"Assessment and pedagogy are inextricably connected. Assessment of pupils’ attainment and progress should be directly linked to the curriculum followed by the school."

Primary Assessment Commission Report, Sept 2015

It is advised that schools are very clear on the school curriculum they wish to follow before choosing how to assess against this. For many schools, however, they simply do not have the time/resources to spend a lot of time on writing criteria for themselves from scratch.


To support schools in this, there are a great many choices of "off the shelf" curriculum frameworks which can be added to your Classroom Monitor account, alongside the ones we offer as 'free' content within the system. If you do choose an off the shelf framework, Classroom Monitor enables you to adapt this to suit your school's particular needs.




Choosing an "Off The Shelf" Curriculum Framework


We have a number of frameworks available within Classroom Monitor. Some of these are included for free as part of your standard subscription whilst others may incur a charge as they require customisation from our team and often a copyright fee is payable to the curriculum creator.


Customising Objectives in an Existing Framework


The customisation tool in Classroom Monitor allows you to have full control over the content of your assessment framework. This includes the objectives that appear in your markbook: add your own objectives, edit those already in a framework, or delete (deactivate) objectives, as required. You can also change the structure of the assessment framework to match your curriculum i.e. moving objectives from one subject area to another, merging subjects or ability levels together etc.


Adding Your Own Curriculum Framework


You can also add your own curriculum into Classroom Monitor from scratch. So if you have developed an assessment framework in your school, or you are using a version of a framework that is not currently available in Classroom Monitor, you have various options to enter it so that you have all of the markbook, tracking and reporting functionality at your disposal. You can add your framework using the customisation tool or contact us to provide an estimate to add it for you. If you're adding a framework from scratch we would recommend our mini e-course on Creating an Assessment Framework in Classroom Monitor.


If you have created a curriculum which is likely to be used in a number of schools then please contact us. We can discuss the most cost effective way of applying this to all of the schools in your group or partnership opportunities if you wish.


What's The Right Number of Assessment Statements?


When choosing or adapting an assessment framework, schools are keen to strike a balance between using a framework which supports teachers in terms of formative assessment but does not unnecessarily add to their workload. What will work for each school will depend on your purpose of recording assessment.

There are a number of frameworks which contain a minimal number of statements at each ability level, such as the NAHT Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Not all aspects of the curriculum will appear in these meaning that recording on an ongoing basis isn't as necessary or useful, but can be used on a more summative basis.

A fuller framework with larger numbers of objectives gives reassurance that all aspects of the curriculum are covered and teachers can track forwards and backwards between ability levels to support progression in particular skills by looking at what has, and should have, been achieved in terms of the foundations of a skill. This type of framework does mean that it's better for teachers to record assessments on a more ongoing basis but this in turn makes them more useful in informing teacher planning as they are up to date and specific. There are a number of ways that teachers can
speed up assessment to make a larger framework more manageable.

If you are currently using a framework that you feel has too many or too few statements, then you could consider changing to a different framework or editing the content that is currently in there. We have a specific advice page for schools looking to
customise the Rising Stars Progression framework to make it better suit their school's approach to assessment.