Development of year 1 and 2 spring NFER assessments in reading and mathematics
What are the new year 1 and 2 spring NFER assessments for?
The assessments are being developed to assess the current national curriculum in years 1 and 2 in reading and mathematics. They will provide teachers with results which will allow their pupils’ progress throughout KS1 to be benchmarked. The new assessments will primarily have a diagnostic purpose, enabling teachers to identify areas of strength and weakness in their pupils’ learning during KS1 (although standardised and age-standardised results will also form part of the output). We will also carry out an analysis which we hope will enable teachers to use the results from the NFER year 2 assessments to make predictions about each pupil’s future performance in the KS1 statutory tests in the summer term.
Who is sponsoring NFER to carry out this work?
The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) is self-funding this test development project.
How have schools been selected to take part?
NFER has drawn a nationally representative sample of around 2800 schools with age-appropriate pupils from across England to take part in the trial.
What does taking part involve?
We would like the sampled schools’ help with the trial of the new assessments this coming spring term (25 February to 8 March for year 2 and 11 March to 22 March for year 1). Schools can choose to enter a class of their year 1 and / or 2 pupils into the English trial or into the mathematics trial. If wished, schools can trial both the English and mathematics materials by entering two different classes.
The assessments are paper-based, with the year 2 assessments following a similar format to the statutory KS1 tests, and NFER will send all of the necessary materials to your school during the week prior to each trialling period. All marking of the assessments will be carried out by NFER.
To enable NFER to analyse progress from the year 2 assessments to the end of KS1 statutory tests, it is important that schools involved in the trial of the new spring year 2 assessments are also able to provide NFER with their current year 2 pupils’ end of KS1 statutory results when they become available in June 2019.
How will NFER use and protect the data collected?
All information collected during this development exercise will be kept confidential by NFER and no individual or school will be identified in any report. NFER will not disclose names of individuals or schools involved in the assessments, either in any reports arising from the use of this data or in any other way.
Who can be contacted for more information?
Tom Kirkup: 01753 637203, [email protected]