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• NFER sample from year 2 pupils

  Wed 27 Mar 2024

  Dear Parent/Carer

   

  Trialling key stage 1 national curriculum English reading assessment materials

   

  We are writing to let you know that your child’s school will be trialling national curriculum assessment materials for key stage 1 in English reading. The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) is doing this work for the Standards and Testing Agency (STA), which is part of the Department for Education. Each year the Standards and Testing Agency will trial potential future national curriculum tests with a representative sample of children and schools across the country.

   

  This trial plays a critical role in developing tests that accurately measure pupils’ attainment and progress and ensure that individual groups are neither advantaged or disadvantaged. Although KS1 national curriculum tests are now optional, there is still a legal requirement for selected schools to participate in trials. Pupils will complete these assessments on a set date during the period 15 to 26 April 2024. This project is confidential so no report of this work will identify any school or pupil that participates. Pupils should not be under any additional stress by helping with this research and trialling. The purpose of these trials is to ‘test the tests’ and not the children. Our test administrators engage with the children and explain that they are helping with research, they are often asked their opinion of the questions. Pupils’ background data will be collected from and confirmed with the school and will be used by STA in their analysis of the trial. The privacy notice at www.gov.uk/government/publications/privacy-notice-key-stage?1-and-key-stage-2-item-validation-trials-and-technical-pre-tests sets out compliance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to ensure pupil data is securely processed. As these are tests in the development stage, schools do not receive results from these assessments. Further information about these trials is available on our website www.nfer.ac.uk/for?schools/participate-in-research/participate-in-research-projects/2024-key-stage-1- and-key-stage-2-sta-technical-pre-tests