Build a school assessment calendar by naming the decision each activity must support, then fitting the smallest useful evidence collection around curriculum teaching.
Add statutory dates, access and adjustment checks, moderation, reporting and a point for removing work that no longer earns its place.
This planning guide is for schools in England and is accurate on 9 August 2026. It supports professional judgement, not automated grouping, diagnosis or a decision about an individual pupil from one score.
Start with the decision, not the test
An assessment calendar should protect the sequence of teaching. It should show when evidence will answer a real question, who will review it and what action could follow.
Begin with questions such as: what has been learned securely, what needs reteaching, whether an adjustment is working, and what leaders need to know before allocating support or reporting to families.
If nobody can name the decision, the data collection is a candidate for removal. Calendars can acquire tests rather like cupboards acquire spare cables: gradually, mysteriously and with no owner willing to throw one away.
The Department for Education's data-management review says schools should collect data only when it has a clear purpose and should review whether the collection remains useful. Its age does not make the workload principle less relevant.
Fix the immovable dates, then preserve teaching space
Put confirmed statutory and external dates onto a separate calendar layer first. Mark every unconfirmed date as provisional, with an owner and a date for checking the source again.
The Standards and Testing Agency lists 2026 to 2027 primary dates for England. Reception baseline assessment is completed in each child's first six weeks, and optional key stage 1 tests are recommended for May 2027.
Statutory key stage 2 tests run from 10 to 13 May 2027. The multiplication tables check begins in the two-week period from 7 June, and the phonics screening check in the week from 14 June.
The same official page says future arrangements are under review following the Curriculum and Assessment Review. Treat these dates as current source evidence, not permission to stop checking.
For regulated qualifications, use the current awarding-body timetable and JCQ rules when they are published for the relevant series.
Do not copy a previous year's deadlines, contingency dates or access-arrangement process into a live calendar.
Use six layers for the whole-school calendar
Keep the calendar small enough to read in one meeting. Each layer should earn its place by supporting a different decision rather than collecting the same evidence in another format.
| Layer | Planning question | Protection for teaching time |
|---|---|---|
| External requirements | Which dates and processes are fixed by a current primary source? | Separate mandatory activity from school choice |
| Curriculum sequence | When will pupils have had a fair opportunity to learn the content? | Do not assess material before sufficient teaching |
| Classroom evidence | What will help teachers adapt teaching next? | Prefer helpful work already happening in lessons |
| Moderation | Where does a judgement need shared scrutiny? | Sample purposefully instead of moderating everything |
| Reporting | Who needs what information, by when and for what action? | Reuse reviewed evidence rather than request another data drop |
| Calendar review | Which activity should stop, change or move next year? | Give every recurring collection an expiry question |
Give every assessment entry an evidence contract
For each planned activity, record its purpose, source and version. Add the date, task or observation, curriculum context, conditions, support given and adjustments used.
Name the professional reviewer and review point. State what evidence is expected, what may be missing, what could change the judgement, and how a pupil, parent or colleague can question or correct the record.
Record uncertainty before results arrive. A missed response may reflect access, absence, unfamiliarity, fatigue, teaching sequence or the measure itself. It cannot safely be converted into a fixed claim about ability, effort or need.
Small-cohort figures need particular care. Suppress or aggregate potentially identifiable results, avoid decimal-point theatre, and state that a difference may be unstable and may not generalise.
Plan adjustments before the assessment window
Put an access review before each formal window; it is not beside the printing deadline.
The teacher, SENCo and assessment lead should check the pupil's normal classroom support and the conditions needed for the assessment to produce interpretable evidence.
Classroom reasonable adjustments and formal access arrangements are related but distinct. Ordinary support does not automatically confer a formal arrangement, and support should not be withheld until a diagnosis exists.
The current 2026 KS2 guidance sets test-specific arrangements and application processes.
The 2026 to 2027 version was not yet the live annual guidance on 9 August, so schools should schedule a source check rather than treat the 2026 process as settled for 2027.
The 2026 to 2027 reception baseline arrangements are already published. They require schools to consider accessibility within that assessment's own rules. Use the rule set for the actual assessment, jurisdiction and year.
A worked evidence trail
Consider a synthetic example: a Year 5 team plans a reading checkpoint after a curriculum unit. One pupil's response looks weaker than recent classroom work, so the first signal is inconclusive.
The named class teacher reviews the task version and conditions. Attendance shows a missed part of the sequence, while the support record shows that the usual visual prompt was absent during the checkpoint.
The professional question becomes whether to reteach the missed content and repeat a small part under the usual conditions.
The action is agreed with the SENCo and reviewed after three weeks, with the pupil able to explain or correct the record.
The combined evidence does not diagnose a need, assign a group, prove why the response was weak or justify a referral. It changes the next enquiry and makes the uncertainty visible.
What the calendar and data cannot prove
A calendar can coordinate evidence collection. It cannot make a measure valid for a purpose, prove that observed progress was caused by teaching or support, or turn a cohort pattern into an individual conclusion.
Compare results with curriculum exposure, attendance, implementation, practice effects, maturation, measurement error and missing evidence. Keep the judgement with the identified teacher or leader who can examine those limits.
Review the calendar at least termly. Remove duplication, move poorly timed activity and record why a collection remains. A recurring spreadsheet is not a statutory instrument merely because it has survived three headteachers.
How the workflow sits in Student Radar
In Student Radar, Exam & Assessment Windows can keep scheduled windows, candidates and arrangements visible. Assessment Reports provides views across year groups and pupil context for staff to review.
Used together, these shipped features can connect a window with the evidence reviewed after it. They do not decide the assessment purpose, infer need or replace the school's identified professional reviewer.
What staff should leave with
- List every planned assessment and the decision it is meant to support.
- Mark confirmed external dates separately from provisional placeholders.
- Map each activity against curriculum sequence and protected teaching time.
- Add provenance, support, adjustments, missingness and uncertainty fields.
- Name the reviewer, review point and route for correction or challenge.
- Schedule formal-arrangement checks against the live annual rules.
- Remove duplicate collections and give every remaining one an expiry question.
Use the September pupil-data checks to verify inputs and the evidence guide to strengthen professional review. For a demonstration, request an assessment-focused walkthrough.
Sources and further reading
- Primary assessments: future dates, Standards and Testing Agency, first published 18 January 2021; updated 13 October 2025.
- Reception baseline assessment: assessment and reporting arrangements, Standards and Testing Agency, 2026 to 2027 guidance added 18 May 2026; page updated 24 July 2026.
- Key stage 2 tests: access arrangements, Standards and Testing Agency, 2026 guidance updated 9 February 2026.
- Ofqual guide for schools and colleges 2026, Ofqual, published 15 January 2026; updated 3 February 2026.
- Eliminating unnecessary workload associated with data management, Department for Education, published 26 March 2016.
- Commission on Assessment Without Levels: final report, Department for Education, published 17 September 2015.