Blog

There is no requirement for assessment systems to be built on a progress mindset, however, and every reason to think that there are more effective ways of monitoring students as they move through school. Read Article…

Levels were fine until they weren’t. Used until 2015, they provided a broad indicator of attainment at the end of each key stage and gave a notion of progress as children moved from one level to the next. The rot set in when they began to be used for accountability purposes, especially measures of progress, […] Read Article…

At key stage 2, the national discussion is often focused on the number of children who are – or are not  – reaching the expected standard. Whilst this is clearly of interest, what is happening within the two groups created by the expected standard is potentially much more interesting, as these two groups are evolving […] Read Article…

Many years ago, following a meeting of the Reception Baseline Stakeholder Group at DfE Towers, I went for a cup of tea with a fellow group member and was told a story that blew my mind. As we sat sipping English breakfast in the well-lit atrium, my partner-in-tea asked, “do you know how the expected […] Read Article…

On Wednesday 4 December 2024, James Pembroke and Richard Selfridge recorded a webinar aimed primarily at School Governors looking at the Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR). The webinar will be of interest to anyone who wants to find out more about how the DfE and Ofsted present data for schools. The webinar covers: Are you […] Read Article…

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” (Dr Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park) Say what you like about Progress 8, at least it involves a standardised test at each end (hint: progress measures should always involve a standardised test at each end!). The problem […] Read Article…

As we noted in How have Primary schools responded to the end of KS1 SATs?, end of Key Stage 1 (KS1) assessments became non-statutory from the 2023/24 academic year onwards. The first cohort to take the statutory Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) had reached the end of KS1 and KS1 assessments were no longer needed to create […] Read Article…

Many schools are using standardised tests from the likes of NFER, GL and Hodder to monitor attainment and progress of pupils, and to predict outcomes; and yet there is still a lot of confusion about how standardised scores relate to scaled scores. The common misconception is that 100 on a standardised test (e.g. from NFER) […] Read Article…

On Wednesday 23 October 2024, James Pembroke and Richard Selfridge recorded a webinar aimed primarily at School Governors looking at the statutory assessment landscape for primary schools. The webinar will be of interest to anyone who wants to find out more about how primary-aged children are assessed. The webinar covers: Are you interested in exploring […] Read Article…

Most schools carry out KS2 test practice at several points across year 6. Pupils will attempt previous years’ papers in reading, maths, and grammar, punctuation and spelling; and the results of those tests will typically be entered on to a spreadsheet or an assessment data tracking system such as Insight. Of course, the pass mark […] Read Article…