Welsh Government: National literacy and numeracy tests

Aspire systems completed a project for the Department for Education and Skills to collect literacy and numeracy test data for 260,000 pupils from nearly 2,000 schools. The tests were introduced in 2013 in order to provide the Welsh Government with a much better idea of how learners are performing in relation to their peers.

Challenges

• Allow all schools in Wales to upload their data securely over the internet
• Validate the data against comprehensive set of validation rules and provide feedback to schools and local authorities on the results of the validation
• Generate a standardised score for each pupil based on a pupil's age, score and test paper sat
• Provide a report for each pupil, showing their results
• Provide a school-level summary report which compares performance against other schools in the local authority, the rest of Wales and schools with similar characteristics

The Solution

• The literacy and numeracy test data was collected using the DEWi system which has been developed and managed by Aspire systems since 2006
• DEWi is an e-government awards finalist and is the main system for exchanging a wide variety of data between schools, local authorities and the Welsh Government

Outcomes And Benefits

• Data was collected, validated and processed within a three week period
• A report was generated for every pupil in Wales showing their literacy and numeracy test results, how they compare against other pupils and their progress over the past three years
• Detailed analysis of data at school, local authority and Wales level