Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Content

• What is the purpose of the personalised assessments
• Accessing the assessments
• Scheduling assessments
• Administrative issues to consider
• Familiarisation assessment
• Understanding individual learner feedback and learner progress reports
• Interpretation of school data/Actions for schools to consider
• Further information

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

What is the purpose of the personalised assessments?

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• Designed to help a practitioner, learner and parents understand how a learner’s numeracy skills are developing and help to plan next steps.

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• The personalised assessments are statutory this year for use in years 2 to 9. The administration handbook for 2022 to 2023 sets out the requirements.

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• Available throughout the academic year for schools to schedule at a time they consider most beneficial to support teaching, learning and progression. Learners can take each assessment up to twice during the school year.

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Numeracy personalised assessments – what are they?

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• Online assessments that will provide information to assist teachers to plan next steps in learning and teaching for numeracy.

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• They are ‘adaptive’ assessments the questions are generated based on the learner’s response to the previous question. This provides an individual assessment experience and tailors the level of challenge for every learner.

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Sample material

• View - Hwb (gov.wales)

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Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

• The personalised assessments do not have a fixed duration or a fixed number of questions (although there is a minimum and maximum number of questions – see page 8). The assessment will stop when it has made a reliable decision about the learner’s ability.

The personalised assessments do not have a fixed duration or a fixed number of questions (although there is a minimum and maximum number of questions available). The assessment will stop when it has made a reliable decision about the learner’s ability.

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

• The personalised assessments do not have a fixed duration or a fixed number of questions (although there is a minimum and maximum number of questions – see page 8). The assessment will stop when it has made a reliable decision about the learner’s ability.

Numeracy personalised assessments

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Information video for parents and carers

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Online personalised assessments guide (gov.wales)

Accessing the assessments Video

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• Schools will use Hwb – https://hwb.gov.wales/ – to log in and access the assessments website.
• For information on how users can find their Hwb usernames and passwords, please see the following link: https://hwb.gov.wales/support-centre/hwb-services/getting-started

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Assessments website set-up – user management

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Teachers need access to the 'facilitate and analyse' to be able to see the exemplar materials and learner feedback/ group feedback

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Scheduling assessments

Releasing assessments

• Assessments should only be released on the day and to learners when they are in a supervised environment.

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Administrative issues to consider

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• Assessment checklist for staff and learners
• The questions in the Numeracy (Procedural) and Numeracy (Reasoning) Personalised Assessments may be read aloud to learners if needed. No help should be given with any of the numerical content of the questions
• Breaks may be given to learners of any age, and an assessment may be spread throughout a school day.
• Learners in Years 2 and 3 should have rest breaks. The length of the break is at the discretion of the school. Staff should monitor to decide when or if breaks are appropriate for other learners
• When an assessment is paused or stopped, the results for the questions the learner has answered will be submitted at 5p.m. on the day the assessment is taken unless the assessment is cancelled.
• A learner feedback and progress report will be generated with the available information. If too few questions have been answered the reports may fail to generate and instead the teacher may see a warning statement.
• A completed assessment with submitted answers cannot be restarted and cannot be rescheduled.

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Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Administrative issues to consider

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• Learners will need paper and a pen/pencil available for any rough working out/notes.
• For the Numeracy (Procedural) Personalised Assessments, calculators and other tools must not be used.
• For Numeracy (Reasoning) Personalised Assessments, learners must have headphones and a calculator. (Years 2 and 3 only need access to a calculator if they normally use one in class.)
• For Numeracy (Reasoning), learners can also have access to other tools including manipulatives if they are deemed appropriate by the teacher.
• All learners must be made aware that they might come across content that they have not engaged with in class, this may mean that they have gone to a higher level- learners should not worry or get anxious if this occurs.
• For a full explanation of the reasoning assessment and hints follow link
• The personalised assessments have been designed with learners’ access in mind; it is expected that nearly all learners will be able to access them without special arrangements. However, where accessible versions are needed, these are available, and the usual access arrangements can be made. (See handbook for further details)

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Familiarisation assessment

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• In advance of taking personalised assessments, schools should ensure learners have an opportunity to try familiarisation assessments in each subject. This will enable learners to view the question types and understand how to answer them, and also to become familiar with the navigation of the assessments. This is particularly important for the Numeracy (Reasoning) assessment which requires use of audio.
• Familiarisation assessments may be accessed at any time. They should be taken shortly before a personalised assessment (though it is advised not to use them in the same lesson due to time constraints and in case learners become tired).
• The questions are presented in a fixed order to enable staff to talk a whole class through a familiarisation assessment, e.g. by reading the question together and discussing the answer and how to respond.
• During the familiarisation assessments, learners can change the background colour settings to enable them to review the available options and find the most suitable settings, this also allows them to have an informed discussion with their teacher
• When using the Numeracy (Reasoning) familiarisation assessments for the first time with a class, teachers should lead learners through them as a class/group to ensure learners experience how hints are presented. If learners are left to work through the familiarisation assessments individually, they may not fully understand the hints feature.

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Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Familiarisation Assessment and sample questions - years 2 to 3

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Familiarisation Assessment and sample questions - years 4 to 6

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Familiarisation Assessment and sample questions - years 7 to 9

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Understanding individual learner feedback and learner progress reports from the Numeracy-Procedural and Numeracy-Reasoning Personalised Assessments

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• The day after the assessments have been taken, learner feedback reports are available to staff members with the ‘Administrate’ and ‘Facilitate and analyse’ functions to review and to share with learners (as appropriate).

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• The learner feedback report for Numeracy (Reasoning) is designed to be teacher mediated and is not available for release to learners. Schools are not required to issue this report direct to parents. Reports for groups of learners will also be available upon request, summarising skills at a group level.

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• Information video on learner feedback reports for parents and guardians

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To view and release the learner feedback • Select ‘Learner feedback’ under the ‘Reports’ tab.

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Group reports

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• Group reports are requested via the ‘Group reports’ screen, accessed via the ‘Reports’ tab. When a report has been requested it will immediately be visible on the ‘Group reports’ screen with a status of pending.

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• When the report is available, a notification appears on the ‘Home’ screen of the assessments website to show how many new reports are available to view. Reports will then show on the ‘Group reports’ screen with a status of ‘Available’ and a ‘View’ button will be displayed.

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Interpreting reports- Learner feedback reports

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• The learner feedback report highlights the learner’s strengths and areas for further development.

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• For Numeracy (Procedural), statements are presented in the report along with a sample question for each statement.

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• The first descriptor summarises the questions in the bank that relate to the learner’s current attainment level.

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• The second descriptor summarises the questions in the bank that are a bit more difficult than those of the learner’s current attainment level.

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• Learners performing right at the top of the bank will receive a statement that they are at the top of the bank and need to move on to more challenging content.

Personalised assessment – Numeracy (Procedural): Information for parents and carers (gov.wales)

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Interpreting reports- Learner feedback reports

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• For Numeracy (Reasoning), the report provides information how the learner approached different question types in the assessment, their understanding of the different content areas for reasoning relative to their average performance and links to sample questions relevant to the ability at which they are working.

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• The report is designed to be teacher mediated.

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• Therefore, schools are not required to issue the learner feedback report directly to learners, parents and carers by releasing from the system.

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• It is recommended that teachers consider the reports and accompanying resources, and how and when to share the information and class-based activities with learners to support understanding and development of their reasoning skills.

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Interpreting reports- Learner progress report

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• The first section of this report plots all learner assessment scores to date so that the teacher, the learner and their parents/carers can track their performance over time.

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• The second section of the report provides an age-standardised score from the learner’s most recent assessment. This score compares the learner’s performance in their assessment with the scores of other learners in the same year group who were born in the same year and month.

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• The scores are on a scale of 70 to 130 with 100 being the mean score.

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• Learners with very low or very high performance will have scores of <70 or 130+.

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• As with the learner feedback reports, these reports will not be visible to the learners in Hwb until the teacher has released them.

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• Reports must be shared with parents/carers as part of the normal reporting process.

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Personalised assessment progress report – Numeracy (Procedural) Information for parents and carers

Understanding the Learner Process - Numeracy Reasoning - Guidance for Parents and Carers

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Group reports

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There are 4 types of group report available within the system:

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1. Group profile (scatterplot)

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2. Group skills profile (LNF areas)

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3. Learner paths

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4. Group progress report.

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Group reports

Group profile (scatterplot)

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• Relates to teacher-defined group

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• Plots relative attainment of the different learners in the group along with the group average

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• Also provides progress and age-standardised scores for individuals within group

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Group reports - Group skills profile Numeracy-procedural

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All group reports relate to teacher-defined group

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• Show the group average progress score for the four cross-curricular LNF elements/proficiencies

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• Also shows progress and age-standardised scores for individual learners within the group

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• When planning progression, teachers are encouraged to give full consideration to the skills identified by the assessments (not the scores alone), alongside any other relevant classroom-based information.

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Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Group reports- Group skills profile Numeracy-reasoning

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All group reports relate to teacher-defined group

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• Show the group average progress score for the four cross-curricular LNF elements/proficiencies

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• Also shows progress and age-standardised scores for individual learners within the group

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• Links to sample materials and class-based resources

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Procedural

Group reports- Learner paths

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Relates to teacher-defined group

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• Both graphs show individual learner ‘journeys’ through their assessments.

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• The reasoning assessment shows individual learning journey through the one-mark questions, multi-mark questions, stimulus set

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• Data on individual learners including progress and age-standardised scores.

Procedural

Reasoning

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Group progress reports

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Mirrors and collates information from individual learner progress reports

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• Relates to teacher-defined group

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• Shows the mean score for the group each term in which assessments have been taken

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• Compares with range of scores of all learners in year group in Wales

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• Also shows average progress score for group and individual score

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

At the bottom of the group report there is a summary provided with information on the number of questions attempted, hints used (reasoning), average time viewing questions.

Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Interpretation of school data- QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• Have your staff looked at the results analysis for numeracy procedural and reasoning at an individual/class/year group/school level ? 
• Have the learners had opportunities to reflect on their results- have they used the interactive feedback material on Hwb? 
• Have reports been shared with parents and carers?  
• What were the strengths? Celebrate them with your team!
• Are there any staff who seem to be strong at teaching certain aspects? Can you use them to deliver CPD on this area?
• From your results analysis, which topics did your students perform less well on? Target these for departmental CPD.
• Is there a difference in the achievement of different groups (SEN, high/middle/low prior attainers, male/female?
• Does every member of your department know where to find the support materials ?
• Do the resources that you are using have enough reasoning in them? Are you explicitly teaching students how to answer these questions?
• Are pupils progressing in their numeracy skills? How can you show this?

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Current framework

Numeracy Personalised Assessments

Further information

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Using personalised assessments in Reading, Numeracy (Procedural) and Numeracy (Reasoning): webinars for teachers

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Personalised assessments case studies

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For support on using the personalised assessments, please contact the Assessment Helpdesk on 029 2026 5099 or help@personalisedassessments.wales

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Secondary Mathematics and Numeracy Supporting Improvement Advisers

FfionEmlynMealor@gwegogledd.cymru

SianElizabethCaldwell@gwegogledd.cymru

Primary Mathematics and Numeracy Supporting Improvement Adviser

ManonEsylltDavies@gwegogledd.cymru