ASPECTS
Our ASPECTS assessment helps you understand where children are starting from and see the support they need to help them learn
Quick Look
Age: 3-4 years
Sections: Early Literacy, Early Numeracy, PSED, motor Development
Average Duration: 20 minutes
Format: Digital (web based or download), Storybook-style, Adaptive
Price: Click here for costs and sign up
Fun, friendly and engaging
Identify children’s learning needs to help inform planning
Prepare children for Reception – ensure they are making good progress
What is ASPECTS?
ASPECTS is a fun, child-friendly assessment for children in Pre-school which complements teacher observation. It can be used as soon as the child has settled into the first year of pre-school, to help you identify their starting point, and see where they may need extra support. ASPECTS can also be used again at the end of their time in pre-school to demonstrate the progress they have made.
Adaptive and quick to complete
ASPECTS takes around 20 minutes to complete, and is carried out one-to-one with each child at a computer. The computer is controlled by the teacher, teaching assistant or appropriate adult. The assessment asks the child to complete activities and the adult submits the responses. The assessment is adaptive and the sequence of questions responds to the child, moving them on when they get questions wrong, and showing more challenging questions when they answer correctly.
The assessment can be stopped and restarted at any point.
How it works
The initial ASPECTS assessment is carried out within the first few weeks of the children starting Pre-school. The follow-up assessment, carried out at the end of their time in Pre-school, provides information showing how each child has progressed during their time in the setting.
Information to inform and support your judgement
ASPECTS complements your own observations by providing objective and independent information that helps you to identify learning needs and development:
- Understand literacy, maths and motor development: on completion of both the start and end of Pre-school assessments, you will receive information that details the age at which each child sat the assessment, indicators for their literacy, maths and motor development, to see how they compare to other children of a similar age.
- Monitor Personal, Social and Emotional Development: the EYFS prime areas of learning and development can also be recorded using judgements made against a series of statements based on teacher observations.
- Demonstrate progress: progress charts show the rate of development each child has made during their time at nursery and helps you compare their progress with other children of the same age. Progress is shown in literacy and maths.
Access and support
Schools can access the assessment and feedback information through a private and secure online account. The assessment can be completed online using the secure web shortcut, or downloaded to the local network or computer. We provide step by step guidance to help you set up and run the assessment.
How do other schools use ASPECTS?
Establish an independent measure of progress
We use ASPECTS as an independent benchmark to ensure our children are making good progress right from the start.
Enjoy valuable one-to-one time
We find that using the ASPECTS assessment gives us valuable one-to-one time with each child, helping us to get to know them better.
Access information that is objective and informative
ASPECTS gives us objective information about what our children know and can do when they join us. This means we can plan effective support for each child so we can help them make good progress in key areas of development in the run up to starting Reception.
See things you might not learn from observation alone
We use ASPECTS as it supports and incorporates our own observations – it really helps us to see things we might not pick up on from observation alone.
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What’s unique about CEM assessments?
All our assessments are adaptive. The sequence of questions is tailored to each child, moving them on when they get questions wrong, and showing more challenging questions when they answer correctly. This means the assessment each child sees is neither too difficult or too easy, making it enjoyable, engaging, and efficient.
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