Results“…what this programme accomplishes speaks volumes and is highly inspirational.” Templeton Freedom Prize Judge Photo: John Carey
Week-after-week we speak to parents who say they have noticed a marked difference in their child’s ability, attitude and confidence since they started attending our classes. Please see our testimonies page for more details. At the 2009 summer school we tested the children on the first and last days, and found that in the two-week period of morning lessons only, the reading age of the children increased by an average of one year and seven months. When nine-year-old Shayla started with us last September she couldn't read the most basic sentences. At the end of the summer school her reading age was 9 years and 6 months! Trevor Kavanagh, of The Sun, wrote an article about the summer school, which you can find here.
In August 2009, fifteen-year-old Nirmol from our Sanaton classes achieved an A* in his maths GCSE, after taking it a year early. His mother was very grateful, saying that he would not have achieved this without the Saturday School. Nirmol is intending to stay with us during Year 11, as he wants to read natural sciences at Cambridge. There is nothing magical about how these results are achieved. They entail good, committed teachers who turn up, week after week, often improvising makeshift classrooms in community centres, to teach the children the rudiments of literacy and numeracy. InCAS testingAs well as regular tests set internally, we are using the Interactive Computerised Assessment System (InCAS) programme developed by the highly regarded Curriculum Evaluation Management (CEM) Centre at the University of Durham.
InCAS is a computerised adaptive assessment, in which a pupil’s answers affect the level of difficulty of subsequent tasks, giving an individual, detailed analysis for each pupil. The test generates age-equivalent scores and reports making it possible to compare each pupil with a typical child of the same age and highlight topics which require further attention. The testing also provides independent verification of the progress made by children in our classes. An example of each child’s results is given below, using the results of one of our pupils at King’s Cross.
Photo: Darren Fletcher
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The effect of the Civitas Schools on the lives of the children is noticeable in the short-term, and in the long-term it is incalculable. As well as helping to boost the knowledge, skills and opportunities for all the pupils, there are individual children who make such drastic progress at the classes that it gives them a whole new outlook on education.
The test was developed by the CEM Centre to measure basic skills in children aged five to eleven. Through its research work with schools, colleges, education authorities and government agencies, the CEM Centre provides high quality, evidence based information. 
The results from our first round of InCAS testing across the project show that the children who have been with us for over a year are largely working at a significantly higher level than our new pupils. In July 2009 a group of children at our King's Cross centre took the InCAS test for the second time one year since their first test. The average improvement in their English age was two years and four months, in just one calendar year. When more children re-take the InCAS test in the next year, we expect that they will demonstrate significant improvement and increase their age scores by more than one year, as well as more of our pupils surpassing the national average scores.