Assessment definitions

An assessment definition is the actual test a monitor administers to a pupil: a reading assessment, a sounds assessment, a comprehension test. Pupil forms point at a definition, so the same test can sit under many different forms and its results stay comparable.

Open the definitions list from the settings menu at organisation level.

The definitions list

Each row shows the definition’s Name, how many Sections it contains, and how many Forms use it. New Assessment Definition adds another.

Sections

A definition is made of sections, numbered in the order the monitor works through them. A section is a part of the assessment that is scored together, for example Sounds, then Words, then Reading Fluency.

Each section shows its rules as badges, which are what make the assessment run the same way for every pupil:

Setting	What it does
Timed / Time limit	Whether the clock runs, and the automatic stopping limit in seconds. A timed section without a limit uses a stopwatch.
Assessment display	Word by word or Sentence by sentence for live assessment
Countdown	A countdown before the timer starts, so the pupil is ready
Halfway skip	After this many consecutive failures the app offers to skip the rest of the section, so a struggling pupil is not pushed through every remaining item
Allows stimulus / Requires stimulus	Whether a card or sheet is shown to the pupil
Can skip at start	Whether the section can be skipped before it begins
Monitor can end early	Whether the monitor may stop the section
Pupil year	The year group the section is aimed at
Brackets	The section’s analysis brackets, covered below

Why the skip rules matter

A pupil who cannot read the first several items will not read the later ones either, and pushing on is discouraging for them and wasteful for the monitor. The halfway skip and the early end are what keep an assessment humane, and they are part of the definition so that every monitor applies the same rule instead of deciding for themselves.

Adding a section

New section asks for the Name, the settings above, the Pupil year the section is aimed at, and three pieces of text:

• Script: what the monitor says, one step per line.
• Scoring guidance: how to score it, one point per line.
• Analysis brackets: the score bands used when the results are reported, as comma-separated values.

The analysis brackets are what later appear as the score bands in the assessment reports, so they are worth setting deliberately: they decide how the results are grouped for everyone who reads them. Left empty, the bands default to quarters of the section’s question count. (The Impact pages’ bands are configured separately, in the country’s and each project’s impact configuration.)

Configure a sentence passage

1. Edit the passage section and set Assessment display to Sentence by sentence.
2. Keep one question for each word. Edit each question’s Sentence number, using a positive whole number.
3. Give consecutive words in the same sentence the same number; use a new number for the next sentence. Keep the words in reading order.
4. Check the Sentence preview on the section. Every word must belong to a sentence before the app can run this layout. A sentence number must not reappear in a later, separate group.
5. Save the changes and sync the app before testing the passage.

For example, The / dog / ran can all have sentence number 1, followed by The / cat / sat with sentence number 2. Use the actual assessed sentence boundaries from the source material.

Sentence numbers describe the passage independently of the display choice. They are retained if you switch Assessment display back to Word by word. Leave sentence numbers blank on standalone sounds and word lists.

The sentence screen shows the whole sentence, lets the assessor mark individual errors and no responses, and asks for the last attempted word at completion. See the assessment guide.

Timing and fluency

The assessment timer is silent and stops at the configured limit. A full 60-second test records 60 seconds; early completion uses the actual elapsed time, excluding pauses. Prepared passage sections display correct words × 60 ÷ elapsed seconds in the app. Sentence display or complete sentence markers identify these passages; this does not add a new score field to dashboard exports.

How a definition reaches a pupil

A definition on its own does nothing. It reaches a pupil through the form hierarchy:

1. A pupil form points at the assessment definition.
2. That pupil form sits under a teacher form, which sits under a school form.
3. A project uses the school form, so its monitors carry the assessment on their tablets.

That indirection is what lets the same reading test be used by several projects and several countries while the results stay comparable. See Monitoring forms for the full hierarchy.

Questions inside a section

Each section holds its own questions, added with Add question and shown in order with their text. In a sounds assessment these are the individual sounds; in a words assessment, the words. A question can be marked Invented word, which flags a non-word used to test decoding rather than recall.

Sections and questions can both be reordered, and that order is the order the monitor follows on the tablet.

Changing a definition already in use

A definition that has been used has results recorded against it. Changing its sections or its brackets affects how new results compare with older ones. Prefer adding a new definition when you want to measure something differently, and keep the existing one so the history stays readable.

Next: Assigning teachers to forms