Product Review – PUMA and PiRA Online Tests

Subject:
English

Online termly standardised interactive maths and reading tests to assess and predict pupil progress at KS2

Standardised assessments are a valuable and important part of school life because they help us measure and predict pupil progress in English and maths and tell us how our pupils are performing relative to pupils in other schools.

To do this with any sense of accuracy and reliability requires carefully crafted tests that help provide diagnostic information in order to support effective teaching and learning.

RS Assessment from Hodder Education has produced some new interactive tests for KS2. These are the same trustworthy, valid and consistent questions from its popular Progress in Understanding Mathematics Assessment (PUMA) and Progress in Reading Assessment (PiRA).

The tests are accessed via a brand new online service called MARK (My Assessment and Reporting Kit).

Using MARK is very easy and it’s very secure too. When you sign up, a member of staff is nominated as access coordinator to keep children’s data safe and sound. This
person also assigns roles for staff who can then enter the platform on their dashboard.

The quality of the tests is everything in a system like this, and they don’t disappoint in terms of their content, presentation, ease of use and analysis.

In fact, the interactive material is the same as the printed resources but the beauty of the interactive versions is that they are auto-marked (and auto-saved)
and so you don’t need to spend time filling in marksheets.

The MARK dashboard is clean, tidy and packed with everything you need to make assessment stress-free. From here you can manage school information including teachers, pupils, classes and groups.

Need a test? Search a product (PUMA or PiRA), choose a paper, preview it and assign to an individual, group or class. Pupils then visit your school’s bespoke URL, enter a code and they’re away.

A helpful video introduces the test to help pupils understand more about the different types of responses they might be asked for and what the on-screen buttons do.

The instantaneous analysis of the test content makes using interactive tests a no-brainer because they do all the work in a flash. You can readily see results and produce
professional reports which you can print off and/or export for at-a-glance gap analysis.

This is massively timesaving and gives you the precise information you need fast, including essential scores, reading/maths ages and performance indicators.

These interactive tests are sophisticated, reliable and highly efficient and make a highly practical and intelligent choice for assessing knowledge, skills and understanding.

KS1 interactive tests will be available later this year.

At a glance

Termly interactive tests for each year group that produce standardised results and age related scores
Powerful assessment and reporting for analysing gaps in knowledge
Offers a wide variety of reports for outcomes by pupil, group or class
Benchmark pupil performance against national averages

Verdict

Tests are marked automatically, generating immediate reports and gap analysis
Generates deep diagnostic data for accurate and reliable pupil profiling
Simple and quick to administer – assess a whole class in less than an hour
Compare and contrast performance against age-related expectations
Masterfully monitor pupil progress term by term

Upgrade if…

You are looking for time-saving online standardised tests to benchmark performance and measure progress, supported by powerful analysis and robust reports.

Price: £1.65 per pupil. Call 01235 400 555 or visit risingstars-uk.com/interactive-tests for more information.

Reviewed by John Dabell