Before an inherited assessment judgement shapes teaching, spend five minutes testing whether it still answers a live curriculum question. Check its purpose, source, date, task, conditions, support and adjustments. Mark gaps and uncertainty, then decide whether to keep it as context, question it or replace it with fresh classroom evidence.
This transition check is for assessment leads, teachers, SENCos and school leaders in England. It doesn't diagnose need, fix a pupil's group, predict attainment or turn a transferred score into a high-stakes recommendation.
Use the record as a claim, not a conclusion
A transferred result may be accurate and still be unsuitable for the next decision. It may concern a different curriculum point, use unfamiliar conditions or omit the evidence behind a broad label. The receiving teacher's job is to understand what the record can support now.
The Standards and Testing Agency's 2026 teacher-assessment guidance distinguishes day-to-day, in-school summative and statutory purposes. It says statutory teacher assessment draws on broad evidence over time and across contexts. That rule belongs to its statutory setting, but the underlying caution travels well: one outcome should not quietly become a universal description of what a pupil knows.
Complete one five-line transition note
Choose one judgement that could influence planning. Use the source record itself, not a copied summary whose provenance has become a staff-room legend.
- Purpose: write the teaching decision the judgement could inform. If no one can name the decision, retain the item as historical context and do not act on it.
- Provenance: record the source, date, measure or task, version, curriculum content, response mode and who made the judgement. Note whether the underlying work is available and whether the result was moderated.
- Conditions and context: record teaching exposure, attendance around the sequence, usual support, reasonable adjustments, language or communication access and any known difference between then and now. Ordinary classroom adjustments do not automatically confer formal access arrangements for a statutory test or regulated qualification.
- Uncertainty and missingness: state what is absent, disputed or no longer comparable. Do not convert a missing task into a low result. Reduce confidence when the task, conditions or support cannot be checked.
- Human review: the class teacher records keep, question orreplace, names the assessment or subject lead who will review the note and sets a real date. Add what fresh evidence could change the view and how the pupil, parent or another professional can correct or challenge the record.
Watch one inherited judgement become a better question
The following Year 7 mathematics details are invented and combined to show the reasoning. They describe no pupil, school or customer. A transition record says a pupil is “working below” in fractions. The source is an end-of-year summary; the task, criteria and underlying work have not transferred.
The Year 7 teacher can see a date and outcome, but not whether equivalent fractions had been taught, which prompts were available or whether the pupil used their usual visual support. Attendance information shows several missed lessons late in the sequence. The pupil says they used fraction strips successfully and would like to show the method again.
The teacher marks the inherited judgement question. It remains visible as historical context, with low confidence for planning. The teacher restores the usual support and gathers one curriculum-aligned explanation during ordinary teaching. The mathematics lead reviews the note on Friday, and the pupil can correct the account before the provisional interpretation is used again.
This connected view does not prove why the earlier judgement was made or whether it was wrong. It cannot diagnose a need, establish effort, justify a referral or assign a fixed group. A later response may differ because of teaching, attendance, task design, conditions, support, practice, maturation or measurement error. The next action stays small and reversible.
Keep cohort summaries provisional too
A transition check can expose a system problem, such as several judgements arriving without a task version or date. Review that recording gap at school level without publishing identifiable pupil detail. Small cohorts can be unstable and recognisable, so show denominators, suppress or aggregate where needed and avoid spurious precision. A difference may not generalise.
The Department for Education's 2018 qualitative study found wide variation in schools' non-statutory assessment approaches and continuing challenges around consistency, workload and communicating meaning. Five minutes should improve a decision, not commission a new archive.
Where Student Radar fits
Where the Assess package is in use, Assessment Entry can record outcomes and Assessment Reportscan provide school, cohort, class and pupil views for authorised review. Keep the source, conditions, support, uncertainty and review note beside or linked to the outcome through the school's agreed workflow.
These shipped surfaces help staff keep evidence findable. They do not decide whether a transferred judgement still holds, infer ability or need, assign a group, calculate pupil risk or replace the teacher and assessment lead responsible for the review.
Use the two-minute classroom-check card to design the fresh task, the conflicting-results walk-through when evidence disagrees, or the six-week baseline plan when the decision needs a longer evidence window. For a demonstration, request an assessment-focused walkthrough.
Sources and further reading
- Standards and Testing Agency, Key stage 2 teacher assessment guidance 2026, updated 2 March 2026; statutory context for England.
- Standards and Testing Agency, 2026 key stage 2 assessment and reporting arrangements, updated 7 July 2026; includes the transfer of pupil records in England.
- Department for Education and Standards and Testing Agency, Commission on Assessment Without Levels: final report, published 17 September 2015; applies to England.
- Department for Education and National Foundation for Educational Research, Assessment without levels: qualitative research, published 13 December 2018; original research in England.
- Education Endowment Foundation, How checking for understanding can guide your teaching in the moment, published 21 January 2026.