Tests and scores

Updated 29 October 2026

CAT4 GCSE indicators and predicted grades

Some CAT4 reports list a grade for every GCSE subject. Here is where those grades come from, what "if challenged" means, and why they are a starting point, not a forecast.

What the indicators are

GL Assessment tracks large groups of students who took CAT4 and later sat national exams, and works out the link between the two. From that, the CAT4 report can show the typical outcome for a student with your child's scores. GL provides indicators for:

• KS2 national tests and KS3
• GCSE, including IGCSE, in 9 to 1 or A* to U grades
• AS and A level
• IB Middle Years Programme and Diploma ("pointers")
• CBSE Class X and XII (in the CBSE version of CAT4)

The GCSE indicators come from about 91,000 students who took CAT4 Level D or above and then sat GCSEs (2019 data). GL updates them regularly. Most are based on the mean CAT4 score; for English Language and English Literature GL uses the verbal reasoning score, which links more closely with those subjects.

Whether you see them depends on the school. GL's parent report can include indicators for KS3, GCSE, AS, A level and IB, but schools choose which reports to share.

"Most likely" and "if challenged"

The most likely grade is the average outcome for students with that CAT4 score. GL sometimes shows it to one decimal place (4.9 means near the 4/5 boundary) or as a split grade such as A/B.

The if challenged grade is, in GL's words, the level a student could reach with additional effort and challenge. GL's KS2 example shows what that means in practice: for students with a mean CAT4 score of 90, the most likely KS2 maths scaled score is 99 and the "if challenged" score is 103. About half of those students scored below 99, a quarter between 99 and 102, and a quarter reached 103 or more.

How precise are they?

GL's own example shows the spread. For a student with a mean CAT4 score of 100 (exactly average), these are the chances of each GCSE maths grade:

The "most likely" grade is 4.9: a 52% chance of grade 4 or below and a 48% chance of grade 5 or above. But even the single most likely grade has only about a one-in-three chance. GL's words: the indicators "are not precise: they indicate the outcomes expected for students with a particular CAT4 score making average progress in a typical secondary school".

Some subjects follow CAT4 more closely than others

GL publishes the correlation between CAT4 and later results (0 means no link, 1 a perfect link). Maths follows CAT4 most closely; creative subjects and languages much less so.

GCSE figures from GL's CAT4 technical report. The IB figure comes from a separate GL study of 744 IB students; GL notes the link is lower partly because higher-performing students tend to take the IB.

What this means for families in the UAE

• The indicators come from UK students. They describe average progress in a typical UK secondary school. Your child's school, teaching and effort can move the result either way.
• IB pointers are indirect. GL builds them by mapping GCSE grades onto IB Middle Years grades and A level grades onto Diploma grades, rather than from a large IB sample.
• Children learning English may have a lower verbal score, which feeds into the English indicators. GL's international data shows international students score lower on verbal reasoning than on the other three sections, on average.
• A low indicator is not a ceiling. GL's teacher guidance says low CAT4 scores should never be used to put a ceiling on what a student can achieve.

How GL says indicators should be used

GL's technical report advises schools sharing indicators with students to:

• stress that the indicators are a statistical prediction, not a prophecy;
• emphasise the range of outcomes that could be achieved;
• emphasise that motivation and effort shape the grade a student gets;
• never use them to label students as actual or potential failures;
• set them alongside all other information, so targets are reasonable.

GL also warns that indicators for a whole class are a rough guide only and can be very unstable for groups of fewer than 30 students.

If your child's indicators look low, ask the school how they compare with your child's actual results, for example in the GL Progress Tests. If they look high, the "if challenged" grade is a useful target to talk about with your child, not a promise. For what the CAT4 scores themselves mean, see CAT4 scores explained.