How to moderate teacher assessments: primary

Last reviewed on 11 March 2021
School types: All · School phases: Primary
Ref: 11999

As a middle leader, learn how to conduct effective moderation exercises to help teachers make accurate and consistent judgements of pupils’ progress. Use our templates to help you moderate reading, writing and maths.

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Contents

  1. Who should be involved, and how 
  2. How often to moderate 
  3. How to make moderation sessions effective 
  4. Single-form entry schools: moderate with other schools 
  5. Download our templates to moderate reading, writing and maths 
  6. Example moderation grids from a school
  7. EYFS: how to moderate the profile internally 

We’d like to thank our associate education experts David New, Carolyn Unsted, Nina Siddall-Ward and Jazz Williams for their help with this article. Find out more about them at the bottom of this page.

Subject or year group leaders  This should include your literacy coordinator, numeracy coordinator and science lead. They should: Provide teachers with common marking criteria for moderation, such as a mark scheme or grade descriptors. They could either design the marking criteria themselves or refer to your scheme of work to help them establish them. Read our guide to help you and your senior leadership team (SLT) decide which scheme of work is right for your school, and find out how other schools are agreeing pupil targets   Look at how teachers have used the criteria and flag any concerns to either the relevant teacher or the SLT Be transparent about these criteria with parents to reassure them that your school is fairly assessing and

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