Assessment should tell you what to teach next
A score can show that a pupil found a question difficult. Strong diagnostic assessment goes further. It helps the teacher identify the underlying idea, strategy or representation that needs attention and connects that finding with suitable teaching.
A teacher or school leader reviewing pupil responses and diagnostic information.
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Assessment for action
LTD assessment sits close to teaching. Use it before a topic to identify starting points, during a sequence to check concepts and after teaching to examine growth and remaining misconceptions.
The result should be a clearer teaching decision, not simply another set of marks to enter.
Diagnostic check-ups
Diagnostics focus on important concepts and common misconceptions. They can help distinguish between pupils who need more practice and pupils who need an earlier idea rebuilt.
Where possible, reporting should group responses by concept and link directly to relevant lessons or intervention sprints.
Show one real assessment question with all private information removed.
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Pre- and post-assessment
Using a comparable assessment before and after a teaching period helps schools examine growth. The interpretation should consider the quality of responses and strategies, not only the change in total score.
Concept check-ups
Short concept-focused checks can be used more regularly. They are useful for place value, calculation, multiplicative thinking, fractions and other areas where a small misunderstanding can affect later work.
Open assessment tasks
Open tasks allow pupils to make choices, represent ideas and explain reasoning. A teacher guide can identify the evidence to look for and support consistent professional discussion.
These tasks are particularly useful when a correct answer alone would not show the depth of understanding.
Use several forms of evidence
- Pupil explanation
- Choice of strategy
- Use of representation
- Accuracy and fluency
- Independent work
- Response to variation
- Ability to generalise
- Diagnostic and concept check-up results
- Growth over time
A simple visual connecting assessment evidence, identified misconception, recommended lesson and review.
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For school leaders
School-level reporting should support curriculum and professional learning decisions. It should not encourage false precision or reduce mathematics to a single percentage.
Useful questions include: Which concepts are weak across several classes? Which year groups show strong growth? Are staff interpreting misconceptions consistently? Which representations need further professional learning?
Assessment and pupil data
The final UK page must explain what pupil data is collected, where it is stored, who can access it and how long it is retained. If schools upload identifiable pupil information, supplier documentation and data-processing terms will be needed.
Show three anonymised pupil responses and explain what each reveals about understanding.
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