NFER Tests development

Our robust development process

Keeping every step of our robust development process in-house means we can use all the knowledge gained from developing assessments for over 70 years to ensure our standardised assessments are of the highest quality.

NFER Tests are the end result of extensive review, trialling and analysis and teacher feedback is a very important part of this development process. Our team of assessment experts work in collaboration with schools to ensure our materials are based on a deep knowledge of children’s development, curricula and the needs of teachers and pupils.

Not only is teacher input gathered on the early versions of the materials during informal trialling, but it is also collected from teachers taking part in the large scale standardisation trials (where a large, nationally representative sample of pupils complete the materials under test conditions). This standardisation enables pupils’ performance to be benchmarked against the national average and meaningfully compared.

Technical Manuals

We provide technical information about our tests to show how they have been standardised. You can download Technical Manuals below.

Technical Manuals key stage 1

Year 1 summer reading and mathematics
Year 2 autumn reading and mathematics

Technical Manuals key stage 2

Key stage 2 spring reading, mathematics and grammar and punctuation
Key stage 2 summer reading and mathematics
Key stage 2 summer grammar and punctuation
Key stage 2 autumn reading and mathematics
Key stage 2 autumn grammar and punctuation
Key stage 2 spelling