New online assessments that can support pupils to develop their literacy and numeracy skills in Years 5 and 6 are now available to schools in England.
Covering reading and maths curricula across autumn, spring, and summer terms, NFER Online Assessments (NOA) aim to engage pupils with age-appropriate questions, optimised for the online environment, while saving teachers time.
The assessments, originally launched in 2024 to pupils in Years 3 and 4, have been taken by over 9,300 pupils in the academic year 2024/25. This expanded offering of online assessments ensures schools can now support pupils throughout their Key Stage 2 journey.
It offers pupils interactive, standardised tests that are fun and appealing to use. This platform also delivers reliable information to teachers for diagnostic and summative assessment purposes.
Pupils in Years 3 to 6 will also get the opportunity to meet NFER’s friendly interactive guides, Noa the Panda and Fern the Robot, who will be there to help them navigate through the assessments via videos and practice questions.
Meanwhile, teachers facing workload pressures will save time as 70 per cent of all NOA questions are marked automatically, leaving teachers to mark the ‘open-ended’ and ‘show your working’ type questions.
Claire Hodgson, eAssessment Programme Director at NFER, said:
“This dynamic and high-quality set of standardised reading and maths assessments is designed to be used each term to track pupil progress. Drawing on our expertise in assessment and using data and feedback from extensive trialling, we’ve developed an intuitive platform to provide stimulating, curriculum-aligned questions.
“We’re thrilled that schools have fed back to say that pupils find NOA engaging, accessible and enjoyable and that teachers value its accuracy and time-saving benefits.”
One school that has been using the tool told NFER:
“I loved using NOA with the Year 3 pupils. It saved hugely on teacher time and the children had a positive test experience.”
Schools that are interested in learning more about these assessments can join a number of demonstration webinars that will take place during the Autumn term.
