Research into the implementation of the National Reading and Numeracy Tests

The results appear to be broadly positive in terms of how the process of implementation of the tests was communicated to schools and in relation to the information provided to schools to aid this.

• Almost all schools (97%) had made use of the test administration handbook.
• 50% of respondents considered the messages and guidance received to have been very relevant to what they needed to know, and very easy to follow in practice (49%). The majority of respondents (95%) felt that their school had been able to fully comply with the guidance issued by the Welsh Government in the test administration handbook though this dropped significantly to 39% in special schools.

In terms of the administering of the tests:

• 81% of schools administered the tests to whole classes and 59% of tests were administered in the classroom.
• 83% of primary schools delivered the tests to Years 2& 3 in shorter ‘chunks’ which was found to be useful.

Marking the tests raised an issue about the time taken to mark the tests when compared to the estimations given by Welsh Government in the handbook.

• 88% of schools used qualified teachers employed in their school to mark the tests though this is significantly higher for respondents in primary schools (93%) compared to secondary schools (55%).
• The average time taken to mark 30 national reading tests was just under three hours compared to the WG estimation of 90-120 minutes.
• The average time taken to mark 30 national numeracy tests was shorter at two hours and 29 minutes compared to the Welsh Government estimate of 30-45 minutes.

In terms of how schools planned to make use of the results of the tests.

• 93% of schools had sent them to parents.
• 86% had used them to inform teaching plans.
• 85% had used them to inform pupils’ targets by identifying weaknesses and targeting interventions.
• 82% used them to provide more targeted support to learners.

The report makes eight recommendations which will be considered by officials within the Welsh Government to inform the guidance and information provided to schools in the future.