Assessments are an essential ingredient in our approach to delivering effective online learning at EdPlace, as they really impact on your student's ability to make progress and maximise their learning time. Our assessments are not about succeeding or failing, but rather improving your visibility of your student's understanding throughout their academic journey. They're designed to be easy-to-use, informal activities that are automatically marked and cover the full range of National Curriculum topics for each subject and year group. As with all EdPlace resources, they’re written by fully qualified teachers who are used to putting students through their paces, so you can be confident that they will offer an accurate picture of your student's current level of understanding and ability.
We currently offer 4 different types of assessment at EdPlace:
- Combined Subject Assessments (specifics here);
- Termly Benchmark Assessments (specifics here);
- Catch-Up Assessments (specifics here);
- End of Year Assessments (specifics here);
If you'd like to explore one of these types of assessments in more detail, please click on the links above to read the summary published upon their release. If you'd like to learn more about the EdPlace assessment technology in general and how it works, you may like to review this article.
Now, let's take a look at each of these assessments in more detail so that you can understand how and when to use them with your students.
Combined Subject Assessments (*Available in free and paid teacher accounts)
- What are they?
These assessments do exactly what they say on the tin, they:
- Combine all 3 core subjects, English, maths and science, within one global assessment;
- Enable you to compare performance and help identify the subject most in need of further support;
- Are 30 questions in length, with 10 questions focused on each subject area;
- Take approximately 15 minutes to complete.
- When should my student complete one?
We recommend that your students complete this type of assessment at the start of their tutoring journey with yourself and EdPlace or at a big milestone like a new school year so that you can gain an understanding of the subject area each would benefit from focusing their practice and efforts on improving most.
- What do I need to know before my student completes one?
This is a big picture assessment designed to help you identify which subject each student would benefit from the most support in. They’re available to all student users (free or paid) for this very reason. After completing the assessment, to gain a much clearer picture of which topics within a subject are proving a bit of a challenge, we’d recommend completing a subject assessment. From here, you can use the thousands of activities on EdPlace, all organised by National Curriculum objective, to support each student's individual learning needs.
Termly Benchmark Assessments (*Available in paid teacher and tutor accounts only)
- What are they?
A big challenge throughout the academic year is knowing how your students are performing in relation to national benchmarks, averages and their peers. We've created three assessments, designed to allow you to ‘check-in’ periodically, and give you the information you need to accurately track each student's progress, helping you to motivate and direct them all the way through the school year.
- When should my student complete one?
These assessments are designed to be completed at the end of each academic term - winter, spring and summer. The topics and questions covered in these assessments reflect the types of questions that students will learn about at school in each of the three terms of their current academic year.
- What do I need to know before my student completes one?
These assessments vary in length in accordance with the age of the student - 20 questions in Key Stage 1, 30 in Key Stage 2 and 40 in Key Stage 3. We recommend it takes between 10 (KS1), 15 (KS2) or 20 (KS4) minutes to complete each assessment. We've added a timer to provide guidance, and you'll be informed in the follow-up report if your student completed the assessment within or outside the recommended time limit, but it won't play any other role in the assessment. Students won't be locked out or activities closed if they exceed the expected time.
Catch-Up Assessments (*Available in paid teacher and tutor accounts only)
- What are they?
First introduced in response to the March 2020 school closures, these assessments are designed to support educators and parents to understand a child's current academic levels after their learning has been disrupted for an extended period of time. They test the expected understanding of the full range of National Curriculum topics for the previous academic year. These assessments proved so useful that they're being used as part of the National Tutoring Programme, a government-funded initiative to help disadvantaged students catch up (to learn more about this, please click here).
- When should my student complete one?
The need for catch-up may occur at any point in a child’s academic journey, so these assessments are there to help with this and can be used to help boost confidence levels along the way. If your student has missed a considerable period of time from school, or if they need a boost before beginning a new year, these assessments can be just the ticket to uncover where they need that little bit of extra support, helping them to feel really confident.
- What do I need to know before my student completes one?
Like the Termly Benchmark Assessments, these assessments vary in length, 20 questions at Key Stage 1, 30 at Key Stage 2 and 40 at Key Stage 3. Remember, the questions covered reflect the expected understanding of the previous academic year, so it may be necessary when assigning activities based on the topics flagged in the report to look at the year below your student's current year group.
End of Year Assessments (*Available in paid teacher and tutor accounts only)
- What are they?
These assessments are designed to support you to understand your student's academic level once they have completed the full school year. They test the expected understanding of the full range of National Curriculum topics for the academic year you have just completed.
- When should my student complete one?
The clue is in the name here! We really recommend that you use these assessments only once your students have completed a full school year. Sitting this in the last half term or over the summer holidays will mean you’ve given your students the chance to cover all of the relevant topics so you can get a really accurate measure of their understanding.
- What do I need to know before my student completes one?
Like our Catch-Up and Termly Benchmark Assessments, the End of Year Assessments also vary in length depending on the year group: 20 questions at Key Stage 1, 30 at Key Stage 2 and 40 at Key Stage 3. You’ll also notice that these assessments are accompanied by the use of a timer, as with all our assessments the suggested length alters depending on the year group. Please note, the timer really is just there as a guide to help students to monitor their work rate, the assessment will not time out should they exceed the suggested time.
We hope that this information will enable you to choose the right assessment at the right time to support each of your student's learning journey with EdPlace. Over time, we will continue to add to and expand this range, so please check back for updates when new assessments are released.
If you need any further help with this or have any questions or suggestions, please contact our friendly Customer Support Team via email at help@edplace.com - we are here to help you get the most out of using EdPlace!