Innovative Assessment for Schools
Assessing Writing in New Zealand
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We provide schools with nationally standardised Comparative Judgement assessment windows at the start and end of the year for Years 4, 5, & 6. Schools receive a scaled score and student writing age. The data allows tracking of individuals, cohorts, and school to school comparison ‑ demonstrating progress over time. Regular PD is available to support teacher knowledge of writing and help improve student achievement, in time for national testing and beyond.
Why are schools using us?
Speed
Our judging is a collaborative process which involves all teachers at a school participating in the judging of every year group. Working in this way, a typical school can judge an entire year group and create whole class feedback for that year group within an hour.
Accuracy
Traditional marking is done to an accuracy of +/- 5 marks on a 40 mark scale. Our results suggest that teachers judge with +/- 2 marks accuracy.
Validity
As all moderation judging is done anonymously by teachers working at other schools there is no possibility for bias based on school or pupil characteristics. All schools and all pupils are on a level playing field.
Comparative Judgement in 4 easy steps!
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
1We set the task, so everyone is writing against the same prompt.
2Upload your pupils’ scripts on our specially coded paper.
3Judge writing, comparing two pieces of writing on screen, side-by-side to determine which is best.
4Benchmark attainment and progress across your school, and nationally, with the information and statistics in your school’s individual report.
Personalised Feedback Reports
The vital information of every pupil's attainment…
Here’s a summary of how it works
  • There are two assessment windows per year, one at the start of the year and one at the end of the year. See the full calendar here.
  • The assessments are for 4, 5, & 6.
  • We set the writing tasks, and we create them in collaboration with a leading children’s illustrator.
  • In each assessment you judge the work of your students as well as the work of students across the country.
  • You never directly compare the results of your students with students from other schools.
  • Rather, every 5th judgement is a moderation judgement where you compare the work of students from other schools.
  • Our judgement process ensures every script is externally standardised and all judging quality monitored in real time.
  • Once the judging is complete, you receive a full PDF report, including a scaled score and writing age for every student. You’ll also get a separate progress report once your students have taken part in more than one assessment.
  • You also get exclusive access to our new Writing Hub, which features teaching resources, student quizzes, and live professional development webinars.
Benefits of Assessing Writing in New Zealand
Accuracy
Traditional marking is done to an accuracy of +/- 5 marks on a 40 mark scale. Our results suggest that teachers judge with +/- 2 marks accuracy.

Validity
The marks derived from judging are consistent with the average marks derived from double or triple marking essays.

Nationally-standardised results
Results are based on the performance of students in New Zealand schools and the judgements of New Zealand teachers.

Built-in moderation
As you are judging, you are also silently and anonymously moderating the judgements of other teachers.

Full technical support
Contact us using our online chatbox for a fast response.

Anonymised assessment
We provide answer sheets for students to write on. When you upload the completed sheets, our system reads the unique identifying code on each sheet. This means that the student names magically disappear, but our system knows who the writing belongs to.

Workload
Judging writing is quicker and easier than traditional marking.

Comparisons between years
You can directly compare the performance of students in different years.

Robust data controls
Every judge’s performance is recorded, and decisions made by inaccurate judges are removed from the results.

Exemplar scripts
After each assessment, we provide you with exemplar scripts from students across the country, which can be used in lessons or for PD.

Assess every script
With traditional moderation, most scripts are never seen by anyone other than the class teacher. With us, every script is seen twenty times.

Writing Hub
A separate website which shares all the insights from our assessments of over a million pieces of student writing. It features quizzes, teaching resources and live professional development webinars.
National Assessment Calendar
Comparative Judgement | Automark™