When is the best time to introduce an assessment platform in your school?

Why does there have to be a best time?

Many school leadership teams are attracted to the idea of introducing an assessment platform. They can see how it will support the whole school’s improvement and support the needs of individual students. However, they don’t want to overload their staff with new systems at critical times in the year.

The challenge is that schools are always busy.

Just like the weather, they follow seasonal patterns. Every teacher or school leader will be familiar with the annual cycle; getting to know a new class, the build-up to the Christmas holidays, the stress of the whole school and national assessments. There are reports and parent evenings, sports day and final assembly– until finally, your class transitions onwards.

Of course that is layered on top of the day-to-day work planning lessons, teaching and learning, setting goals, behaviour management, student and self well-being, tracking progress – and of course marking. There is never a quiet time and teaching staff are always overloaded.

The pandemic added to the challenge as it disrupted this ecosystem. Students and teachers have missed school, resulting in hidden learning gaps and stretched teachers playing catch up to thoroughly cover the curriculum.   

It’s understandable that headteachers are nervous about introducing new systems under these circumstances. But delaying the introduction of an assessment platform because your staff are too busy is like delaying going to the dentist because you have a toothache. The right solution will make every one of those priority activities quicker and easier.

So, the best time to introduce an assessment platform is now. Right now. Wherever you are in the school year.   

As soon as you introduce an assessment platform, it will save your teachers time.

Other than testing, what does an assessment platform offer?

Teachers need assessment data to get to know their students. To effectively plan their lessons. To provide feedback to students and their families. To make sure that every child meets their potential.

The big difference is that without an assessment platform, teachers have to do the heavy lifting themselves. This means pulling together data from multiple locations, managing spreadsheets and trying to interpret the numbers. This is time-consuming and stressful – a job for a data analyst, not a teacher. 

In contrast, Elastik is designed to make teacher’s lives easier – all they need to do is log on.  Data sits in a single system, with clear visuals showing them insights not ‘data’. And real humans support you at every stage of your journey – so you can start seeing benefits immediately without overloading your teachers. In addition to unlimited real-time assessments, teachers have access to lesson guides and tools to automatically produce reports.