease it out exactly, of course.

What are the key takeaways from these snapshots of the entire school?

• Looking at six different grades through six different dimensions there are only two instances out of thirty-six of scoring below grade-level: Grades 3 (2.8) and 5 (5.0) Spelling.  This is honestly the best we have ever scored!  Every other grade and every other subject is either at or above or way above.
• For those parents focused on high school readiness, our students in Grades 7 & 8 got the maximum score that can be recorded for each and every academic category except for Grade 8 Computation & Estimation (still 9.4).  Again, our Grade 7s maxxed out at 8.9 across the board and our Grades 8s maxxed out at 9.9 across the board save one 9.4.  Again, this is – by far – the best we have ever scored.

It does not require a sophisticated analysis to see how exceedingly well each and every grade has done in just about each and every section.  In almost all cases, each and every grade is performing significantly above grade-level.  This is a very encouraging set of data points.

Stay tuned next week when we begin to dive into the comparative data.  “Part II” will look at the same cohort (the same group of students) over time.  “Part III” will look at the same grade over time and conclude this series of posts with some additional summarizing thoughts.