A September baseline should be a short evidence window for one teaching decision, not a test season or a label. Across six weeks, gather curriculum-aligned work, observations and pupil responses under known conditions. Record support, adjustments, absence and missing evidence, then let the class teacher and assessment lead decide what to teach, check or clarify next.
This plan is for teachers, assessment leads, SENCos and school leaders in England. It applies to school-designed classroom evidence. It doesn't diagnose need, fix a pupil's group, predict attainment or turn an opening score into a high-stakes recommendation.
Write the decision before week one
Start with a curriculum question specific enough to change teaching: which prerequisite ideas are secure enough for this unit, which need revisiting, and what evidence would alter that view? Avoid questions about a pupil's general ability or an invented idea of where the whole class ought to be before staff have seen them learn.
The Department for Education's Commission on Assessment Without Levels said school assessment should follow the curriculum, meet pupils' needs and support teaching. DfE's later qualitative research found that schools valued curriculum-linked approaches, while workload, consistency and communicating meaning remained live challenges. A baseline earns its place by informing a response, not by producing a tidier spreadsheet.
Opening evidence record: We are gathering evidence about [curriculum knowledge or skill] so [teacher or team] can decide [reteach, adapt, practise, extend or investigate]. We will review it on [date] using [tasks, work, observation and pupil voice]. We will record conditions, support, adjustments, absence and missing evidence. [Named role] owns the judgement. Pupils, families and relevant professionals can add context or correct the record through [route].
Use six weeks of teaching, not six weeks of tests
- Week one: establish access and curriculum starting points. Use work already arising from the first taught sequence. Record the task, date, version, curriculum content, response mode and conditions. Note usual support and reasonable adjustments, including any that were unavailable.
- Week two: check the same idea another way. Add a short question, observation, explanation or application task that can reveal different thinking. One response may reflect unfamiliar wording, confidence, language, motor demand or the chosen format.
- Week three: ask what pupils experienced.Invite pupils to explain strategies, barriers and what helped. Where relevant, add family or professional context through an authorised route. Preserve who supplied the information and when; don't blend different accounts into one confident voice.
- Week four: inspect gaps before patterns. Check attendance, late entry, incomplete teaching, missed tasks and inconsistent adjustments. Mark evidence as missing instead of converting a blank into a low score. The empty cell may be the most accurate item in the row, even if it contributes little to the colour scheme.
- Week five: moderate a purposeful sample. The class teacher and subject or phase lead compare selected work against the taught curriculum and agreed criteria. Record disagreement, task effects and uncertainty. A small cohort may be identifiable and unstable, so suppress or aggregate reporting and avoid spurious precision.
- Week six: close the window. The class teacher records the provisional judgement, confidence, remaining gaps and the next reversible action. The assessment lead checks consistency and workload. The SENCo joins when access, support or SEND context needs review. Set a dated review point and say what new evidence could change the decision.
Reception's statutory baseline assessment is separate. The 2026 to 2027 arrangements require participating pupils in England to complete the Reception Baseline Assessment within their first six weeks, subject to that assessment's participation, accessibility, security and reporting rules. Its framework must not be used to guide teaching. A school-designed evidence window does not replace the RBA, extend its materials to other purposes or create formal access arrangements for another statutory test or qualification.
Watch the interpretation change across the window
The following Year 7 mathematics record is made up to show the decision process. It doesn't describe a pupil, school or customer. The opening task suggests that one pupil cannot compare fractions, but the task was completed before the class had revisited equivalent fractions and the usual visual prompt was missing.
In week two, the pupil explains the comparison accurately with concrete materials. Attendance records show a missed lesson in the taught sequence. In week three, the pupil says the crowded worksheet made it hard to track which fractions belonged together. Later work under the usual conditions is mixed: the concept is clearer, while independent written application still needs checking.
The professional question changes from whether the pupil belongs in a lower group to which representation and teaching step will secure independent use. The class teacher restores the agreed access support, reteaches the missing step to everyone who needs it and reviews a fresh task with the maths lead after three weeks. The pupil can explain or correct the interpretation, and the family or SENCo can add relevant context.
The connected record does not prove why the first response was weak, diagnose a need or show that the prompt caused later improvement. Curriculum exposure, attendance, practice, maturation, task design, support and measurement error remain plausible influences.
Decide what the evidence still cannot say
Six weeks can improve the evidence base, but duration does not guarantee validity. The window cannot reveal knowledge that the curriculum has not yet taught fairly. It cannot make two different tasks comparable, turn an observation into a diagnosis or establish that teaching, an adjustment or a product caused the change.
EEF's independent Embedding Formative Assessment trial offers evidence about a structured professional-development programme across 140 secondary schools. Its headline result and its implementation findings concern that programme and context; they are not a promise that every baseline routine produces the same outcome. EEF's 2026 classroom guidance keeps the practical emphasis on evidence that leads teachers to pause, adapt or extend through professional judgement.
Treat the week-six view as a versioned judgement. Keep absent evidence absent, record contrary examples, and reduce confidence when support or conditions differed. Do not publish individual or very small-group patterns in a form that could identify pupils.
Where Student Radar fits
Where the relevant packages are in use, Assessment Entry can record assessment outcomes, while Digital Markbook lets teachers organise school-chosen columns and folders. Keep task provenance, conditions, support and the review note beside or linked from the recorded outcome according to the school's agreed workflow.
These shipped tools can help staff keep evidence findable. They do not choose the curriculum purpose, infer ability or need, create pupil groups, calculate risk or make the week-six decision. The identified teacher and assessment lead remain responsible for interpretation, with correction and challenge routes kept open.
Close with a record that can be revisited
- State the curriculum question and the evidence sources reviewed.
- Record dates, task versions, conditions, support and adjustments.
- List missing and conflicting evidence without filling the gaps.
- Name the class teacher, any moderator and the accountable assessment lead.
- Record the provisional action, confidence and what could change it.
- Set the next review date and the pupil, family and professional correction routes.
Use the whole-school assessment calendar guide to place the window in the year. Use the two-minute classroom-check card to plan one task, and the conflicting-results guide when evidence does not agree. For a demonstration, request an assessment-focused walkthrough.
Sources and further reading
- 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, Approaches to assessment without levels in schools, qualitative research published 13 December 2018; applies to England.
- Education Endowment Foundation, Embedding Formative Assessment, independent evaluation by NIESR completed July 2018.
- Education Endowment Foundation, How checking for understanding can guide your teaching in the moment, published 21 January 2026.
- Standards and Testing Agency, 2026 reception baseline assessment: assessment and reporting arrangements, updated 24 July 2026; statutory requirements for England in 2026 to 2027.