1st September, 2016
Dear Parents,
I am writing to inform you about a standardized assessment test that your children will take this
September. The test is called the GL Assessments CAT 4 test.
Every year, over 25,000 students in the UK and overseas participate in this Assessment. GL processes
this assessment data and creates reports for individual students, their parents and the schools in which
they attend based upon standardized levels developed across all of these tests.
In Dubai, as a part of the National Agenda, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA)
has mandated that all students that are in Grades 4,6,8 and 10 take this test on a yearly basis beginning
this academic year.
The CAT4 Assessment was designed to identify the ‘Cognitive Ability’ of students, based on age
appropriate expectations. In very simple terms, Cognitive Ability is a pupil’s ability to reason with and
manipulate different types of material through a series of Verbal, Non-Verbal, Quantitative and Spatial
Ability tasks. More details of exactly what this looks like are available, with examples, in the parent report
you will receive when results are delivered to the school.
CAT4 results help us understand the potential for academic attainment. As cognitive ability is not
particularly curriculum related, the results will not be significantly influenced by a student’s previous
schooling or their subject knowledge. This can help teachers plan differentiated lessons, address
individual learning styles and modify expectations for students across curriculum areas. Additionally, the
results will inform our work with the curriculum programs as they are developed to more appropriately
be tailored to our student population.
A few weeks after students take the test the divisional administration will send you your child’s results
from the GL Assessments CAT 4 test in what is titled as the ‘parents report’. We will provide further
information as to how to interpret the data at that time.
For more information about CAT4, please click on this link
If you have any questions relating to the information in these reports, please let me know.
Sincerely,
Lisa Gibson
K-12 Curriculum Coordinator