Focus Education NZ

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  ICAS Assessments – All You Need to Know

  Focus is proud to be one of the only non-school centres for administering ICAS Assessments in New Zealand! Designed by experts to be fun, challenging, and test higher-order thinking and problem solving, ICAS papers are offered across 6 literacy and STEM papers for school years 3-13.

  Why enroll your child for ICAS?

  ICAS assessments began as an annual event over 40 years ago, and have therefore stood the test of time. Each year, experts including psychometricians, experienced teachers, and education measurement experts design each paper to test the full range of your child’s abilities in a fun and challenging way.

  ICAS assessments:

  • provide detailed feedback on your child’s knowledge and skills in the subject, allowing you and your child’s teachers to focus on the areas your child needs help most
  • measure your child’s achievements objectively across their year level and nationally
  • challenge your child’s intellectual curiosity outside the school classroom
  • reward participation and achievements with official certificates
  • support applications for competitive schools and scholarships with concrete proof of your child’s achievements

  See our session times and register your child here

  What does each ICAS assessment involve?

  See below for the details of each of the six papers on offer.

  • Digital Technologies. This paper tests a student’s ability to work with digital systems, word processing, graphics & multimedia, internet & email, spreadsheets & databases, and programming & scripting.
  • Writing. This paper assesses either narrative or persuasive writing and tests a student’s knowledge of genre, textual grammar, syntax & punctuation and more.
  • English. This paper tests a student’s knowledge of vocabulary, comprehension, structure, syntax and voice.
  • Science. This paper tests a student’s skills on real scientific stimulus materials with observing & measuring, interpreting, predicting & concluding, investigating, and reasoning & problem solving.
  • Spelling Bee. This paper tests a student’s skills in spelling with dictation, rules & conventions, proofreading, and error correction.
  • Mathematics. This paper tests a student’s abilities to solve problems with number & arithmetic, algebra & patterns, measures & units, space & geometry, and chance & data.

  

  See our session times and register your child here

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