Scottish National Standardised Assessments user review: year 1 – session 2017-2018

Appendix 1

Key enhancements to SNSA - August 2018

P1

• Questions have been re-ordered to ensure children receive less difficult questions early in the sequence. This will not alter the diagnostic value of the assessment.
• Questions have been re-designed to reduce the need for drag and drop.
• The practice assessments have been enhanced to ensure they reflect the full range of questions.
• Questions that have caused particular issues have been removed and replaced with a question of similar difficulty but with a more familiar context.
• Case studies on effective classroom management will be produced and shared with practitioners.
• A P1 Practitioner Improvement Forum will be established. This Forum will look at all aspects of the P1 experience.

All assessment stages

• Introduction of the long scale, that will show an individual's progress in literacy and numeracy throughout their school career at the key stages.
• Reports have been enhanced to take account of the new national norms established as part of the norming and equating studies.
• Around 1/3 of questions have been replenished.
• The public facing website will be updated to provide up-to-date information for parents and practitioners on the assessments.
• The SNSA training package has been refined and extended.
• Feedback from children and young people on their experience will be systematically collected at the end of each assessment.
• An annual survey of user feedback will be conducted.
• The accessibility guidance will be further expanded with a range of developments to enhance the experience for learners with ASN.
• Case studies will be shared with practitioners on interpreting the data provided by the SNSA and how this can be used for improvement purposes.

Assessment summit

An assessment summit will take place in session 2018/19 and will enable SG to work with academics, stakeholders and partners to reflect on the BGE assessment model and the place of SNSA within this.